This last Pride month, a site called Popular Information revealed that at least nine American corporation were donating millions to anti-LGBTQ candidates while receiving a perfect 100 score on the Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC) Corporate Equality Index ranking the “Best Places to Work for LGBTQ Equality.”
Now there’s a recently unveiled campaign called “Zero for Zeros” which is revealing these companies and asking them to stop their harmful donations.
These companies include many that you probably use every day like Amazon, AT&T, American Airlines, Best Buy, Chevron, Coca-Cola, Dell, Facebook, General Mills, Google, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, Mastercard, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Pfizer, T-Mobile, UPS, Visa and Whirlpool. But the campaign’s first-wave is focusing on just 12 companies.
The campaign is asking companies to stop giving to members of Congress who’ve received a 0 percent rating from the HRC’s Congressional Scorecard over the last two congressional sessions.
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“They’ve been given many opportunities to show a minimal level of support for the LGBT community and have rejected those opportunities at every step of the way,” writes Longtime LGBTQ activist and Zero for Zeros’ campaign manager Lane Hudson to the CEOs. “Their actions and the values that they represent are completely out of step with your company’s support for the LGBT community.”
Related: This gay student’s family is fighting a major corporation over a suspected gaybashing
In a statement, Husdon said, “These companies are some of the most well-known companies throughout the world and they support LGBT equality in many ways. Their political contributions to the most anti-gay members of Congress do not reflect the values they have expressed to their employees and the public.”
Even if corporations slap on a rainbow logo and call themselves “allies,” many may give to anti-LGBTQ politicians because of their policies benefitting corporations.
Zero for Zeros is asking people to join its Facebook group as it works to defund anti-LGBTQ politicians.
notasjw
Hypocrisy from the radical left? I am shocked, shocked I tell you! Lol!
Cam
Notice the definition of “Radical Left” for these accounts means “Anybody who doesn’t think LGBT people should be discriminated against”?
Polaro
Radical left? No, just decency.
andyinchicago
You know why this won’t work? Because if you’re asking people to send a message to Facebook and then asking them to join a Facebook page, you don’t get it. Even by their own standards, any queer who’s on Facebook is part of the problem.
Cam
Awwww, the anti-LGBT troll accounts are here to attack the idea of pointing out companies that are supporting bigotry.
They should be terrified. The boycotts we’e put in place have been effective. Meanwhile the boycotts tried by the right wing bigots against companies like Disney and NIKE have failed miserably.
What this REALLY points out is how easily bought HRC and GLAAD are these days.
Kangol2
Nike stocks are up and have been since the failed right-wing boycott.
JaredMacBride
These companies aren’t “supporting bigotry.” They’re investing money in achieving the kind of legislation which will make them more profitable. This is what corporations do. Don’t make more of it.
Cam
Except this is a lie. You don’t get to fund somebody running for office and then claim you don’t have anything to do with laws they push when their policies were well known to you when you donated.
These politicians were openly anti-LGBT bigots. Google donated, they don’t get to run from that.
Polaro
Ban corporations from donating at all.
Cam
Exactly.
Rex Huskey
agree to that and dumbston from the site too.
mykelb
All day, every day until the end of the Republic.
SFHandyman
Great idea but I don’t do Facebook.
RickMan2x
Ain’t it the truth, Andy. It is maximum frustration that many in the community knee-jerk use Facebook for organization communication, obviously selling out values in exchange for reach and “efficiency” supporting privacy rape and heaven only knows what other plunder of values. Disappointing. In this case for instance, I’d love to get involved in this much needed campaign but I absolutely do not a thing with Facebook. Big PRAISE to Zero for Zeros campaign founders who are challenging this outrageous betrayal and contradiction by firms having a 100% support score from HRC, all the while blatantly putting a shiv in our back doling out funds (some of which came from OUR patronage) to our WORST enemies! Lastly, talk about an “Elephant In The Room.” What the heck is going on at our HRC to be annually bestowing praise on these companies over many years while their obvious betrayal sits there on the public record?! Duh! HRC doesn’t have adequate resources from millions of dollars in donations to do any better job than that as our community’s watch dog? Instead ONE UNPAID “civilian reporter” named Judd Legum manages to research, discover and publish this in his free broad-scope newsletter? And this outrage for a LONG time has been right under HRC’s nose?! Sounds to me like the HRC board needs to be taking a closer look at management’s pitiful decisions about use of resources. Wonder what additional malpractice is going on at HRC, right under our nose?