Marriage is good for business

Timothy Kincaid

February 1st, 2012

It must be frustrating to be an anti-gay activist these days.

One of the claims that conservatives love to make is that they are pro-business, interested in the economy, wanting to do what makes businesses grow and to get government out of the way and let American business compete. But business has been increasingly clear about just what government can do to let them compete: give their gay employees equality. What’s a pro-business conservative to do?

And the anti-gay collective is nearly beside itself trying to force business into reversing pro-equality positions, threatening to boycott. For a while now, under the belief that “homosexual ‘marriage'” is the scariest thing on the planet, they tied themselves into pretzels to equate even the mildest employee policies into “supports homosexual ‘marriage'”.

For example, The American Family Association has been railing against Home Depot under the convoluted equation that because Home Depot supports their gay employees and because those employees march in gay pride events and because gay pride events reflect the views of gay people and because gay people want equality then therefore Home Depot is not “remaining neutral in the culture wars” and is “promoting the homosexual agenda”. And since “every homosexual organization Home Depot supports has as their top priority the legalization of homosexual marriage”, the AFA has initiated a boycott of Home Depot.

And desperate to demonstrate their power, they sent out an email on January 13th declaring that “it appears that Home Depot, in response to AFA’s boycott, is silently dropping public support for the homosexual agenda”. But Home Depot quickly corrected their assumption.

“We have never changed our commitment to diversity and inclusion of all people, and we have no intention of doing so. Nor have we changed our apron policy or the guidelines for our charitable giving.”

Oh dratty-drats, how very dare they?

Mostly because the climate has changed. Businesses don’t fear being labeled “pro-homosexual”, having discovered that this label really doesn’t drive away anyone and actually improves their image among people who value diversity, respect, equality, and decency.

Companies are not afraid to slap their logo on equality and smile. And AFA really need not look for six degrees of Home Depot marriage support; businesses are making it easy, declaring their unequivocal support for equality. Publicly. In the newspapers. Supporting real legislation being voted on today. And proud of it.

Like, for example, the January 19th statement made by a collection of six corporations headquartered in Washington and led by Microsoft:

As other states recognize marriage equality, Washington’s employers are at a disadvantage if we cannot offer a similar, inclusive environment to our talented employees, our top recruits and their families. Employers in the technology sector face an unprecedented national and global competition for top talent. Despite progress made in recent years with domestic partnership rights, same-sex couples in Washington still hold a different status from their neighbors. Marriage equality in Washington would put employers here on an equal footing with employers in the six other states that already recognize the committed relationships of same-sex couples – Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont. This in turn will help us continue to compete for talent.

Now surely the AFA has heard of Microsoft. But for some reason they decided to act as though Microsoft (and Concur, Group Health, Nike, RealNetworks and Vulcan Inc.) had said nothing at all. Which, considering that Microsoft’s competitors are also on record supporting equality, may be a simply a matter of recognizing futility. After all, if you are reading this, the odds are really high that you are doing so by means of a company that supports equality.

But shortly after this announcement came another, one which anti-gays thought they could latch onto.

This important legislation is aligned with Starbucks business practices and upholds our belief in the equal treatment of partners. It is core to who we are and what we value as a company.

Oh but Starbucks has competitors. And coffee is not an essential (unless you’re an accountant). So woo-hoo, someone new to boycott.

And so some nobody named Pastor Steven Andrew, speaking for “80% Christian majority in the USA” is going to set the coffee giant on its ear.

“Why is Starbucks against our Founding Fathers and God’s liberty?” he asks. George Washington, John Adams and John Jay made the Christian laws that Starbucks wants to make non-Christian.

(Pastor Andrew may have failed to note that Jay was Episcopalian (a denomination that favors legal equality) and that Jay’s famous quote about Christian government actually starts with the words, “Real Christians will abstain from violating the rights of others…”.)

Joining the Starbucks whine is National Organization for Marriage’s Brian Brown.

“Americans should be able to drink a peaceful cup of coffee without worrying that a portion of the company’s profits is going to be used to push gay marriage without a vote from the people,” said Brown.

I have no idea why Brown thinks that “the people” should vote on how Starbucks allocates its corporate profits. I suspect he just is so accustomed to speaking using catch phrases that he no longer has a clue what he is saying and is entirely incapable of making sense.

But I don’t worry about Brown’s peaceful cup of coffee or Pastor Andrew’s lisping call for Christians to forgo their caramel frappuccino. The battle for corporate approval is over and they lost. Badly.

Because while announcements of support for marriage bills is important – it is – and declarations of corporations valuing their employees are good to hear, sometimes the most telling evidence doesn’t even get a simple press release. It’s when support is just a matter of regular, un-spectacular, not at all noteworthy business. Like this ad for Macy’s which encourages customers to sign up in their wedding registry to get special savings.

Yeah, those are two guys on the top of that cake.

So let the anti-gays not shop at Macy’s. Or drink Starbucks (or Thom’s Hand Brewed Coffee). Or use a computer. Or eat in a restaurant in Seattle.

Because business has spoken. And it has said that marriage is good for business. So if you really are pro-business, you’ll support equality.

Blake

February 1st, 2012

It didn’t go wholly unnoticed:

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/01/31/group-blasts-macys-for-catalogue-showing-gay-couple-on-wedding-cake/

Although the reaction as reported in the article is pretty hilarious.

Richard Rush

February 1st, 2012

If you were running a major company, would you prefer to attract and hire educated gay people, or indoctrinated fundamentalist Christians?

And as an aside, does anyone else remember the days before Lawrence v. Texas when AFA et al were warning national companies not to grant any benefits favorable to gay employees – because those employees were presumed criminals in fourteen states.

Patrick Hogan

February 2nd, 2012

I think that they should boycott anything that wouldn’t have been possible without a gay man or lesbian’s contributions — imagine the difficulty they’d run into just trying to boycott tech based on the work of Alan Turing.

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