Even as the Republican Party prepares a party platform that (1) is strongly anti-gay and seeks to write discrimination into the U.S Constitution, and (2) panders to the Christianist who now control the GOP and John McCain, private enterprise continues to increasingly see the merits of employment non-discrimination protections for LGBT employees. As 365gay.com is reporting, now fully 94% of the nation's Fortune 500 companies bar employment discrimination based on an employee's sexual orientation. *
The importance of these private employment protections cannot be overstated. In a strongly anti-gay state such as Virginia which has NO non-discrimination laws that protect gay citizens, private employment protections are virtually the only protections available to most LGBT Virginians. Unfortunately, in the Tidewater area there are few Fortune 500 employers and I often wonder whether the region's backwardness is due to the lack of such employers or is the region's backwardness the reason that so few such employers find the region attractive. Even gay owned businesses in Hampton Roads all too often be intimidated and censored by the homophobes and Christianists who are too prevalent in the area. Here are some highlights from 365gay.com:
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(New York City) The list of Fortune 500 companies providing written workplace protections on the basis of sexual orientation has grown to 471 Equality Forum, an LGBT civil rights organization, said Wednesday. The figure represents 94.2 percent of the companies listed in 2008.
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“The Fortune 500 have overwhelmingly decided that including sexual orientation is in the best corporate interest and helps communicate corporate values to the estimated $660 billion annual domestic GLBT consumer market,” said Malcolm Lazin, Executive Director, Equality Forum.
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According to Gallup’s May 2008 Values and Beliefs Poll, 89 percent of U.S. citizens believe gays and lesbians should have equal rights in job opportunities. Twenty states include sexual orientation nondiscrimination in their workplace statutes but there currently is no federal workplace protection based on sexual orientation.
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Senator Obama favors and Senator McCain opposes including sexual orientation in the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA).
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