Americans for Truth

While you were eating lunch after Sunday worship, Folsom Street Fair (part of San Francisco’s sadistic “leather” subculture) was hosting a “Spanking Party” (at 1 pm on Mar 11, 2007) — just a regular event. The site is far too vulgar for us to link, as are all things Folsom. (Every year, Folsom sponsors two sadomasochism-celebrating “street fairs” in San Francisco — complete with open displays of whipping, bondage, etc. — which are blocked off by the city. Yes, truth is stranger than fiction.)

You may be interested to learn that this filthy organization receives corporate sponsorship from:

• Miller Genuine Draft
• Miller Lite
• Cuervo

Given the beer and liquor industry’s huge support of organized homosexuality, maybe this is a good time to become a tee-totaler, if you aren’t already…. — Peter LaBarbera

A followup to AFTAH’s exclusive special report on Out & Equal’s radical agenda…

From the Out & Equal website:

Out & Equal Workplace Advocates is proud to display our ever-increasing list of corporations who support LGBT workplace equality by encouraging and fostering their own employee resource groups (ERGs). With such valuable workplace groups in place, employees in one ERG can turn to leaders in other groups to share resources and establish good workplace practices for LGBT employees. LGBT employees trust their employers are keeping their interests in mind when making key business decisions that affect all employees…

True Out & Equal Workplace Leaders

TAKE ACTION – Pass this article forward to the executives at your company and contact your elected officials in Washington, D.C. (Congressional switchboard: 202-224-3121) to express opposition to the “ENDA Our Freedom” Bill. (ENDA is the pro-homosexual, pro-”transgender” Employment Non-Discrimination Act.) Also, call President Bush at 202-456-1111 or 456-1414 and ask him to veto any and all pro-homosexual bills that emerge from the Democrat-led Congress.

AN Americans For Truth EXCLUSIVE SPECIAL REPORT

Amy Andre, program manager for Out & Equal, presented a workshop at the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force’s Creating Change conference, November 8-12, 2006, in Kansas City, Missouri, entitled 15 Steps to an Out & Equal Workplace. (AFTAH’s reporters went undercover at the conference because the Task Force ejects critical observers at its events.)

One key initiative revealed by Andre: the promotion of a “spousal equivalency policy” that would require employers to pay homosexuals a higher salary than married heterosexuals.

These are the steps that homosexual activists are recommending for American corporations (our comments are in bold and italics):

(1) Support and attend the annual Out & Equal “Workplace Summit”

(2) Start an “employee resource group” – This employee group will be used to pressure the company to complete the remaining steps.

(3) Offer domestic partner benefits – O&E supports domestic partner benefits for cohabitating heterosexuals as well as homosexual partners.

(4) Include “sexual orientation” in your company’s EEO policy – Such a policy would prevent the company from “discriminating against” homosexuals or bisexuals.

(5) Include “gender identity and expression” in your company’s EEO policy – This policy would prevent an employer from “discriminating against” a transvestite (cross-dresser) or transsexual (who might be considering a “sex change” operation or might be partially or completely “transitioned”), even if this situation creates a problem with clients. (For example, these policies have been used to ensure that a teacher who cross-dresses or proceeds with a “sex-change” operation cannot be fired. Instead, children are expected to understand and cope with this outrageous situation.)

(6) Include LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] workplace diversity training – “Knowing someone who is LGBT changes attitudes” so O&E recommends having the trainer or another employee “come out” during the session — a manipulative tactic.

(7) Support the LGBT community through corporate giving – Although homosexual activists generally express disdain for corporate America, executives are urged to contribute money to promote the normalization of homosexuality.

(8) Recruit and develop LGBT employees

(9) Market to the LGBT community

(10) Create LGBT-specific advertising

(11) Provide LGBT leadership development opportunities

(12) Develop spousal equivalent policies for LGBT employees – See below — this one is very important.

(13) Include LGBT-owned businesses in your supplier diversity program – O&E recommends the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce’s certification program. This policy results in business moving from family-oriented companies to pro-homosexual companies. (Case in point: Wal-Mart.)

(14) Promote an LGBT-friendly corporate culture

(15) Share best practices around LGBT workplace issues

Out & Equal convinces companies that homosexuals comprise both a vital source of talent and a uniquely attractive target market segment. Using data from Witeck-Combs, a pro-homosexual firm, O&E suggests that homosexuals comprise 6 to 7 percent of the population. (Their number far exceeds more scientific estimates that put the figure at 1-3 percent.)

Using their inflated numbers, O&E says the 14 to 16 million homosexuals will spend about $640 billion in 2006. They report that homosexuals are twice as likely to be professionals or managers, are early adopters of new technologies, are brand loyal, and have a higher discretionary income. That enticement, along with a little “social justice” guilt, deceives companies into implementing O&E recommended policies.

First, a corporation would incur additional expense to fund “domestic partner” benefits. Most corporations contribute a substantial portion toward the cost of an employee’s personal health care and some toward the cost of coverage for an employee plus spouse or employee plus spouse/children. O&E recommends that an employer make that same contribution for those who are not married — for instance, a live-in boyfriend/girlfriend or a homosexual partner.

Homosexual “Spousal Supremacy”?
Next, Out & Equal’s “spousal equivalency policy” would require the employer to compensate the homosexual employee for the absence of tax exemption on homosexual partner and children health insurance costs. An employee normally makes a contribution, deducted from his paycheck, toward the cost of his health care coverage. For a married man, that expense is paid with pre-tax or tax-exempt dollars. Because there is no federal recognition of “gay marriage,” although a homosexual may receive domestic partner benefits, his contribution is paid with taxable dollars.

In the example Ms. Andre used (and she did note that the figures would vary according to each unique circumstance), she estimated that the employer would need to pay a homosexual employee with a partner $3787.20/year extra to compensate for the different tax status; that figure would soar to $7006.32/year for a homosexual with a partner and children. The net effect of this concept would be to pay a homosexual with a “partner” thousands of dollars more than a married heterosexual.

And add to that the cost of employee time spent networking, calling or e-mailing, meeting to focus on their “victim” status, lobbying HR/management, etc.

Executives would do well to examine Eastman Kodak, Ford, and Wal-Mart as case studies and to note the negative effect of capitulating to GLBT demands — on corporate revenue, volume, and stock price.

Or they could simply heed the words of one (white, female) activist in a separate Task Force Creating Change session, who expressed disdain for American corporations and said:

“…I am happy to take the white man’s money
and use it to subvert [everything he stands for].”

Out & Equal’s 2007 Workplace Summit will be held September 27-29 at the Hilton in Washington, D.C. Human Resource executives would do well to take their calculators along.

Excerpted from Napa Winery to Donate Funds to Support Gay Marriage, by Chris Rauber, published Dec 5, 2006, by San Francisco Business Times:

O’Brien Cellars, a brand of O’Brien Family Vineyard, said Tuesday it’s started a “progressive” philanthropic program to donate 20 percent of revenues from its online Equality Wine Store to a civil rights group that supports an end to California’s ban on same-sex marriage.

The family-owned Napa vineyard and winery said it will automatically donate those funds to Equality California, a San Francisco-based lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization. Winery owners Bart and Barb O’Brien said their goal is to help wine lovers support equal opportunity…

“We hope to raise over $100,000 for EQCA in 2007.”

…Other business-related supporters of Equality California, listed on the advocacy group’s web site, include Contempo Homes, the Evelyn & Walter Haas Jr. Foundation, Proteus Fund Inc., Olivia Cruises and Resorts, Atlantis Events, Century Crowell Communities LLP, MTV Networks/Logo, Shadowrock Development Corp., AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP, Edison International, Foley & Lardner LLP, Gap Inc., Latham & Watkins and Wells Fargo.

Kors said the California State Automobile Association and Comcast have also signed up recently as sponsors of Equality California.

Continue reading in San Francisco Business Times…

This article is a must-read for anyone working for an American corporation. From the automotive, airline, and petrochemical industries to banks, retail stores, and restaurants patronized primarily by traditional families, employers are capitulating to the demands of homosexual activists who are organizing homosexual employees.

The pro-family movement must re-engage in the corporate arena, or there is no hope of recovering moral sanity in the larger culture. To start with we can demand strict neutrality in corporate “diversity” and giving programs, and an end to one-sided tolerance seminars that are in reality training sessions in “gay” ideology. — Peter LaBarbera

Excerpted from Queer Inc, by Marc Gunther, published Nov 30, 2006, by Fortune:

…A platoon of Raytheon employees wearing identical blue-and-black bowling shirts, pins with the company’s logo and black pants proudly walked the halls of this fall’s convention of Out & Equal, an organization that brings together the networks of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people - GLBT, in the argot of the moment - that have taken root at America’s big companies.

For three days in Chicago, with about 1,700 delegates from other companies, the 67 members of Raytheon’s GLBT network could attend workshops with such titles as The Cost of Transgender Health Benefits, Breaking Through the Lavender Ceiling and Male-on-Male Sexual Harassment: An Emerging Issue…

When Justin Nelson was trying to get the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce off the ground in 2003, IBM offered its support. “If they hadn’t joined, there wouldn’t be a chamber,” Nelson says. Big Blue was followed by Wells Fargo, Motorola, Intel, American Express and recently, Wal-Mart…

Some companies are grappling with how to manage employees switching from one sex to another. American Airlines and its HR people helped a 58-year-old pilot - an ex-Marine and Vietnam combat veteran - go from being Robert to Bobbi. Energy giant Chevron published “Transgender@Chevron,” an eight-page guide to the issues that come up when a worker changes gender identity, ranging from the bureaucratic (don’t forget to get a new security badge) to the everyday (when it’s appropriate to move from the men’s room to the ladies’ room or vice versa)…

This is how workplace changes typically happen at big companies - from the inside out. Gay and lesbian employees come out of the closet. They find one another. They organize. They enlist straight allies. And they take their concerns to top managers.

These gay networks customarily meet in company facilities, use the company intranet, and receive financial support…

• Among corporations, IBM is the No. 1 financial supporter of gay rights groups in the U.S.
• To export its gay-friendly culture, IBM supports employee GLBT groups in 23 countries, including Singapore, Slovakia and Colombia. There’s plenty to do: In 80 countries homosexual acts are illegal, as they were in parts of the U.S. until a few years ago.
• Last year IBM convened a group of gay college students at the Human Rights Campaign to form a national organization of students in science and technology.
• IBM persuaded Dr. Marci Bowers, one of the world’s leading sex-reassignment surgeons and herself a transgendered person, to participate in the company’s health insurance program.

…the truth is that for the past 15 years, boycotts or no boycotts, corporate America has been moving in only one direction, and at a pretty rapid pace.

Do you recall that the restaurant chain Cracker Barrel fired gay workers back in 1991 for not having “normal heterosexual values”? Well, a few years ago, when a Kodak employee sent an e-mail to co-workers objecting to the company’s endorsement of National Coming Out day as “disgusting and offensive,” he was the one who was fired when he declined to apologize. He was entitled to his beliefs, the company explained, but his behavior was not aligned with Kodak’s values.

So it’s clear where big business is going. What’s interesting is to watch it pull the rest of the country along. It turns out that the most important factor shaping people’s feelings about gay issues is not their age or even their religion - although those do matter - but whether they have relatives, friends or co-workers who are gay.

Continue reading at CNN…

How many corporations sponsored state “Protect Marriage” initiatives? Despite the fact that a majority of their employees (and customers) are married men and women with families, American corporations are increasingly supportive of homosexual activist groups. It is tragic that corporations are now taking the lead in undermining the foundations of marriage and family that built our nation and helped make America one of the wealthiest and most stable countries the world has ever seen.

Here is a partial list of companies and organizations that supported the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force’s radical “Creating Change” conference in Kansas City, Missouri, Nov 8-12, 2006:

• American Airlines
• Ameriprise Financial Services
• Bacardi
• Bell South
• Chipotle Grill
• Cingular
• Costco
• Merrill Lynch
• MS. Magazine
• National Education Association
• NARAL
• Panera Bread
• Planned Parenthood
• United Way of Miami Dade
• Washington Mutual Bank
• Wells Fargo

The Chicago media treated the recent “Gay Games” as if it were a serious sporting and cultural event, but few spectators showed up to watch. Writing for Illinois Family Institute, I called the “Games” a flop. Now we learn that despite all the hype and corporate subsidies (and free publicity), the “Gay Games” was a financial flop, too. Click on the links in the story below for photos and local coverage of the event from June.–Peter LaBarbera

Excerpted from Gay Games Plans Final Event, by Joel Nosh, published Oct 12, 2006, in Chicago Tribune:

Paraphernalia sale intended to help eliminate shortfall

… With a $200,000 budget shortfall on an event organizers predicted would at least break even, everything must go.

By shedding these assets and soliciting donations, organizers who ran the Games on a $10 million cash budget say they will get back to zero or maybe even generate a slight surplus by the spring.

…[Kevin] Boyer said letters were sent to potential donors two weeks ago in an effort to raise $100,000. Another $100,000 has already been pledged in matching funds, he said. More money will come in from the sale of thousands of items large and small later this month.

For the last 12 years, the Gay Games, an international event staged every four years, has been financially troubled.

The 2002 Games in Sydney and 1998 Games in Amsterdam both finished more than $1 million in the red. The 1994 New York Games declared bankruptcy with a $350,000 shortfall, and the 1990 Vancouver Games ended $100,000 in the hole.

In each case, local governments, businesses or both absorbed the ultimate financial blow.

…Gay Games organizers have been chipping away at their debts, Boyer said, and getting creative when able. Equipment has been accepted in place of cash, and in some cases they have asked for bills to be lowered or forgiven.

Chicago Park District spokeswoman Jessica Maxey-Faulkner said the Gay Games has given $17,000 of equipment, including softball equipment and fencing, to chip away at its balance. Gay Games, which still owes nearly $30,000, also has been sending in money on a payment plan, she said.

Continue reading in Chicago Tribune…

It used to be American leftists and peaceniks who crusaded against Big Business. Now it’s moral-minded and largely Christian conservatives–who have watched one Fortune 500 company after another embrace pro-homosexual advocacy, dressed up as “diversity.”

While the pro-family movement focused on doing battle against the homosexual lobby in Washington, D.C., and state capitals, “gay” activists won over corporations, largely through internal activism within each company. Kodak, a leading national sponsor of GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network) went heavily into homosexual advocacy after a top female executive declared her lesbianism to fellow execs. Kodak is among the 138 companies that received a 100% score on the “Corporate Equality Index” (read: Pro-Homosexuality Index) of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s leading “gay” lobby group.

The battle to restore corporate neutrality on the homosexual issue will be a long and tough one, but it must be fought. People of faith inside companies can refuse to participate in pro-homosexual, one-sided “tolerance” sessions that undercut their moral beliefs. Or at least, they can request that the pro-family perspective on the issue be represented in the name of diversity. And they must work closely with outside family advocates to fight against corporate grants to homosexual groups like HRC that have a well-earned reputation for radicalism and bigotry–e.g., supporting taxpayer-funded transsexual “sex-change” operations and demonizing religious people and groups opposed to homosexuality.

You may get hassled or even punished along the way for standing for truth, but Christ said, “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also” (John 15:20).  If you need some help sharing the Gospel with a homosexual co-worker, try reading this short, helpful paper by former lesbian Yvette Schneider, “How Christians Can Talk to Homosexuals.”

The pendulum is swinging toward a politically correct corporate embrace of immoral and unhealthy sexual behavior, dressed up as an “orientation.” It will swing back toward normalcy in the years ahead. -- Peter LaBarbera

The following is excerpted from New Report Shows Corporate America Competing to Be the Most GLBT-Friendly, published Sept 19, 2006, by the homosexual activist group Human Rights Campaign:

The Human Rights Campaign today released a report showing that a record number of the largest U.S. companies are increasingly competing to expand benefits and protections for their gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees and consumers. This year’s report, the Human Rights Campaign’s fifth annual Corporate Equality Index, showed an unprecedented 138 major U.S. companies earned the top rating of 100 percent.

Continue reading the HRC report…