There’s a stereotype about gay people: They are all wealthy.

In fact, most gay and lesbian Americans are working-class people. Like most Americans, they work hard, pay their taxes and obey the laws. Despite playing by the rules, gays and lesbians face discrimination because of their sexual orientation, particularly in the work place.

While discrimination in any context is deplorable, discrimination on the job strikes at a value that’s close to the heart of many Americans – the idea that if you work hard and pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you will be rewarded with success. Even if you were the most productive worker on the shift, you could have lost your job in Maine if your employer didn’t like that you’re gay.

An Act to Extend Civil Rights Protection to All People Regardless of Sexual Orientation, L.D. 1196, was signed into law Thursday and will establish a level playing field where workers are judged strictly on the basis of merit.

All people deserve this protection, but working-class gays and lesbians are particularly susceptible to the harms of discrimination because of their position in society.

Take the case of a man I’ll call Bill. As a worker employed by a shoe factory in Norridgewock, Bill faced discrimination on a daily basis for 10 years. His co-workers called him names and made obscene, sexual comments to him; they assaulted him with hot cement and shot rubber bands at him; one co-worker even confronted him in the restroom and threatened to kill him.

Despite the fact that Bill’s employer had an internal company policy prohibiting sexual orientation-based harassment – like many companies – they did not enforce it. When Bill filed suit, the federal district court was forced to dismiss his complaint because sexual-orientation discrimination was perfectly legal in Maine. But the court also took the extraordinary step of noting that the “rampant discrimination based on sexual orientation” called for an immediate legislative response. Now Maine has taken legislative action to right the wrong that was done to Bill and so many others.

As Bill’s case demonstrates, the line between discrimination and violence is thin. Consider the fact that even as overall crime rates in Maine fell in 2003, the number of hate crimes based on sexual orientation increased 170 percent from the previous year. Anti-gay hate crimes have comprised anywhere from one-third to nearly one-half of all hate crimes in recent years, surpassing those motivated by religion and national origin combined. If these are the hate crimes statistics, which represent only the most extreme forms of anti-gay prejudice, the employment discrimination statistics are likely to be sobering.

Overall, unions have had a tremendously positive impact on the legal recognition of gay and lesbian workers’ rights. Over 30 years ago, for instance, union bus drivers bargained the first contractual ban on sexual orientation discrimination, although, as Bill’s case demonstrates, these policies are not always enforced.

There is no substitute for the law here.

Although labor unions represent a formidable force, their gains alone cannot eliminate anti-gay prejudice. Nor can they always fix it when prejudice rears its ugly head in the work place. Rather, the solution here is the same one that labor has fought for in the context of race and gender – a promise of work place equality enforceable by law.

Let’s support all of Maine’s workers by supporting the anti-discrimination law and opposing any effort to repeal it.

Edward Gorham is the president of the Maine AFL-CIO.

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