Virginia House subcommittee kills employment-nondiscrimination bill

A Virginia House of Delegates subcommittee voted Tuesday to table SB701, a bill that would prohibit discrimination in public employment based on a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, effectively killing the measure for the remainder of the session despite widespread support for LGBT employment protections across the commonwealth, including among Republicans in the state Senate. The House General Laws Subcommittee on Professions/Occupations and Administrative Process voted to table the bill, which would have extended nondiscrimination protections to LGBT state employees, bringing Virginia in line with the overwhelming majority of the state’s major private employers, such as Booz Allen Hamilton, Northrop Grumman and Capital One Financial Corp., which have nondiscrimination policies regarding LGBT individuals, and of which several offer domestic-partner benefits, according to information from the Human Rights Campaign’s 2013 Corporate Equality Index.