Few major corporations have a better track record when it comes to internal LGBT policy than Procter & Gamble, and now the consumer product giant has evolved one step further. They’ve publicly embraced same-sex marriage, and in doing so, have set the bar even higher for profit-conscious corporate America.
“We have always supported our employees and fostered a culture of inclusion and respect – this includes the right to marry whomever they choose and to have that union legally recognized,” said Deborah P. Majoras, P&G’s chief legal officer and executive sponsor to GABLE – the company’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender-allied employee group.
The company weighed potential losses from angry customer fallout and decided the reward of supporting their LGBT employees and LGBT people everywhere outweighed any potential risk.
Their decision reflects an impressive history of inclusion within the company.
22 years ago in 1992, P&G first introduced anti-discrimination language into their equal employment opportunity clause. In 2001 they began offering full benefits to domestic partners, and in 2010 decided to include transgender transition benefits in their health package.
They’ve proven that the market can (and should) evolve alongside the rest of society. Meanwhile they continue to focus on their products, and with brands like Tide, Bounty, NyQuil and Crest, it’s hard to imagine sales slowing down by showing the LGBT community support.
PARKAVMAN
In your face NOM.
Desert Boy
This is great news because I use Tide, Crest and Olay.
Greg Garavani
Proctor and Gamble may have great views on human rights but their views on animal rights/animal testing is very archaic. I will continue to boycott their products till they drop animal testing.
Blackceo
@Greg Garavani:
Dammit. I was just about to write down all their products. I already use some of them from what I can see but I didn’t know that about animal testing. I cut out buying all products associated with the Koch Brothers. Guess I gotta do some more research.
vive
I wish we can stop giving blowjobs to companies based on the single issue of whether they like us.
P&G has been a MAJOR contributor to the wholesale destruction of the Indonesian rainforests, which are burnt down to make way for palm oil plantations. Palm oil sourced from Indonesia is an ingredient in many of their products. They are playing lukewarm lip service to conservation now that most of the rainforest has already been lost, leading to both major loss of habitat (goodbye orang-utans) and enormous additions to atmospheric carbon.
Dave in Northridge
I’m with Blackceo. I use P&G’s paper products because I’m sure they aren’t part of the Koch Bros. stable. Also, if there’s anything better at removing Crisco from skin than Dawn, I’d like to know what it is. Nobody is pure in American industry, so why not support the companies that support us?
1EqualityUSA
Koch Bros. toilet paper would likely leave dingle-berries the size of almonds, based on their political leanings. They do do anything cleanly.
rhino79
My father worked for Procter and Gamble for over thirty years. PG is an ethical and well-respected company. Unfortunately, it has been the whipping boy for uninformed and mindless tree-hugger types for decades. The “PG tests on animals” canard is untrue and has been for a while.
@Greg Garavani: PG’s view on animal testing: “Our goal is to stop animal testing completely. We are fully committed and passionate about our goal and believe the only way to stop animal testing is to develop alternatives. Alternatives help us to innovate more ethically and tend to be cheaper and more effective means to assess ingredient safety. We are proud of the work that we have led in finding alternatives. We have developed more than 50 non-animal testing methods and invested more than $330 million in research and development in finding these alternatives.” How is this archaic?
@vive: Here is a link to PG’s sustainability policies and practices regarding palm oil. This is not “lukewarm lip service.” This is a clear commitment to only using palm oil from sustainable sources.
Harley
Boy, once NOM calls for a boycott of all P&G products they are going to be born again Amish.
Billysees
Tide and Crest are the best.
vive
@rhino79, it is easy to pay lip-service to sustainable sources now after profiting from large scale environmental destruction for decades, when the “sustainable” plantations that exist now are precisely the sources that have REPLACED the rainforests that PG was complicit in irreversibly destroying in the first place.
@Dave in Northridge: “I’d like to know what it is. Nobody is pure in American industry, so why not support the companies that support us?”
Can you explain why we as gay people should support a company that has been profiteering from widespread human rights violations in places like Indonesia? It seems extremely selfish.