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…

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…

1. Adobe Systems
2. Aetna
3. Agere Systems
4. Agilent Technologies
5. Allianz Life Insurance
6. Alston & Bird
7. American Express
8. AMR Corp. (American Airlines)
9. Anheuser-Busch
10. Apple Computer
11. Arnold & Porter
12. AT&T
13. Avaya
14. Bain & Company
15. Bank of America
16. Bausch & Lomb
17. Bell South
18. Best Buy
19. Boeing
20. BP America
21. Bright Horizons Family Solutions
22. Bristol-Myers Squibb
23. California State Automobile Association
24. Capital One Financial
25. Cargill
26. Carlson Companies
27. Charles Schwab
28. Chevron
29. ChoicePoint
30. Chubb
31. CIGNA
32. Cisco Systems
33. Citigroup
34. Clear Channel Communications
35. Clorox
36. CMP Media
37. CNA Insurance
38. Coca-Cola Company
39. Consolidated Edison
40. Coors Brewing
41. Corning
42. Credit Suisse First Boston
43. Cummins
44. Daimler Chrysler
45. Dell
46. Deloitte & Touche USA
47. Deutsche Bank
48. Dorsey & Whitney
49. Dow Chemical
50. DuPont
51. Eastman Kodak
52. Eli Lilly & Co.
53. Ernst & Young
54. Estee Lauder Companies
55. Faegre & Benson
56. Fannie Mae
57. Ford Motor Co.
58. Freescale Semiconductor
59. Gap Inc.
60. General Mills
61. General Motors
62. GlaxoSmithKline
63. Global Hyatt
64. Goldman Sachs Group
65. Google
66. Harvard Pilgrim Health Care
67. Heller Ehrman
68. Hewitt Associates
69. Hewlett-Packard
70. Honeywell International
71. Hospira
72. ING North America Insurance
73. Intel
74. IBM
75. Intuit
76. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.
77. Jenner & Block
78. Johnson & Johnson
79. Kaiser Permanente
80. Keyspan
81. Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group
82. KPMG
83. Kraft Foods
84. Lehman Brothers Holdings
85. Levi Strauss & Co.
86. Lexmark International
87. Liz Claiborne
88. Lucent Technologies
89. McDermott Will & Emery
90. McKinsey & Co.
91. Mellon Financial
92. Merck & Co.
93. Merrill Lynch
94. MetLife
95. Microsoft
96. Mitchell Gold and Bob Williams
97. Morgan Stanley
98. Morrison & Foerster
99. Motorola
100. Nationwide
101. NCR Corp.
102. New York Times Co.
103. Nike
104. Nixon Peabody
105. Nordstrom
106. Northrop Grumman
107. Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe
108. Owens Corning
109. Pepsico
110. Pfizer
111. PG&E
112. Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman
113. Powell Goldstein
114. PriceWaterhouseCoopers
115. Prudential Financial
116. Raytheon
117. Replacements
118. SC Johnson & Son
119. Schering-Plough
120. Sears Holdings Corporation
121. Sempra Energy
122. Sprint Nextel
123. Starcom MediaVest
124. Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide
125. State Street
126. Sun Microsystems
127. SunTrust Banks
128. Tech Data Corp.
129. The Olivia Companies
130. US Airways
131. Viacom
132. Visa International
133. Volkswagen of America
134. Wachovia
135. Walgreens
136. Wells Fargo
137. Whirlpool
138. Xerox