Why Gays Must Work for Companies that Appreciate Us
By Andy Heath
I remember in the 90's when the Southern Baptist Convention staged a boycott on Disney because the company decided to begin granting employee benefits to gay and lesbian couples. I wish I could just take all the leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention and put them in a cage so I can keep them and laugh at them. I have always found such anti-Christian behavior among Christian leaders to be - in addition to ironic and deplorable - quite funny actually. The fact that the leaders of the largest Christian denomination in the country would engage themselves in such mean spirited behavior is - among other things - really quite funny. I wonder if Jesus was as mean as these people when he was living.
That said, I think it is very important that gays and lesbians work for such companies as Disney and others that have formal policies against our discrimination. The fact is that if a company does not have such a policy, then they are allowing the ugly head of discrimination to show its face in the workplace, and such companies do not deserve high quality employees such as many gays and lesbians are.
You might expect that I would recommend working for such companies because such would probably yield that our lives will be better. However, in addition to making our own lives better, I believe that working for such companies will make those companies better and even richer. Let me put it this way: Why would a gay or lesbian go to work for a bigot to make him or her rich when that bigot cares nothing about gays or lesbians and in fact might want to hurt us and take our rights away? It doesn’t make sense.
Let me say this - there is nothing inherently wrong with discrimination. Employers and indeed employees engage in discrimination all the time. For example, if I were to apply to be the Chancellor of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, the would not hire me - they would discriminate against me. Why? It's not that they hate gays - in fact they don't - but it's because I don't have Ph.D. I have never taught at a university. I don't have any experience in university administration. I don't even have the political connections necessary to qualify for such a position. This is discrimination, but it's not illegal discrimination or even unreasonable discrimination. There is nothing wrong with wanting to hire someone that is highly qualified to do a job. Because I am not qualified to be the Chancellor of Vanderbilt University, then they're not going to hire me. That's perfectly fine.
Discrimination becomes a problem when it is unreasonable, when it is non meritorious discrimination. I think we're all sophisticated enough to know that no one is qualified to do every job. Not every job applicant for any job is going to be highly qualified. And not every job applicant is going to be the best. That is the nature of life. But when a company - any company - engages in non meritorious discrimination to promote political and religious agendas that have nothing to do with that company but instead with the personal beliefs of a hiring manager, then that company has diminished its creditability whether its personnel wants to believe it or not. It's true. And such companies don't deserve to be able to hire you and me. I'll go apply at companies that accept gay people, thanks so much. HCA, the military, and other companies and organizations that openly discriminate for reasons other than merit can hire someone else, and I hope they're very happy with the employees that they hire. But not only will I not accept a job with them (which they are fine with), I will not apply with them (which they are also fine with) and I have will absolutely nothing positive to say about them. Let me say this again so there is no confusion or misunderstanding as to what my humble opinion is: Companies whose personnel engage in non-meritorious discrimination are inferior companies. There is nothing we can do to deny or change this. There is not point is trying to say that it's not true because it is. I cannot apologize for speaking the truth. If it makes Bill Frist angry that I say HCA is an inferior, low quality company with inferior, low quality managers and employees, then so be it. I don't think Bill Frist and I are going to miss each other's help anyway.
No thank you, I choose to go to work for companies where I feel a connection with the personnel, companies whose personnel and managers accept me for who I am - a competent and professional person that can do my work well and make an extraordinary contribution regardless of my homosexuality. I have met plenty of low quality, inferior people in my life, and at this point, I don't need to meet or work with anymore. If a company discriminates against gay people, I have no desire to work for them. For what it's worth, whether you're gay or straight, I would strongly discourage you from working for such companies either.
