With Military Spending Cuts, Will Virginia's Anti-Gay Laws Hurt Business Recruiting?

Currently, the Department of Defense is looking at ways to reduce spending and the elimination of programs and commands - locally, the proposed closure of the Joint Forces Command is a prime example. As one of the largest recipients of military dollars, lower spending levels could wipe out jobs, both in Hampton Roads and defense contractor rich Northern Virginia. I have argued for quite some time that the religious based anti-gay discrimination enshrined in Virginia's laws and championed by Christianists like Taliban Bob McDonnell and Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli will eventually bit Virginia in the ass big time. Why? Because such legally enforced bigotry will make employees less willing to relocate to Virginia, which translates to businesses being less willing to relocate to the state. I regularly get calls from LGBT individuals faced with possible job relocation to Virginia - many are defense contractor employees - concerning whether or not they should accept the job or promotion. Once they hear the details of Virginia's anti-gay laws (e.g., no recognition of same sex relationships and zero employment protections), many turn down the job offers. As other states become more gay friendly, this phenomenon will likely only get worse. A piece in the Washington Business Journal looks at this issue, and it looks like Virginia is cutting its own economic throat. Here are highlights:
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At the top of the list — ranked high above “Will we have children?” and “Will we hyphenate our last names?” — is a far more vexing question. Specifically, where will we live? I promise you, the implications of this go far beyond our bedroom — and reach into your boardroom.
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In the world as we would like to imagine it, we’d leave Logan Circle’s grit, buy a picket-fenced bungalow in a leafy part of Clarendon and settle down to raise our kids — one boy and one girl, of course — send them to Arlington’s fine public schools and keep our fingers crossed that they get into the University of Virginia. In the meantime, we’d Metro or walk to work and enjoy the 25 percent lower property taxes we’d be paying in Arlington as opposed to say, Takoma Park. But that’s hardly the reality we live in.
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Gritty though it may be, D.C. will both marry us and give legal weight to our commitment. Maryland won’t tie the knot for us, but they will recognize it. Virginia … not so much.
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Virginia law also offers us no protection from being fired for who we are — in fact, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli all but ordered discrimination in March when he issued a letter advising Virginia’s colleges and universities that, in the absence of statewide anti-discrimination legislation, they had no legal right to include gays and lesbians in their nondiscrimination policies.
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What does this mean to you as a business owner, you ask? Even back in 2004, before same-sex marriage became a realistic goal, a third of non-gay people surveyed in a Harris Interactive/Witeck-Combs poll said they believed anti-gay laws would have “quite a bit” or “a great deal” of negative impact on employers’ ability to recruit and retain the most qualified employees. By 2009 — same-sex marriage had taken hold in a few states by then — nearly 8 out of 10 gays and lesbians surveyed said they would prefer a job in a state where marriage equality is recognized.
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[a]s the federal government slims down and curtails spending on contractor dollars, what will Richmond’s anti-gay climate mean for Northern Virginia’s ability to lure replacement corporations and retain its talented knowledge workers?