Posted on 07/02/2003 10:08:52 PM PDT by TheEaglehasLanded
Wal-Mart Announces New Gay Policy Wednesday, 2 July 2003
SEATTLE -- Wal-Mart Stores, the nation's largest private employer, has broadened its corporate anti-bias policy to include gay and lesbian workers, the company announced Tuesday.
Wal-Mart spokeswoman Mona Williams said that the company implemented the changes because "It's the right thing to do for our employees. We want all of our associates to feel they are valued and treated with respect — no exceptions."
The decision was disclosed by a Seattle gay rights foundation that had invested in Wal-Mart and then lobbied the company for two years to make its discrimination policies more inclusive.
A spokeswoman told The New York Times on Tuesday that Wal-Mart had already sent out letters Tuesday to its 3,500 stores, after which store managers would explain the change to its 1.5 million employees.
Along with prodding from groups, such as the Pride Foundation, the spokeswoman said several gay employees wrote senior management about six weeks ago to say they would "continue to feel excluded" unless Wal-Mart changed its policies.
With the change announced by Wal-Mart this week, 9 of the 10 largest Fortune 500 companies now have rules barring discrimination against gay employees, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
Activists will now press for DP health benefits.
The exception is the Exxon Mobil Corporation, which was created in 1999 after Exxon acquired Mobil, and then revoked a Mobil policy that provided medical benefits to partners of gay employees, as well as a policy that included sexual orientation as a category of prohibited discrimination.
Wal-Mart said it currently had no plans to extend medical benefits to domestic partners.
Though no one directly linked the company decision to the Thursday's Supreme Court ruling against the country's sodomy laws, it certainly didn't hurt.
"A major argument against equal benefits, against fair treatment of employees, has been taken away," said Kevin Cathcart of Lambda Legal. "And so even within corporations it's a very different dialogue today, a very different dialogue."
There is no federal law prohibiting discrimination in the workplace on the basis of sexual orientation, but 13 states, the District of Columbia and several hundred towns, cities and counties have such legal protections in place for public and private employees.
Wal-Mart's new policy reads in part: "We affirm our commitment and pledge our support to equal opportunity employment for all qualified persons, regardless of race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, disability or status as a veteran or sexual orientation."
You call yourself a libertarian and make an asinine statement like that?
Here is a story that contradicts it.
LOL!
One, according to our vet, is that it is a way male dogs attempt to establish dominance. The same reason a neutered male still attempts to hump another dog, it's the "alpha male" thing.
So believing in equal treatment under the law when it comes to employment and housing, for people who's sex lives we happen to disagree with...now makes us "moral anarchists"?
You've got to be kidding.
Don't preach to us about what it means to be conservative.
It's the gay obsessed moral hypocrites who want to police people's bedrooms who should be out of a job.
That's what Bill Clinton said.
Okay. Let's see if I have this right: Those who took exception to the Gay Rights Rally in Washington, DC in March of 1993 were trying to force themselves onto the homosexuals. Got it.
(And yes, we DO have a right to privacy - see Amendments 9 and 10.)
Strange, neither amendment says anything about a right to privacy, implied or outright. It was the Supreme Court, by coincidence, that created the "right to privacy," in Roe v Wade.
Extremist Gays were pushing their education agenda anyway. So they wouldn't have stopped if you HAD won the SC ruling. And just because they ARE pushing an Agenda is no moral right to deny them equal protection of the law.
I can't help but get the impression all of this begins and ends with homosexual sodomy as far as you are concerned. Is it correct to make that assumption?
Nonsense. No more than saying that all us straight men are child molestors because of a few Catholic priests. This is known as a 'red herring' - another logic flaw.
Have fun explaining away NAMBLA.
And you're now up in arms because gay people are daring to work to support themselves.
I never said that. If homosexuals wish to work, that's fine. But they don't have a right to work. They do not have the right to marry. They do not have the right to adopt. Nobody has that right. And yet, especially with the last two, that is what they want. So the idea of "equal rights" or "civil rights" is just a sham.
You have attempted to set up a strawman. Your silly statement has nothing to do with my pointing out that you implied gays are no more intelligent than dogs.
By the way, 'humping' among dogs is often an attempt to dominiate. If your dog is humping your leg, he is working at displacing you as the alpha. Get some dogs together and observe their behavior for awhile. Won't take long for you to see this.
Females will do it as well.
And because the only other people talking about it are these guys.
So you do so at your own peril.
You are trying to FORCE gays to not have sex in their own homes.
The word that intrigues me here is your use of the word "force" as in "by force of law."
I think if you split the world into two camps - gay supportive and anti-gay - and looked at the laws each is proposing, the gay supportive are the ones who are attempting to force everyone to do something. The Christians aren't the zealots who want government to control your life, the gays are.
Shalom.
Hehehe…You must have in the dorm hitting your bong when they were discussing Freudian Projection…but anyway. Do you accuse those who speak out against abortion, euthanasia, legalizing drugs, atheism, gambling, prostitution, moral relativism, the Liberaltarian social experiment, et al debilitating and otherwise negative affects to our society and culture as being “irrationally obsessive”??? Well do you punk? Of course you don’t. Why? Because you are a hypocrite!
But then again geniuses like you who’d rather pay more for their AA shot shells at the local gun shop or white socks at Nordstrom’s than shopping at Wal-Mart probably don’t have the capacity to comment on behavioral pathologies and their affect on society.
whattajoke is a perfect screen name for you.
He said “sexual relations”. Sex is coitus, the only thing those who pretend an anus is a vagina can reproduce are dirt babies. .
I am a strong conservative, but I do not agree with you. Of course if you think a boycott is justified, then go for it.
I've got co-workers who are gay. What do I do: refuse to talk with them? Associate? Some are better employees than some "straight-laced, religious" co-workers.
We're not talking about buying a militant, pro-gay marriage agenda here. We're talking about having a workplace where people can earn a living.
Not our Wal-Mart. It's clean, the employees are helpful...and I get the exact same brandname products sold in other stores, only at much lower prices.
I save at least $50-$60/month shopping at Wal-Mart.
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