My boss is a HUGE homophobe

[Andrew Corvero]

I've been working for a while under a new boss, who is an educated man and seemed to be a decent guy. One day the argument of gay marriage came out during a coffee break chat and he said (completely seriously) (WARNING: Extreme homophobia)

Spoiler:

  Italy is a pretty homophobic country so sadly I'm familiar with some homophobia, but I was still appalled and pretty shocked.

I tried to argue with him, saying things like "Would you really kill your own son just because he'd be different from you?" and "What have gay people done to you, or to society in general? Why do you hate them so much?". He just said that (more extreme homophobia)

Spoiler:

He also (predictably) "jokingly" accused me of being gay (as if that'd be something people should be ashamed of) and I said "What if I were? What would you do?".

He glared at me and replied "I'd fire you".

Wow. This guy is a piece of work. Should I do anything about it or should I just avoid the argument from now?

[Caffeinated]

Um, maybe start polishing up the resume and looking at the job market? Yikes.

[The Wisp]

Is this a large company? If so you might want to talk to HR about this, they likely have policies against this sort of thing.

[Andrew Corvero]

Is this a large company? If so you might want to talk to HR about this, they likely have policies against this sort of thing.

Sadly, no. It's a small tourist agency which hires freelance interpreters and he's the son of the owner, so I don't think that there's anything I could do on that front.

[The Wisp]

Is this a large company? If so you might want to talk to HR about this, they likely have policies against this sort of thing.

Sadly, no. It's a small tourist agency which hires freelance interpreters and he's the son of the owner, so I don't think that there's anything I could do on that front.

That's really unfortunate. This sounds like a sucky situation all around. I agree with caffeinated that you might just want to look for a new job.

[jcorozza]

Ugh. Would it be legal to fire someone for that in Italy?

[Andrew Corvero]

Ugh.  Would it be legal to fire someone for that in Italy?

Your question made look it up the Italian laws on this matter.

Actually it's illegal, but the laws that protect workers against discrimination for sexual orientation have changed only very recently (2013) and it would pretty hard to prove in court that someone was fired for that reason unless he said it before witnesses or wrote it somewhere.

If he fired an employee for being gay I doubt he'd say it before someone else and he'd probably find some justification what he did, like "the employee's performance deteriorated recently".

I've read a website of an Italian association for LGBT rights and it says that when people hear stuff like what I've heard they want them to write down what they've heard in a legal document and sign it before a lawyer so that if in the future some other employee is fired and starts a cause for discrimination their words will be used as evidence.

I'll go to the nearest seat of that association tomorrow and we'll see what can be done.

This is some serious stuff and I'm not going to let it slide.

[jcorozza]

Sounds like a good plan - it's scary that guys like that are in control of other people's jobs!

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