Civil libertarians took heart with the recent 32-17 vote in the Iowa Senate to expand the Iowa Civil Rights Act to include sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes, but it’s too soon to celebrate a new era in Iowa. The legislation, currently under consideration by the Iowa House Human Resources Committee, faces an uphill battle if, as expected, it goes to debate before the full House chamber.

Business leaders should support legislation that moves Iowa into the group of states that protect all of their citizens from discrimination in employment and housing. Many employers already protect qualified, hardworking employees from discrimination, harassment or termination based on race, creed, color and sexual orientation, a signal that they recognize the value of diversity to their organizations. Smart business people recognize that if all employees are alike and think alike, innovative thinking is stymied.

And as a matter of practicality, they recognize that filling the projected 200,000-worker gap in the next decade depends in large part on   positioning Iowa as a state that welcomes all individuals and places diversity among its core values.

Much of the emotional debate swirling around this issue illustrates why government and religious interests should not be allowed to collide. Certainly all individuals have the right to let their faith guide their decisions, but the state has a compelling interest in ensuring those individual decisions don’t sanction discrimination. The same thinking that guided officials in passing the Civil Rights Act four decades ago to protect racial minorities from discrimination should apply here.

The proposed expansion of the Iowa Civil Rights Act is merely a matter of the law catching up with common business practices. The pity here is that such a basic human rights issue must be tied to workforce needs for it to get serious consideration. Expanding the civil rights code to protect all Iowans from discrimination is the right thing to do. Period.