I was in my Sociology of Women class today and my professor ended up talking about this extremely depressing story regarding another one of her students. I figured that everyone here might be interested to know.
She didn't go too much in depth during class, but afterwards, I approached her and we ended up talking about it and apparently this male student of hers that happened to be gay had been working for Verizon Wireless. And I guess he had been working there for some time and was actually a very good employee, and his sexual orientation had been something that he had just kept to himself. However, one day he was at his own little space and he happened to be reading some magazine targeted towards homosexuals -- it wasn't like gay porn, it was something along the lines of like The Advocate -- and one of his co-workers saw him. This, as you have probably already guessed, led to a huge deal where he was constantly harassed by everyone... but he had decided that he wasn't going to let it get the best of him and he was going to continue with his job.
But this would not be the case, because Verizon Wireless actually ended up firing him, citing that his sexual orientation did not align with the corporate image that they were trying to convey.
Ugh. We both just talked about our disgust with such an absurd policy and got it out of our system. I'm thinking about writing the company and telling them what I think of their corporate image policy. Luckily no one in my family uses their service -- everyone uses Cingular. So I don't feel too dirty.
Peace, David.