REALity Volume XXXV Issue No. 8 August 2016
Homosexual activists in the US are organized under the umbrella of a wealthy, ruthless organization called the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). It had a budget in 2014 of approximately $38.5 million. This organization is not lily white, for sure. For example, its co-founder and board member is real estate mogul, Terrence Bean, of Portland, Oregon, who was charged in November, 2014 with sodomy and sexual abuse of a minor. The minor, however, mysteriously disappeared so that the State Attorney General was unable to proceed with the charges. What a coincidence!
The HRC pushes its agenda by way of intimidation and fear. For example, the HRC declared the pro-family organization, World Congress of Families (WCF), a “hate” organization, and attempted to shut its conference down in Salt Lake City last October. It did so by publishing discriminatory and false stories in the media, and threatening the hotel where the conference was to be held. However, HRC failed spectacularly in this effort.
HRC has organized hundreds of corporations and others (corporate wild dogs) in the US to target any organization, individual or government that does not cater to LGBT demands. The HRC has established a cabal of some 407 US corporations across many industries, to carry out its directives. When HRC wants to intimidate, it sics its corporate hounds (instructing them) to “go get the non-compliant”. The corporations obediently become a pack of wild, braying dogs, attacking the chosen prey by threatening economic reprisals.
A recent example of this occurred when the state of North Carolina passed a law providing that public washrooms may be used only according to the person’s biological sex at birth. This did not please HRC. A number of companies, such as Apple, Salesforce and Wells Fargo, immediately threatened to withdraw their business from the state. A spokesman for American Airlines, which employs 14,000 North Carolinians, was quoted in the Washington Post as stating that the bill “was bad for the economy”. PayPal abandoned a planned office in that state that would have employed 400 people. According to HRC, more than 120 major CEO’s and business leaders have urged North Carolina to repeal its allegedly discriminatory law. Entertainer Bruce Springsteen cancelled his concert in that state. Springsteen apparently believes that he is entitled to his own opinion, but that the state legislature, which consists of elected representatives, should not be allowed the same right. The National Basketball Association (NBA), threatened to pull the 2017 All-Star Game from Charlotte, North Carolina, if the state’s bathroom privacy law was not withdrawn. The Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, ordered all government travel to North Carolina to be banned because of its bathroom bill.
This pressure makes clear that the politically correct corporations and individuals have no interest in a live-and-let-live policy and couldn’t care less about letting grown men use the restrooms of women and girls. In effect, the corporate leaders are stating that one’s religious faith and personal beliefs must be subordinate to the LGBT agenda.
The Hypocrisy of the Corporations
The hypocrisy of the corporations acceding to the demands of HRC is stunning. While they (corporate wild dogs) attack US legislators and others, on the homosexual issue, they, at the same time, are doing business in countries like China, Cuba, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Singapore – countries that not only criminalize homosexual behaviour, but even, in some cases, make it punishable by death. Some examples include:
PayPal, which publicly cancelled its plans to build a new operation centre in North Carolina, has established its international headquarters in Singapore, where gay sex is punishable by two years in prison; Unilever, a multinational corporation that has earned top marks from HRC, has production facilities in countries such as Tunisia and Algeria, where homosexual activity is illegal; Microsoft has operations within China, which is notorious for its totalitarian anti-human rights policies; Intel has partnered with the Vietnamese Government to develop “digital inclusion programs”. Vietnam is a one party communist state that “bans all independent political parties, labour unions and human rights organizations”, Apple also outsources its work to China.
The height of lunacy in this bathroom debate occurred when a newspaper, in North Carolina, The Charlotte Observer, published an editorial on May 13, 2016 in which it stated that “Girls must overcome ‘discomfort of seeing male genitalia’ in locker rooms” because this is a battle for “equality”. That should make the young girls feel better!
In most jurisdictions, including North Carolina, it is a crime to expose oneself in a public place. The Charlotte Observer, however, states that public restrooms are different from all other public places. One needs only a shred of sanity to grasp the idea that it’s the sight of male genitalia which is the problem to women, not where the exposure happens. Opening women’s washrooms to the transgendered also opens the door to non-transgendered sexual perverts, who need only to claim to be transgendered in order to gain entry. There are too many unfortunate examples where this has occurred.
To allow men into women’s bathrooms is political correctness carried to the extreme. However, the politically correct elite, consisting of the left-wing media, homosexual activists and others, expect us to dispense with our common sense about the transgendered who need only to feel that their sex is different from their biology to use the bathroom of the opposite sex. It is complete lunacy to go along with this absurd notion especially when there is absolutely no scientific basis to support transgenderism. It is a mental illness that should be treated, not embraced.
Corporate Changing Norms
It is striking that these corporations, working under the thumb of the HRC, used to operate under norms that avoided politics and religion. Why are the corporations now concerned about the politically correct “social justice” issues that never seemed to bother them previously? These corporations have thousands of employees of which only a tiny minority are LGBT, so this does not seem to be the cause of this change. It might be a genuine belief by the corporations in the alleged rights of LGBT individuals, but this is doubtful. Rather, it may be that in the current culture, corporations are being forced to become involved in LGBT politics because the failure to openly support key portions of the LGBT agenda would result in disciplinary action against them by the HRC. That is, the corporations find it easier to just go along and conform to the bizarre policies of HRC. Also it is possible that these companies thought that they would get a short-term gain in the liberal press and wouldn’t be called out for it if they joined the gang from other corporations.
While citizen led boycotts are a respected form of social activism, the corporate-led boycotts using economic coercion, are a direct attack on democracy. Unelected corporations are accountable only to their shareholders, and should not be determining whether a law stands or falls. That is, in a democracy, legislatures should be responsive to the people who vote them in, and not to the demands of corporations. The economic pressures of the corporations clearly show that the democratic vote at present is secondary to corporate dollars.
How Will This End?
This weird situation, whereby corporations, as directed by HRC, are placing pressure on state legislatures and others to comply with its demands, will only stop when the recipients of this pressure resist them. North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory has done just that by refusing to be intimidated. His sensible bathroom bill remains in place. Some 32 states have also passed Religious Freedom Acts which protect the religious core values of businesses. They cannot be coerced into participating in same-sex marriage contrary to their standpoint.
The Wall Street Journal has warned big business corporations in April, 2016 of their short sightedness in protecting homosexual rights. It stated:
If corporations want the benefits of a business-friendly environment, with lower taxes and less regulation, they would do well to recognize who enacts such policies: people with center-right social values, not the hard Left.
The reality is that those corporations jumping to the demands of the special interest group of homosexual activists will eventually experience a less than profitable bottom line.
For example, the corporation Target, headquartered in Minneapolis, which is the second largest discount retailer in the US, has adopted a policy which allows members of one biological sex to use the bathrooms and fitting rooms of the opposite sex in all its stores nationwide. (Thankfully Target no longer operates in Canada). This questionable policy has led the pro-family group, American Family Association (AFA), to call for a boycott of Target stores: 1.3 million people have now signed a pledge to boycott Target stores. As a result, Target Corporation stock has declined by over 20% since it announced its bathroom policy in April, 2016. This loss has decreased roughly $10 billion from the overall shareholder value of the company.