Promoting the Underlying Principle of Acceptance: The Effectiveness of Sexual Orientation Employment Antidiscrimination Legislation
Laura G. Barron
DOI: 10.2190/WR.14.2.g
Abstract
Although previous research finds less perceived sexual orientation discrimination in areas with employment antidiscrimination legislation than in areas without such legislation, it remains unclear whether such findings hold for (a) quantitative hiring evaluations made by organizational decision makers and (b) privately held attitudes of prejudice. In a between-subjects design, human resource professionals in locales with or without sexual orientation antidiscrimination laws evaluated matched resumes of openly gay or presumably non-gay male applicants. Without antidiscrimination laws, gay applicants were rated as less hireable than non-gay applicants; with antidiscrimination laws, gay and non-gay applicants were rated equivalently. Further, antidiscrimination legislation was found to be related to decreased prejudice toward gay men, even after controlling for factors previously shown to impact community adoption of legislation (e.g., political and religious views). Analyses of hireability ratings lacked sufficient statistical power to discern this effect.
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