ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) – When 49 people were killed at a gay nightclub in Florida in 2016, Gov. Rick Scott publicly offered his sympathy to the victims’ families and the LGBT community.
“These are individuals. Let’s love every one of them,” he said then.
Behind the scenes, gay rights advocates say his staffers went a step further, promising to pursue an executive order prohibiting discrimination against LGBTQ state workers and contractors. More than a year later, no such order has been issued.
The advocates believe the order has become even more important in the past couple of weeks as the U.S. Justice Department – under Attorney General Jeff Sessions – filed court papers in a New York case saying that sexual orientation is not covered by Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The law bans workplace discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, however, enforces the law against private employers and says sexual orientation is covered.