Media Companies Stand Up for LGBTQ Rights

Media companies were well represented on an amicus (friend of the court) brief filed in support of LGBTQ rights with the Supreme Court.

CBS, Comcast/NBCU, WarenerMedia, Cox, Viacom, and AT&T were among the over 200 companies weighing on three cases that the Human Rights Coalition (HRC) says "may determine whether LGBTQ people are protected from discrimination under existing federal civil rights laws – which prohibit sex discrimination in contexts ranging from the employment to housing, health care and education."

"Our nation’s employers and employees would benefit from this Court’s recognition that members of the nation’s large and productive LGBT workforce are protected from sex-based discrimination in the workplace," they told the court, adding: "Laws forbidding sexual orientation or gender identity discrimination are not unreasonably costly or burdensome for business....Accordingly, the 206 businesses joining this brief
respectfully urge this Court to recognize that Title VII’s prohibition on discrimination “because of…sex” includes the prohibition of sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination.

Univision tweeted of its participation:

[embed]https://twitter.com/UnivisionPRTeam/status/1146078630424039424[/embed]

“At this critical moment in the fight for LGBTQ equality, these leading businesses are sending a clear message to the Supreme Court that LGBTQ people should, like their fellow Americans, continue to be protected from discrimination,” Jay Brown, SVP for the HRC Foundation.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.