Corporate America backs gay rights

[kweerwolf]

This spring, shareholders at such big companies as ExxonMobil (Research), Ford (Research) and American Express (Research) are voting on whether gay and lesbian people deserve protection against discrimination in the workplace.

But even as battles over gay rights flare up in the corporate world, there's no doubt about who's winning the war.

More than 80 percent of companies in the Fortune 500 now ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Some 249 of the Fortune 500 offer health and other benefits to the same-sex partners of their employees. That's up from just 28 a decade ago.

Last year, Wal-Mart (Research), America's biggest employer, agreed to support a network for its gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) workers, joining such firms as Citigroup (Research), DuPont (Research) and IBM (Research). All these trends are moving in one direction - towards more rights for gay and lesbian people.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/04/25/magazines/fortune/pluggedin_fortune/index.htm

[Mojambo]

1. Corporations don't see gay or straight, they just see consumers

If dogs could use credit cards corporations would be pushing for animal rights.