I see in the headlines now, a good follow up to my post a few days ago, on the Gay Glass Ceiling…

Gay men can earn 23 pct less than married men: study

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) – Gay men, but not lesbians, face discrimination at work, earning up to 23 percent less than married men in some jobs, according to a new study.

Researchers at the University of New Hampshire (UNH) Whittemore School of Business and Economics spent two years analyzing labor and wage data from 91,000 heterosexual and homosexual couples collected by a 2004 U.S. census.

They found that gay men working in management and blue-collar jobs make less money than straight men due to discrimination by their employers

"It was surprising to see how consistent it was that gay men tended to be more discriminated against in traditionally heterosexual male dominated professions — blue collar, labor, and management too," researcher Bruce Elmslie, professor of economics at UNH, told Reuters.

The study found that gay men who live together earn 23 percent less than married men, and 9 percent less than unmarried heterosexual men who live with a woman.

They looked at the top 10 occupations that gay men and lesbians tend to be in and found this discrimination showed up most clearly in management and blue-collar, male-dominated occupations such as building and grounds cleaning, maintenance, and construction.

The only thing that surprises me about this are the figures for lesbian households, because when I was doing volunteer work for a gay community service group, the lesbian households pretty consistently made less money then anyone else.  At the time I always put the higher income levels of gay male couples verses lesbian couples down to the combined income of two males verses two females.  Female wage equality back then was worse then it is now, but they’re still not making equal money overall with their male counterparts.

But that gay men are pretty relentlessly discriminated against in the workplace surprises me not one iota.  I lived that myself for most of my life, and particularly at the critical time in my life when I was just starting to make my way in the workforce.  I was ushered out of job after job when my sexual orientation became known to my managers.  Mind you…I was never loud about it.  But I also refused to actively closet myself either.  I mostly just kept quiet about my love life and just tried to get by.  But what you have to realize about that is that heterosexuals, particularly heterosexual males, are always bringing up their love lives at work…whether it’s family matters, this and that about the wife or children, or the weekend they just spent with their girlfriends. 

I used to smirk whenever some homophobic bigot would go on a rant about teh gays keeping their sex lives out of the workplace because that kind of thing is inappropriate there anyway and if teh gays just kept quiet about all that that they’d get along just fine, because my experience is that usually by the end of the first day at a new job I knew exactly what heterosexuals were married, how many kids they had, and which ones that weren’t married had a girlfriend and which were single and looking, because they just talked about their personal lives as a matter of course.  Everyone does.  So you notice when somebody isn’t.  The single guy who never talks about who he’s dating, sticks out like a sore thumb and it doesn’t take long before the gay rumors about him start flying.  Then it’s either you close the closet door on yourself and lie through your teeth about some imaginary girlfriend, or you admit it or just don’t respond to the rumors and either way you’re labellings yourself as gay right there because almost no heterosexual male is going to just let people wonder if he’s gay or not.

So it’s either hide in the closet or let them know one way or another.  And then comes the consequences.  For me, it was never being able to hold down a job for longer then a year.  I eventually gave up trying to find a staff position anywhere, and just began working various jobs on a freelance basis.  I struggled for years, just to be able to pay rent on a room in someone else’s house and take the bus to and from work.

Now I’m working for an employer that takes diversity in the work force very, very seriously and I am finally able to live a nice, middle class life.  I’m good at what I do.  I give 100 percent to The Institute every day I work here.  I earn my paycheck.  I have a nice little Baltimore rowhouse now.  I just bought the car of my dreams.  I am not fabulously well off by any means but I’m living comfortably in a nice house, in a nice city neighborhood within walking distance of work.  I’m able to help out with things in my community, support other folks who need it now.  Life is good.  All I ever needed was a chance.  But for so long, so very very long, I couldn’t have that chance.  Because I am gay.  And that’s why we need laws protecting us from discrimination. 

They won’t work perfectly of course…bigots will always find a way to weasel around them.  But they’ll make a big difference in our lives.  And that means prejudice in America wastes a little less of America’s human capital.  What you have to understand about bigots is that for all the patriotic posturing they really don’t give a good goddamn about their country.  They would rather live in an America that was poorer economically and more vulnerable strategically, then live in an America that was prosperous and secure, if that means they have to get off the backs of the people they hate.