That’s right folks! The company once headed by VP Dick Cheney has rewritten three policies to protect the ‘mos from harassment and discrimination!!
Before we get the party started, we’ll let super sappho-journo Kerry Eleveld of The New York Blade dispense the earth-shatteringly straight-forward details:
In a little noticed move last month, Halliburton amended three of its corporate governance policies to protect gays and lesbians from being discriminated against, harassed, or fired simply on the basis of their sexual orientation.
The move came in response to a shareholder resolution filed by the Boston-based investment firm Trillium Asset Management Corporation on behalf of its clients who own Halliburton stock.
So, why all the excitement? Because just law year the company squashed a similar Trillium-endorsed resolution with an SEC-backed technicality. This year they passed it in a matter of days. An early baby present to Mary Cheney, perhaps?
Of last years vote, Trillium VP Shelley Alpern tells Eleveld:
Halliburton was able to have the SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission] give it permission to basically exclude it [from a vote]… It was a technicality. We put the wrong date on one of the documents.
As mentioned above, the company approved the measure after a few days. Obviously Halliburton really felt the issue… Psyche!
How about we take this to the next level?
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Here’s their chilly statement:
Halliburton is committed to creating a workforce that reflects the diverse population of the communities in which the company operates, as well as to providing equal employment opportunity to all qualified individuals both in the company’s hiring and promotional practices.
Yeah, we really believe you. We’re sure it has nothing to do with former Halliburton CEO and current Vice-President Dick Cheney or his pregnant lesbian daughter, Mary Cheney.
It seems to us that Halliburton hoped to eschew a scandal. That’s far more plausible than some miraculous turn around, don’t you think? Eleveld reports that when queer policies go to shareholder vote, they usually get about 20-30% approval – which is Alpern describes as an “extremely respectable” percentage for socially-aware issues such as discrimination mandates. Had corporate allowed a vote to happen and fought it, they would have made major headlines. People would bark left and right about how Cheney used to run the company and how it’s so evil and hateful and this and that and oy! it’s giving us a headache just thinking about it.
But, by pushing it through without a vote, then, they hoped to sweep it under the carpet and move on with as little fan fair as possible. Shareholders would be happy, the press wouldn’t know a thing and the company could focus on more important scandals: like inflated Iraq War contracts.
That’s just our opinion, though. You gotta admit, it’s far more plausible than some miraculous sea change.
Chris Holden
You can’t satirize this stuff!
Nor, I suppose, should I. Now, if we could clone Mary Cheney,
farm her out to company after company.
Alas
toni
thats cool that dick cheney is standing up for his darling daughter, mary…..after all she has been with her gurlfriend heather poe for 15 yrs, and we just found out 3 yrs ago that she is gay? its funny how the tables turn when a republicans kidd is gay and how fast laws can change!! republicans are living in the dark ages, of when disabled folks were hiding away from the world, just like they are about gays in this world! its time to wake up and stand up for all gays , not just cheneys little gurl! my gurl friends parents are republicans too….am i lucky or not? well lets put it this way….my gurlfriends sister is getting married and her parents are going all out….do you suppose if we were getting married that we would get the same treatment?? i dont think so , as we have been together longer than her straight sister. so my hat goes off to the cheneys for excepting mary is gay and excepting heather into there lives as mary’s life long partner….we didnt choose this life it chose us!!