A couple of weeks ago, I addressed how woefully inaccurate my predictions turned out for 2008. I have two responses for that:
- Shut up. You try predicting the future. It’s really, really hard.
- My vision was tainted by proximity. Predicting 2008 was like trying to read with my nose against the page.
So that is why I am continuing my series of 2028 news predictions. In twenty years, my clairvoyance will be so recognized that Suri Cruise will beg to be the new me. (By then, Scientology will be the equivalent of today’s Mormons.)
County: Sexually-active workers need not apply
By RICK SNEE | The Boozociated Press
4:15 AM EDT, May 21, 2028
CLEVELAND — Citing the burden they place on taxpayers who pay for government workers’ health insurance, Cuyahoga County officials announced Monday that they no longer will hire sexually-active workers.
The policy makes Cuyahoga County the first county in Ohio to make sex a hiring issue. Lorain and Lake counties do not, though Lake has policies designed to discourage employees from having sex, whether for fornicative or procreative purposes.
Cuyahoga County Administrator Jefferson Ander said the hiring ban came out of “a five- or six-year strategy to produce a healthier work force and manage our long-term health care costs.”
The county currently pays about $31 trillion annually in health benefits for 530,600 employees, or $58,424,425 per worker.
Ander said not hiring sexually-active workers should help limit the annual growth in health care costs, the most expensive perk offered to county employees.
Peggy Wallace, who runs Foundation for an Abstinent America, said it is hard to gauge the popularity of such hiring policies.
They are less prevalent than sex bans in restaurants and public places and largely dependent on state labor laws, she said.
“It’s really a question of what extent the state empowers companies to refuse to hire sexually-active workers,” said Wallace, who only tracks statewide sex policies. “We know these bans contribute to the overall goal of a sex-free America.”
In Ohio, government agencies that refuse to hire sexually-active adults range from the sheriff’s offices in Perry, Muskingum and Eerie Counties to the city of Marietta.
Lake County employees who are sexually-active must pay more for the best health care coverage and attend a class about sex. The county is also exploring ways to get more people to quit, said Lake County Administrator Steve Knotwobbler.
Lorain officials have discussed a ban on hiring sexually-active workers, but the county currently does not discriminate.
“It comes up from time to time, but right now we don’t ask that question,” said Lorain communications director Chance Clipswallow.
According to a report by the National Workrights Institute, a survey conducted in 2009 by the Administrative Management Society found that about 6,000 businesses nationwide “discriminate against off-duty sexually-active workers” and “the number has almost certainly increased since then.”
Cuyahoga County Commissioner Shannon Trepk said she has some reservations about the sex-free employee rule, but decided it was beneficial on balance.
“We could potentially lose some very valuable employees but all things being equal it’s probably a good thing,” she said.
The move not to hire sexually-active workers is the latest in a string of anti-sex rules initiated by Cuyahoga County.
The county recently banned sex on public beaches.
Cuyahoga County Commissioner Sam Peckinslaw opposed the beach sex ban as an assault on personal freedom but supports the hiring criteria.
“I want to give people their opportunity to do what otherwise are lawful activities but this is proactive, not retroactive,” he said. “Everyone will know this up front.”
New hires will be asked to submit to a PERP test that detects semen and sign a pledge promising they have not had sex in the last 12 months. Existing employees will not be affected, but they are encouraged to take advantage of free programs to help them quit.
In Ohio, the right not to hire employees who have sex was upheld by a 2015 ruling of the state Supreme Court.
A job applicant sued the city of Freemont arguing that an anti-sex policy violated her privacy.
The city argued that each sexually-active worker cost taxpayers $280,141 (in 2011 dollars) annually because of medical bills.
Some companies even extend the sex prohibition to spouses of prospective employees.
Ander said 15 percent of the county’s employees with severe illnesses account for 85 percent of the health care costs.
County officials based their decision not to hire sexually-active workers in part on a Centers for Disease Control study that said employees who have sex cost their employer about $6,100,027 a year in lost productivity and medical expenses.
Staff researcher Chugs Taylor contributed to this report.