Illinois Business Leaders Support Gay Marriage

In more bad news for the Christofacists and the opponents of modernity and scientific knowledge, a group of Illinois business leaders has come out publicly in support of marriage equality legislation now pending in the Illinois General Assembly.   These business leaders understand - unlike the members of the Virginia GOP - that marriage equality is not only right from an equality perspective, but that it is also good for business.  The Chicago Tribune looks at this development which will no doubt have the Christofascists and the child rapist protectors of the Catholic Church hierarchy whining and convulsing.  The letter signed by these allies of LGBT equality can be found here. Here are some article highlights:

Dozens of Illinois business leaders and several companies publicly endorsed gay marriage Sunday in an attempt to reignite the issue after a proposed bill failed to get traction in Springfield this month.

State lawmakers aren't scheduled to be at the Capitol much until early February, and sponsors of a measure to grant gay and lesbian couples the freedom to marry are likely to need some time to win over dozens of rookie colleagues. But in an open letter issued Sunday, business executives stated their case to lawmakers that marriage equality would strengthen the Illinois workforce and boost economic development.

"To be competitive, a state must create an equitable, fair and respectful environment for all of its citizens," the letter said. "For this reason — among others — it is vitally important that Illinois lawmakers enact marriage equality soon."

In addition to Google, Orbitz Worldwide and Groupon, individual signers of the letter include Desiree Rogers, CEO of Johnson Publishing Co.; Lance Chody, CEO of Garrett Popcorn Shops; Fred Eychaner, chairman of the Newsweb Corp.; and Laura Ricketts, co-owner of the Chicago Cubs.

The letter contends that states such as New York, where gay marriage is legal, now have a competitive edge over Illinois.

"States with the metro areas of New York City, Seattle, Boston, and Baltimore have already legalized marriage equality," the letter said. "Here in the Midwest, Iowa has granted full marriage equality, while Minnesota is poised to do the same later this year. Illinois simply cannot afford to be less competitive than other states."

Expect more batshitery eruptions from the hate merchants, self-congratulatory professional Christians and, of course, the morally bankrupt child rapist enablers and protectors in the Catholic Church hierarchy. 

Thomson Reuters Opposes Minnesota's Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment

The list of companies that the Bible thumping hate merchants at American Family Association and its Christiofascist allies need to boycott just keeps on growing.  While no where near as powerful or with as strong a grip on global business, Thomson Reuters has joined the list of progressive companies that are opposing the effort of the hate family values organizations that seek to drag America back into a Middle Ages mindset and force same sex couples into a 4th class citizenship status.  Minnesota United for All Families has issued a press release on this latest slap in the face to the knuckle dragging forces of the far right.  Here are highlights:

Thomson Reuters, a company with thousands of employees in Minnesota, announced today that it firmly and clearly opposes the proposed constitutional amendment that would limit the freedom to marry for committed, same-sex couples in our state. With its historic announcement today, Thomson Reuters joins Fortune 500 companies General Mills and St. Jude Medical in opposing this freedom-limiting marriage amendment.

This news comes on the heels of a statement from leaders of seven major Minnesota law firms in opposition to this amendment, saying in the Star Tribune today that, “the marriage amendment endangers our business climate, signaling that ours is a community that does not welcome members of the LGBT community. This directly impacts Minnesota businesses, including law firms, which are dependent on attracting and retaining the best and brightest talent, regardless of sexual orientation.”

Thomson Reuters said, “As we’ve heard from employees, recruiters and customers, one thing has been very clear: we’re a better place when we have a rich variety of perspectives, talents, backgrounds, lifestyles and experiences in our workplace, and within the broader community from which we recruit. We believe that building a culture that thrives on diversity and inclusion and provides equal opportunities to everyone is a critical factor in our ability to serve our customers and be successful. …We believe the Minnesota Marriage Amendment, if passed, would limit our ability to recruit and retain top talent. For this reason, we do not believe that the Amendment would be good for Thomson Reuters or the business community in the state.”

The law firms noted in the Star Tribune piece include among others Oppenheimer Wolff & Donnelly LLP, a large international firm for which I have served as local counsel in the past.  Here's portion of what these legal powerhouses had to say on the vicious anti-gay amendment on the ballot in November:

As leaders of law firms, we write in our individual capacities to express our personal opposition to the Minnesota marriage amendment that will be on the ballot this fall.

The marriage amendment would embed in the Minnesota Constitution a definition of marriage as being solely between one man and one woman. In so doing, it strives to prevent future judicial or legislative action that could allow our gay and lesbian citizens to marry and enjoy a right that is available to all others.

 

As lawyers, we also believe that this issue is more important than just its impact to the business climate. The amendment uses the ballot to restrict the rights of our fellow citizens, and to embed those restrictions in our state Constitution. Simply put, it is a bad precedent to use the Constitution to deny the civil liberties of a few.

We will be voting "no" on the marriage amendment and encourage our fellow members of the bar to join us.

The Political War in Washington is Damaging Business

The Republican Party claims to be the party of business - well, maybe big business since GOP policies sure don't do much for small "mom and pop" businesses - but it's efforts to shut down the U.S. government and push the nation into default are taking a toil on business and helping to create an atmosphere where business are inclined to sit on cash due to uncertainty of where the economy is headed under a system that is focused on anything and everything except the economy despite lip service to the contrary. So says the venerable British magazine The Economist. And the fault rests primarily on the GOP which continues to pander to crazies and extremists. Here are some story highlights:

THE great Calvin Coolidge reputedly said that “the business of America is business.” These days the business of America is carpet-chewing rage. American politicians are intent, not on improving their country’s competitiveness, but on gouging each other’s eyes out.

Businesspeople still enjoy huge advantages from being in America. Business is part of its DNA in much the same way that la dolce vita is part of Italy’s. America has a disproportionate number of the world’s most innovative businesses, from greybeards such as 3M to toddlers such as Salesforce.com.

Yet America’s politicians are intent on squandering this painfully accumulated capital. As it revoked America’s triple-A credit rating on August 5th, Standard & Poor’s explained that the gulf between the political parties was becoming unbridgeable, and that policymaking was becoming unpredictable. Other sober institutions concur. The World Economic Forum has downgraded America from second place in 2009 to fourth place in 2010 in its annual global competitiveness rankings. By the forum’s reckoning, America comes a lowly 40th for the quality of its institutions, 54th for trust in its politicians, 68th for government waste and a dismal 87th for its macroeconomic environment. The World Bank sees a relentless decline in various indicators of American governance.

This ideological civil war has led to the marginalisation of corporate America. In the Republican Party country-club types have been elbowed aside by Rush Limbaugh listeners. . . . . The civil war is creating two obvious problems for American business: paralysis and uncertainty. The Obama administration is still pockmarked with vacancies because Congress refuses to approve routine appointments. Important trade deals have been languishing for months. The Republicans are fighting a war of attrition against Barack Obama’s health-care reforms and his new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. All this has immediate consequences for business.

The direst consequences of all this lie in the future, however. America’s health-care system consumes a sixth of GDP but produces only mediocre results. America’s schools produce run-of-the-mill results despite generous funding. The immigration system leaves 11m people in the shadows and condemns many of the brightest graduates of American universities to years of grovelling before bureaucrats if they want to stay in America. Many give up and take their skills back to India or China.

American companies are sitting on a gigantic pile of cash; Apple alone has $76 billion in the bank. Why won’t corporate America invest in America? It does not help that domestic demand is feeble, and that the global economy is in turmoil. But American politicians deserve some of the blame. Their unpredictability erodes confidence.

Even more dangerously, the gulf between business and the rest of the country is widening: opinion polls show that American businesspeople are losing faith in their country even as ordinary Americans are losing faith in business. Calvin Coolidge’s statement was once denounced as the height of bourgeois complacency. Today it sounds like a reminder of an America that is in danger of disappearing.

Kitty Lee Thomas Sweets

One of the pleasures of yesterday's family wedding was getting to talk with my late sister's daughter (pictured at left with her boyfriend) and getting to meet her boyfriend. They live in New York City where she left a career in investment banking to follow her true love - cooking and baking - that I think she inherited from my sister.
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She completed the French Culinary School last year and while working in her new profession in New York, she is also working to launch her own company. The newly established website which showcases a few of her products is here. The "About" section of the website which references her late parents brought me close to tears. Her products are wonderful - beautiful to look at and even more amazing to eat. She sent us a box of the Christmas goodies, so we know first hand the quality of the products. I hope readers in New York and elsewhere will give her a try.
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She's an amazingly talented and bright young woman. Looks wise, she looks much like my late sister and my late mother. I hope her business is a huge success!

Richmond Metropolitan Convention & Visitors Bureau Launches Gay Tourism Site

In a move that ought to be emulated by cities in the Hampton Roads area - or better yet done as a regional effort - the Richmond Metropolitan Convention & Visitors Bureau has launched a tourism page aimed at the LGBT tourism dollar. The site, called Rainbow Over Richmond, covers everything from restaurants and accommodation, gay friendly areas of the city, shopping to historic attractions.

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With the Hampton Roads area containing Jamestown, Yorktown, Williamsburg, historic Fort Monroe, NASA Langley, the Mariners Museum, the Chrysler Museum of Fine Arts, the Air and Space Museum, and Busch Gardens Williamsburg and Water Country USA, there are an abundance of attractions to lure LGBT tourists to the area if (1) the region would market to them and (2) more B&B's and hotels would likewise advertise to the LGBT community. Virginia Beach long ago made the decision to market to the "family vacationer" - which translates to blue collar straight couples with children from inland areas - and has no gay clubs in the resort area, but there is no need for the rest of the region not to get on board with smart marketing and pursue a market segment long ignored. The site also links to GayRVA, a local LGBT news and entertainment website.

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The site is currently running the following promotion: Join us for Rainbow Over Richmond: 30 events in 60 days, an eclectic and engaging series of events from late August through October, exploring and celebrating LGBT and LGBT-friendly culture and community.
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What makes this new approach by the Richmond Tourism office all the more fun is that it's happening right under the noses of Virginia's anti-gay governor, Bob "Taliban Bob" McDonnell, and the hysterically anti-gay attorney general, Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli. Once the business community catches on to the courting the LGBT community makes good business sense, it's a pretty good sign that the Christo-fascists are losing the culture wars. Obviously, some folks in Virginia don't believe that Virginia is only for straight lovers anymore. Would that Hampton Roads would wake up to this reality.

Catholic Pharmacy Shutters Doors in Virginia

A reader sent me the link to a story in the Washington Times - not one of my normal reads I will confess - about a pharmacy in Northern Virginia that opened to a lot of wingnut fanfare that was forced to close because it put "moral values" ahead of stocking inventory that customers want to purchase. The American Family Association and other "family values" organizations have perennial "boycotts" and other attacks on businesses that market to the LGBT community - e.g., Ford, Coke, Walgreens, etc. In truth, these businesses not forgotten the message the Catholic Pharmacy apparently never grasped. Businesses are in business to make money and earn a profit. And in the case of publicly traded companies, to generate dividends to shareholders. By refusing to carry contraceptives, many cosmetics and other products, the pharmacy sent the message that segments of the consumer base (including many Catholics who ignore the Vatican's teachings on birth control and many other issues) were simply not wanted. Or worse yet, that they were looked down upon and condemned by the sanctimonious pharmacy operators. Here are some story highlights:
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DMC Pharmacy, a pro-life Catholic pharmacy that opened with much fanfare in Chantilly, Va., in October 2008, closed last month because of lack of funds. "We could not make it work financially," said Robert Laird, executive director for the pharmacy, whose letters stood for Divine Mercy Care. "We could never get that big push to make it viable and finally the board of directors said enough was enough." By the time the store closed March 4, it was losing in the tens of thousands of dollars per month.
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[T]he 1,500-square-foot store on Metrotech Drive did not stock birth control pills, condoms, cigarettes or pornographic magazines. It did have booklets on natural family planning below a picture of St. John Leonardi, the patron saint of pharmacists. It was one of seven pharmacies in the country that refused to dispense contraceptives for moral reasons, on the grounds they caused abortions, lead to promiscuity or endangered a woman's health.
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Situated next to a Catholic bookstore, the founders hoped to attract clientele from St. Timothy and St. Veronica, two nearby Catholic parishes totaling 20,000 members. Within five miles were four other booming churches with 30,000 Catholics. . . . But regular customers never materialized in great numbers.
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Plus, DMC never got into the heavy retail items, such as cosmetics, toys and fast food, that help keep similar pharmacies afloat.

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I feel sorry for employees who have lost their jobs, but not so much sympathy for the store's owners who should have had more business sense.

A Sleepless Night

Last night was a fitful and largely sleepless night for me. At 4:30 AM I nearly got up and came into the office. Ultimately, I held off for a couple hours. I guess I simply had too many thoughts zooming around in my head: office matters, up coming business marketing and network events, and , of course, the still not final divorce.

I like being busy at the office for several reasons: the day goes more quickly, the firm revenue stream is enhanced, and at times I get a feeling of accomplishment when I have helped someone achieve a goal or meet a need. The draw back is that every client - rightfully from their perspective - views their matter as the most important. Thus, I become the juggler, striving to keep everyone happy all of the time. Needless to say, stress builds up.

On the marketing front, I am a bit in overload mode: a commercial real estate event this afternoon, speaking at a estate planning seminar Saturday morning, a church networking event Saturday evening, working the HRBOR booth on Sunday at Pride (and giving out my business cards too, of course). Then next Tuesday, I have the annual meeting of a commercial real estate networking organization at noon, and a real estate investor group meeting in the evening. Then on Thursday, there is the next HRBOR third Thursday event. How some allege I do not spend enough time marketing the firm is a bit baffling.

Then of course, I have the still open divorce case.

BTW, here is a website statement on sleeplessness: Sleeplessness is usually associated with emotional or mental tension, anxiety, depression, work problems, financial stress or unsatisfactory sex life. While insomnia is not usually related to any physical illness there are exceptions.