And that's why it needs to be explicit

The Office of Special Counsel, responsible for preventing bias in the US federal civil service, has declared open season on homosexuality. Because gays and lesbians are not specifically mentioned in national civil rights legislation, the OSC says that they are not protected. There is legislation that "prohibits discrimination against federal employees or job applicants on the basis of off-duty conduct that does not affect job performance", but the OSC says that sexual orientation is not "conduct", not a behavior, so it is not protected. In other words, you can ride in the gay pride parade without risking your job, but if your supervisor decides you are gay and fires you, you're out of luck. Logical.

I remember back in 1996 when Canada's Human Rights Act was amended to specifically include sexual orientation, conservatives argued that it wasn't necessary because the legislation already promised equal rights for all. I remember thinking at the time that they were being disingenuous, and this is a really good demonstration of why.

A little trivia for you: as early as 1967, Canada's soon-to-be prime minister, Pierre Trudeau, declared that the government had no place in the bedrooms of the nation when he proposed legislation to decriminalize homosexuality.