Organization, Opportunity, and the Shifting Politics of Employment Discrimination

Abstract

Despite the major breakthrough for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) activists on marriage equality, the fight against employment discrimination remains elusive. Whether one is protected from discrimination in employment on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity depends on where one lives and is contingent on a patchwork of state and local policies. In this article, we investigate the adoption of state nondiscrimination laws that are inclusive of sexual orientation between 1980 and 2009. Findings from our event history analysis of policy adoption contribute to the study of social movements and LGBT politics in three ways. First, and consistent with social movement theory, we find countermovement opposition to gay rights as well as pro-LGBT political opportunities to be critical. Second, we find organization and opportunity to fluctuate in importance over time, underscoring the need for historically informed analyses that seriously consider when key actors should matter for social movement outcomes. Third, we produce new state-level estimates of public opinion of nondiscrimination laws. We show that while very high levels of public support are common for states that adopt nondiscrimination laws, they are not enough on their own, particularly in the face of opposition.