Is there something wrong in the Library of Congress?

One example of unofficial discrimination at a Federal institution can be forgiven as some manager being a bigoted idiot. But when you hear about two, high profile instances, you begin to wonder. Let's hope it never makes it to three... Oh dear. It might.

Diane Schroer won a discrimination lawsuit when the Library of Congress rescinded a 2005 job offer. They did that because Ms Schroer, a retired Army Ranger with a ton of combat missions to her credit, revealed that she was undergoing surgery a sex change. Not being a wilting flower, she sued. And, despite the government arguing that it could discriminate against her because transsexuals weren't covered by anti-discrimination statutes or regulations - she won.

Well, it seems that this wasn't an isolated incident. Peter TeVeer was fired after Facebook "helpfully" outed him to his fundamentalist Christian boss. He's suing them, naturally. That has attracted the attention of Senator Chuck Schumer. The whole case sounds like a bit of a setup, to be honest. After Facebook updated its policy, basically following through on Mark Z's idea that nothing (except his own life) is secret, Mr TeVeer's "liking" of a gay-oriented Facebook page was discovered by his boss's daughter. A campaign of discrimination followed, and he took an extended leave of absence - that was allegedly approved, but probably wasn't... I have a "sneaking" (it's actually wearing clod-hopping boots) suspicion the boss might have told him it was approved in order to create the conditions where he could be fired for some other reason than being gay.

Now, two incidents don't make a pattern. But two high profile incidents involving unpopular minorities? Yeah, it begins to look like something is wrong.

Carolyn Ann