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An Ethical Dilemma

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| An Ethical Dilemma | |

Mary Ryan
8/27/2012
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Ethical dilemmas come up often within the workplace and can be difficult to handle when an employee needs to choose between what’s right and what’s wrong based on their own morals and principals. Handling ethical issues should be pursued in a steady and cautious approach towards matters that can potentially be dangerous or illegal. (Mayhew) One ethical dilemma that I was caught in the middle of left me in a position where I was almost forced into firing a person because of their sexual orientation. I felt this was an unethical request, and really made me think twice about the company I was working for and representing.
A few years ago I worked for a company as a home …show more content…

I refused to fire Sally and told the owner that if she wanted her fired then she would have to do it herself. Later on that week when I seen Sally, she told me that she thought the owner had a problem with her. I told Sally what happened and that I refused to fire her because I feel her sexual orientation is her business, and should not affect her employment. After our heated conversation, my attitude towards the owner had changed and I really did not have much respect left for her. Sally stayed employed for a while, but put up with a lot of unfair treatment from the owner. The owner really had me upset about this issue, and I felt I needed to stand up for Sally. I started doing some research on the issue of sexual orientation and finding out if it was illegal or not to discriminate against this issue. I was a bit surprised to find that it is not illegal, here in Michigan, to fire someone based on their sexuality. Today it is perfectly legal to fire; refuse to hire or refuse to promote someone because an employer thinks that a person is gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. It is also legal to deny these people rental housing, or refuse to serve them in stores, restaurants and other public accommodations. They are not offered any kind of protection under the state law and have very few options when dealing with discriminatory actions. ("equality michigan/ discrimination," )
After finding out that it was (is) perfectly legal to discriminate against

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