Three Takeaways for Mainers After the LGBTQ Supreme Court Ruling

There is a lot of fanfare over the Supreme Court decision that says you can not fire an individual based on sexual orientation or gender identity, according to the Washington Post.

What does that mean here in Maine?

Here are three takeaways.

1. Major corporations have human resources personnel, training, and lawyers. They may not always get it right, but for the most part, you will be able to do your job without dealing with (overt) harassment or termination from your employer, based on your sexual orientation. You are now protected from this in all sized companies, even in rural communities.
2. This new ruling has protections that will go with you everywhere. Move to Utah, same deal. As long as you know your rights, you can sleep more comfortably. 
3. There is still more work to be done! I, as a black man, know what it is like to see small steps in progress, and yet still see the hallway extending in length like the scene in poltergeist. Especially with the current rollback in nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people when it comes to health care and insurance, according to NPR. Critics of the rollback expect this to end up in the Supreme Court as well and it is very unlikely that the court with ban discrimination in one case and approve it in another, that would be called "Bad Optics."

Senator Susan Collins said she is going to make sure those rollbacks do not happen, and keep those protections in place for Mainers and the rest of the nation, here is her tweet below.