The American Dream is a national ethos of the United States in which freedom includes the promise of prosperity and success. In the definition of the American Dream by James Truslow Adams in 1931, "life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement" regardless of social class or circumstances of birth. The idea of the American Dream is rooted in the United States Declaration of Independence, which proclaims that "all men are created equal" and that they are "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights" including "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. Yet, it is still legal in 29 states to be fired for just being gay. In 33 of the 50 states of the United States of America, one can be fired for being transgendered. These states do not have legal protections for members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Community (Solmonese, 2009). So does the “American Dream” only apply to “first class citizens”? This paper explores if the Employee Non Discrimination Act (ENDA) would protect employment decisions, which should be based upon a person's qualifications and job performance, not sexual orientation or gender identity (Solmonese, 2009). For over 50 years when there has been a case of an American being denied employment or promotions for reasons that were unrelated to their skills in the workplace, Congress responded by passing laws which were aimed at designing a system based solely on employee- merit and guaranteeing that subjective considerations do not govern access to employment (Herman, 2009). A specific act that has been brought to legislation, although has not passed, is the Employee Non Discrimination Act. ENDA is modeled after Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids employers from discriminating with regard to hiring, termination, compensation, promotion, and most other terms and conditions of employment, as well as disciplinary conduct (Smith, 2009). Before one can identify the conflict, there must first be an understanding of what ENDA is and why there is causation for argument. The first attempt at a non-discrimination bill, which included protections for lesbians and gays, was introduced to congress in the mid 1970’s (Robinson, 2009). The bill got little support on the Congress floor and went nowhere. This bill would not be explored again until 1994, when a stripped down version of the bill, what we now know as the Employee Non Discrimination Act, was introduced and again had little success Several other attempts were made to pass the bill from 1995-1997 (Robinson, 2009). The bill laid dormant until it was reintroduced in April of 2007 with gender identity included in its protections. Another version was introduced later that year that did not include gender identity and thus created backlash among its biggest supporters, the LGBT community (Robinson, 2009). Feeling that they had overcome so many obstacles to get the bill passed, the lesbian, gay and bisexual community felt it was unfair to not be inclusive of the transgender community (Robinson, 2009). In addition, that same year ENDA saw overwhelming support from several faith based organizations, the American Jewish Congress, the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, the National Council of Churches, United Church of Christ and the United Methodist Church were among the supporters of the anti- discrimination measure (Bagett, Lau, Sears, & Ho, 2007). Even with overwhelming support from religious based organizations, strong resistance is still an issue by right-wing and anti-gay coalitions to the bill (Lafferty & Sheldon, 2009). The groups attempt to confuse the public about the parameters of the bills objectives by stating, “if ENDA is signed into law, the homosexual/transgender movement will have won a major victory. They will have accomplished a long-term goal of having “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” given federally-protected minority status under the law”, (Lafferty & Sheldon, 2009). In addition to the sexual orientation and gender identity concerns, focus for these groups is on Christians and other religious faiths who they think will be forced to violate their Constitutionally-protected and firmly held religious beliefs to bend to the will of homosexual and transgender activists (Lafferty & Sheldon, 2009). There is also apprehension with the opposition on who the bill will affect and the impact on businesses. For example * the cost of defending—and winning one discrimination case can be enough to break a small company. Most small companies do not have insurance that covers discrimination claims. * The Law of Unintended Consequences dictates that even laws intentionally limited in scope become expanded by the courts, with consequences never intended by Congress. * ENDA is not a simple inclusion of sexual orientation into federal discrimination law. * ENDA is broader than any federal discrimination law ever passed, both in its definition of discrimination and its protection of different categories of persons. * Employers will have difficulty defending them against ENDA claims because the protected class is not based on a known characteristic, may be based on a behavior one can opt into and out of, and is subject to interpretation. * Employers will be caught in the crossfire between homosexual activist staffers and employees with deeply held religious, moral, or traditional beliefs against homosexual behavior. * Employers will have great difficulty in enforcing existing anti-harassment rules once homosexuality becomes a protected category. * Employers will be unable to identify and prevent hostile work environments due to sexual orientation, without invading the privacy of employees. The gay opposition also suggests that this bill will provide “special” rights for particular groups and the act of necrophilia under sexual orientation (Bagett et al., 2009). Some opponents to the bill say that states should be left to create or reject their own anti-discrimination laws (Bagett et al., 2009). The actual wording of the ENDA bill exempts small business owners with less than 15 employees, and religious organizations; its provisions are aimed at eliminating discrimination in hiring, firing, and promotion practices, and will not require companies to create new categories of benefits (Bagett et al., 2009). According to the Human Rights Campaign the following points are meant to clear up erroneous ideas about the bill and its intentions. * What does ENDA do? ENDA extends federal employment discrimination protections currently provided based on race, religion, sex, national origin, age and disability to sexual orientation and gender identity. The bill prohibits public and private employers, employment agencies and labor unions from using an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity as the basis for employment decisions, such as hiring, firing, promotion or compensation. It would provide for the same procedures, and similar, but somewhat more limited, remedies as are permitted under Title VII and the Americans with Disabilities Act. It would also apply to Congress and the federal government, as well as employees of state and local governments. . * What ENDA doesn’t do? ENDA doesn’t cover businesses with fewer than 15 employees or to religious organizations. It would not apply to the uniformed members of the armed forces (the bill doesn't affect the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy). It would not allow for quotas or preferential treatment based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The bill would not allow a "disparate impact" claim similar to the one available under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Therefore, an employer is not required to justify a neutral practice that may have a statistically disparate impact on individuals because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The imposition of affirmative action for a violation of ENDA would not be included. Nor would it allow the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to collect statistics on sexual orientation or gender identity or compel employers to collect such statistics. This bill does not apply retroactively. 3 In 2000, a Kaiser Family Foundation poll of 405 randomly selected lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals found that more than three quarters of this population think there is more acceptance of the LGB community than in years past. Despite the report of increased acceptance, there are still a large number of LGB members that claim to have been or continue to be discriminated against based on their sexual orientation (Kaiser, 2000 p.3). According to the report, LGB individuals feel they are more likely to experience discrimination and least likely to be protected by government when compared to other minorities. In fact, nine in ten who were polled said the government does too little to protect them from workplace discrimination (Kaiser, 2004, p.4). The final section, on the general public’s view, focused on policy issues, which found that even in 2000 over 76% of the general population agree that laws should protect LGB individuals from intolerance and discrimination. In addition an overwhelming percentage of the general public supports benefits to lesbian and gay partners, including inheritance rights and employer provided health insurance as well as social security benefits (Kaiser, 2000, p.8). While the reports’ findings show consistent support of the LGB community, it is over ten years old and one must remember that many of these rights in the workplace instituted by corporations have been successfully granted. However what the report fails to show is the “T” part missing from the equation Transgender individuals. Although the report does provide positive statistics with regards to support of the LGB community there is still a public divided on the question of homosexuality being morally wrong and thus affecting successful passage of legislation that would grant all inclusive rights (Solmonese, 2009). A study completed in 2004, focused on Discrimination in the Workplace and compared benchmark cases in history to see if workplace discrimination and laws have changed for transsexual and transgender people since 1980 (Berry, McGuffee, Rush, & Columbus, 2004). The paper states that laws set forth in legislation are not sufficient to deal with the cases of transsexuals and transgender individuals (Barry et al., 2004, p.225). The benchmark case that laid the foundation for this paper is that of Audra Sommers, a transsexual who was fired from her job because she refused to use the men’s restroom (Barry et al., 2004, p.225). Audra was a man by birth but had been in the process of transitioning to a female. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court of Iowa and was dismissed because the court decided that transsexuals could not be considered as persons with disabilities under the Civil Rights Act. The paper presents several similar cases, and found that courts around our country are not completely uniform with their approach and final ruling in each case. The paper concludes that legislation, such as the ENDA, would protect what some in society determine to be “undesirables”, these people’s livelihoods are being directly affected in the workplace, and that it is necessary to provide basic human rights to all people living and working in the United States (Barry et al., 2004, p.238). A study done by Clain, took a deeper look at discrimination in which the author’s tried to investigate the connection between sexual orientation as an explanation for wages differences. The data found in this article showed that behaviorally gay men tend to earn less than heterosexual men, where bisexual or lesbian women tend to earn more than other women (Clain & Leppel, 2001, p.37). The authors concluded that there are regional variations to the study of wage differences (Clain & Leppel, 2001, p.44). The lack of research being done on this topic from an economic standpoint is startling partly in due because such a large focus of economics is based on gender and race (Clain & Leppel, 2001, p.37). In 2007 Carpenter used a logarithm to figure out the income penalty for behaviorally gay men. The overall purpose of this article was to determine if current data supports the previous reports which used the General Social Survey data that had been done over the past ten years and compare it with the authors data, which he gathered by using the Third Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III). Current data supports the previous findings which indicated that statistically behaviorally gay/bisexual men earn 15-30 percent less than other men in the study, and that the income penalty has increased over the past ten years and actually falls in the 23-30 percent bracket (Carpenter, 2007, p.29). Lombardi, Wilchins, Preiesing, & Malouf, did a study in 2002 that shows a pervasive pattern of discrimination and prejudice against not only homosexuals, but more specifically the transgender community (Lombardi, et al., 2002 p.90). The gender based violence and discrimination survey was done over 12 months and a sample of 402 cases was collected for the purpose of the aforementioned article. The results showed that over half of the people sampled had experienced harassment or violence during their lifetime (Lombardi et al., 2002, p.97). One of the most relevant forms of discrimination experienced was that of economic discrimination by transgender individuals (Lombardi et al., 2002, p.98). It was also noted by Lombardi et al, that working adults who had disclosed their transgender experience (transition from male to female or female to male) were fired, harassed, intimidated or assaulted by supervisors and coworkers (Lombardi et al., 2002, p.98). They also reported having their privacy violated property defaced and or destroyed and in extreme cases were murdered (Lombardi et al., 2002, p.98). Workplace discrimination is so widespread this has become the norm for transgender individuals (GenderPAC, 1997). The common factors that inflict this type of harassment often fall on those who are emotionally committed to enforcing gender norms, such as people in religious communities. The overall results of this study show that legislation and employment protections are needed for transgender individuals. In 2009, an article done by Sears, Mallory, & Hunter summarizes the repeated findings that sexual orientation and gender identity are not related to a person’s ability to contribute to society or in the workplace (Sears, et al., 2009). Prior to the 1980’s it was more common to argue that LGBT people did not belong in the Employee Discrimination 9 workplace because of mental illness, physical illness, immorality, or criminality (Sears et al., 2009). However those arguments have been dismissed completely by academic circles, for example the American Psychology Association has retracted its original stance on homosexuality (Sears et al., 2009). On the contrary it should be noted that it is not the case by most fundamental religious and anti-gay circles. It is clear by the article’s findings the arguments about the ability of LGBT individuals to contribute to society or in the workplace have no legal currency today. To date, twenty-one states and the District of Columbia have passed laws prohibiting employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, and 12 states and D.C. also prohibit discrimination based on gender identity (Rebbe, Sandidge, & Burkard, 2002). While these laws provide important protections, according to a 2002 General Accounting Office (GAO) report, relatively few complaints of discrimination based on sexual orientation have been filed in these states, which have passed protective laws (Rebbe et al., 2002). How is federal law lagging behind corporate America? More and more private corporations are extending employment protections to gay and transgender employees. Of the 519 Fortune 1000 companies surveyed by the Human Rights Campaign, 98% prohibit unfair employment practices for gay employees and 58% for transgender employees (Solmnese, 2009). These companies already prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Thousands of businesses, including the vast majority of Fortune 500 corporations, already prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Number and Percentage of Employers with Non-Discrimination Policies that Include Gender Identity or Expression | | Fortune 100 | Fortune 500 | Fortune 1000 | AmLaw 200 | | 2010 Total | 69
(69%) | 229
(46%) | 310
(31%) | 119
(60%) | | 2008 Total | 69
(69%) | 207
(41%) | 254
(25%) | 112
(56%) | | 2003 Total | 11
(11%) | 26
(5%) | — | — | |

Number and Percentage of Employers with Non-Discrimination Policies that Include Sexual Orientation | | Fortune 100 | Fortune 500 | Fortune 1000 | AmLaw 200 | | 2010 Total | 94
(94%) | 434
(87%) | 726
(73%) | 157
(79%) | | 2008 Total | 97
(97%) | 434
(87%) | 702
(70%) | 157
(79%) | | 2003 Total | 96
(96%) | 360
(72%) | — | — | |

However, many other businesses that employ millions of Americans do not follow the same approach to employee protection practices (Solmonese, 2009). Employment protection legislation would bring these remaining businesses, and the government, in line with the successful employment practices of corporate America. It is very clear that companies across the U.S. can and do legally fire gay and transgender people for reasons that have nothing to do with job performance (Solmonese, 2009). After weighing evidence, the existing research on sexual orientation and sexual identity discrimination provides consistent and compelling evidence that discrimination against LGBT people exists and that ENDA could provide protection under law. Works Cited

Berry, P.E., McGuffee, K.M., Rush, J.P. & Columbus, S. (2004). Discrimination in the Workplace. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 8: 2, 225 — 239 Carpenter, C. (2007). Revisiting the Income Penalty for Behaviorally Gay Men: Evidence from NHANES III. Labor Economics 14(1): 25-34. Clain, S.H., & Leppel, K. (2001). An investigation into sexual orientation discrimination as an explanation for wage differences. Applied Economics, 33: 1, 37-47 Herman, S. (2009). American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Employee Non Discrimination Act. http://www.aclu.org/hiv-aids_lgbt-rights/employment-non-discrimination-act Kaiser, H. (2001). Inside-OUT: A Report on the Experiences of Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals in America and the Public’s Views on Issues and Policies Related to Sexual Orientation. Menlo Park: The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. http://www.kff.org/kaiserpolls/3193-index.cfm Lafferty, A., & Sheldon, L. P. (2009) TVCELI Special Report: H.R. 3017, the Employment Non- Discrimination Act (ENDA). Traditional Values Coalition Education and Legal Institute, Empowering People of Faith Through Knowledge. http://www.traditionalvalues.org/read/3761/tvceli-special-report-hr-3017-the-employment-nondiscrimination-act-enda/#12 Lambda Legal & Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP. (2006). 2005 Workplace Fairness Survey. http://data.lambdalegal.org/pdf/641.pdf Lombardi, E.L., Wilchins, R.A., Priesing, D., & Malouf, D. (2002). Gender Violence. Journal of Homosexuality, 42: 1, 89 — 101 Rebbe, J., Veronica S., & Burkard, R. (2002). Sexual Orientation-Based Employment Discrimination: States Experience with Statutory Prohibitions. Washington, DC: U.S. General Accounting Office. http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02878r.pdf Robinson, B.A., (2009). Religious Tolerance. Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Issues. http://religioustolerance.org Sears, B., Mallory, C., & Hunter, N. D. (2009). Relationship of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity to Performance in the Workplace. UC Los Angeles: The Williams Institute. Retrieved from: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/0qc2f3cd Schope, R.D.(2002). The Decision to Tell. Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services, 14: 1, 1 — 22 Solmonese, J. (2009) Human Rights Campaign, Employment Non-Discrimination Act S. 1584/H.R. 3017. Issues in the Workplace. http://www.hrc.org/issues/workplace/enda.asp Souder, M. - Indiana 3rd District: Religious Freedom Under Attack in Washington. http://souder.house.gov/columns/religious-freedom-under-attack-in-washington