Americans for Truth

HRC uses 11 criteria to rank corporations — including shunning pro-family groups

By Peter LaBarbera

McDonald’s Corporation scored an 85 percent ranking on the Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC) “Corporate Equality Index.” HRC, the nation’s leading homosexual lobby group, publishes the corporate survey every year. The following are the 11 criteria used by HRC to evaluate whether a major company is sufficiently pro-homosexual and pro-transsexual; note that McDonald’s passed all but one test (a gender-identity ‘nondiscrimination’ policy– criterion 2a). (AFTAH has endorsed a nationwide boycott of McDonald’s.) See important explanatory notes at bottom:

2008 Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index Ratings and Breakdown:

• Criterion 1a: [McDonald’s: YES] Prohibits Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation (15 points)
• Criterion 1b: [McDonald’s: YES] Provides Diversity Training Covering Sexual Orientation (5 points)
• Criterion 2a: [McDonald’s: NO] Prohibits Discrimination Based on Gender Identity and/or Expression (15 points)
• Criterion 2b: [McDonald’s: YES] Provides Diversity Training Covering Gender Identity OR Has Supportive Gender Transition Guidelines (5 points)
• Criterion 2c: [McDonald’s: YES] Offers at Least One Transgender Wellness Benefit (5 points) +
• Criterion 3a: [McDonald’s: YES] Offers Domestic Partner Health Insurance (15 points)
• Criterion 3b: [McDonald’s: YES] Offers Domestic Partners Dental, Vision, COBRA and Dependent Coverage Benefits (5 points)
• Criterion 3c ++: [McDonald’s: YES] Offers at Least Three Other ‘Soft’ Benefits for Domestic Partners ++ (5 points)
• Criterion 4: [McDonald’s: YES] Has Employer-Supported Employee Resource Group OR Firm-Wide Diversity Council (15 points)
• Criterion 5: [McDonald’s: YES] Engages in Appropriate and Respectful Advertising, Marketing or Philanthropy (15 points)
• Criterion 6: [McDonald’s: YES] Exhibits Responsible Behavior Toward the GLBT Community; Does Not Engage in Action That Would Undermine GLBT Equality. Employers Found Engaging in Such Activities Will — Have 15 Points Removed From Their Scores. (—) +++

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Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins writes in yesterday’s ‘Washington Update’ (May 28); go to FRC’s website this afternoon to view the panel discussion on California’s supreme court marriage decision online:

As local organizations start mobilizing their troops to the front lines of marriage in California, FRC is launching a national effort to educate the public to the damage this ruling may do to democracy, the family, and religious freedom. Together with a broad coalition of pro-family allies, FRC has planned a strategic series of panel discussions on the implications of the California supreme court decision for the nation. Tomorrow, we’ll kick off the event at the National Press Club with legal and policy experts such as Glen Lavy of the Alliance Defense Fund, Mat Staver of the Liberty Counsel, FRC’s own Ken Blackwell, and more. More people must recognize that this epidemic of judicial activism has sweeping consequences for children, businesses, the legal system, and every other facet of society. If you live or work in the nation’s capital, we encourage you to join us at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow at 529 14th Street, NW for “California Same-Sex Marriage: Answering the Assault on Family and Society.” To RSVP, call 1-800-225-4008 or visit our website at www.frc.org. If you cannot attend, please log onto our site Thursday afternoon for video of the panel discussion.

JUDICIAL ACTIVISM AT ITS WORST: This will always be immoral. California’s highest court has created a “fundamental” marriage right out of behavior — homosexuality — that is fundamentally wrong and destructive. At left is a homosexual male kissing scene as it appeared on the CBS soap “As the World Turns.” Everywhere Americans turn — TV, media, schools, in corporations and the courts — this unhealthy and immoral behavior is being promoted.

California’s highest court has just invalidated California’s Proposition 22, creating a legal “fundamental” right to homosexual so-called “marriage” out of thin air, under the guise of equal protection. We’re reading the 172-page decision — available at http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/S147999.PDF — now, but as we suspected, the court’s majority made use of the fact that in California, homosexual couples already have been given most of the same rights as normal couples — including the right to adopt children.

Footnote 72 on page 117 of the California decision is key:

Contrary to the contention of the Proposition 22 Legal Defense Fund and the
Campaign, the distinction in nomenclature between marriage and domestic partnership cannot be defended on the basis of an asserted difference in the effect on children of being raised by an opposite-sex couple instead of by a same-sex couple. Because the governing California statutes permit same-sex couples to adopt and raise children and additionally draw no distinction between married couples and domestic partners with regard to the legal rights and responsibilities relating to children raised within each of these family relationships, the asserted difference in the effect on children does not provide a justification for the differentiation in nomenclature set forth in the challenged statutes.”

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Congratulations to the Thomas More Law Center, AFA of Michigan and all the pro-family groups, legislators, citizens, and churches in Michigan for successfully defending marriage in your state!

LANSING, Mich. (Catholic News Agency), May 8, 2008 — The Michigan General Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that the state’s constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages also blocks Michigan governments and state universities from offering “domestic partnership” benefits for homosexual couples. Click HERE to read the Michigan Supreme Court ruling.

The Marriage Protection Amendment was approved by nearly sixty percent of voters in 2004. Considered the broadest of the 11 state marriage amendments barring same-sex marriage, the language of the Michigan amendment says “…the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose.”

The Michigan ACLU, representing the AFL-CIO homosexual activist group National Pride at Work, had challenged the application of the law as based in Attorney General Mike Cox’s interpretation of the amendment.

The Michigan court’s 5-2 decision did not rule on whether government employment benefits can be offered to homosexual partners on some broader basis also available to other employees. Some local governments and universities have attempted to maintain present benefits by amending the eligibility requirements.

“The people of Michigan have constitutionally protected marriage as exclusively the union of one man and one woman, period, and that includes prohibiting the recognition of homosexual relationships as equal or similar to marriage for any purpose, including offering spousal-type benefits to the homosexual partners of government employees,” said Gary Glenn, one of the co-authors of the Marriage Protection Amendment and head of the American Family Association of Michigan.

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, praised the decision, saying, “The Michigan Supreme Court courageously upheld the will of the people.”

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=12591

Related news release from Thomas More Law Center: “TMLC Praises Michigan Atty General Cox for Defending Marriage Amendment; Blasts Gov and Universities”