A Professional Diversity Trainer Speaks Out (Letter to the Editor)

“I read with great interest the article that appeared on Aug. 2 as concerned diversity training, specifically that around sexual orientation. (‘Corporate Diversity Training a Cover for Homosexual Activism, Critics Say, August 2)

It never ceases to amaze me how people of your particular political or so-called ‘moral’ background pick and choose the information you print to suit your purposes.

I'm the person who developed the sexual orientation education program for American Express Financial Services four years ago. Currently, that program is under consideration for a wider implementation across American Express, and judging from your article, they should really hurry those plans along.

People like you continue to seek to demonize people like me solely on the basis of sexual orientation, or to use your terminology, the ‘homosexuals.’

Sexual orientation diversity training considers in full all four orientations; for instance you, as the heterosexual that I'm sure you are (or insist upon being) are given as much due in so far as how your orientation affects the person you are at work as a person who is gay, bisexual or asexual.

Those are the four orientations, by the way. That lesson was free, not that I expect you'll ever learn anything.

As for Motorola, they do not currently nor have they in over eight years had a mandatory Homophobia in the Workplace program. But they're thinking about it too, so you and your Neanderthal friends should start spinning the dial and sending those emails to Motorola to protest their inclusiveness.

This will depress you further: there are more than 5,000 organizations in the U.S. with fully inclusive employee benefits programs. They're not only helping to send our kids to school, they're helping to keep our kids healthy.

And as for there being less kids in gay households, better crack the books again, sir. The fastest growing family unit in the U.S. (is) gay people choosing children and our families are growing at the exorbitant rate of over 400% per state per year. Our ‘divorce’ rate is a tenth of what yours is, and our children almost never end up on the streets, rejected by their ‘Christian’ families for being who they are.

Do I sound angry? That's only because I am. Your article implies a better than average income for gay people or households. Not only is that sort of garbage an unwelcome reminder of Germany circa 1939, it's also been disprove(d) time and again. But an accurate reflection of income based on orientation would not suit your purposes, would it?

In the last year, my business has expanded to include working with religious affinity groups at workplaces from all over the U.S. who want to know how they might better build bridges to the GLBT affinity groups (if you don't know what GLBT stands for, find out. You could do with some research practice anyway).

I have been heartened and encouraged by the willingness of people on both sides of this ‘issue’ to try and find common ground. They are too.

What continues to make all this an issue is the destructive rhetoric of people like you who don't know what they are talking about or worse, who do know exactly what they are talking about to the extent that they can manipulate the facts to suit their own disturbed agendas.

If you would direct the energy that you waste trying to wipe people like me out on issues like illiteracy and teen pregnancy and undernourished children in this country alone, you might actually do some good.

The writer is president of Common Ground, an education/consulting firm specializing in workplace diversity education and consulting on a range of non-traditional diversity topics.

This is an interesting paragraph. I have a few questions about it.

"Sexual orientation diversity training ..."

Does this mean that they are training people how to be diverse in their sexual orientation? Are they training people that sexual orientations are diverse? The phrase is one of those PC things that means nothing at all, probably to hide the real purpose.

"... considers in full all four orientations; ..."

Whoo boy. What does it mean to consider them "in full?" I'm not sure I even want to go there. Do they bring up examples of all four like freaks in a sideshow? Do they consider the kinds of sexual behaviors of all four in the workshops? That would fill the class, but I would hardly imagine it enhances productivity. Sounds like someone is really trying to make money off their fetish. Is this really more profitable than producing porno movies?

"...for instance you, as the heterosexual that I'm sure you are (or insist upon being)..."

Don't get your girdle all twisted, dearie. Are you saying that heterosexuality is a choice? I thought you degenerates were trying to claim to be congenitally degenerate.

I'll have to remember that one - congenitally degenerate - it has a nice ring to it.

"...are given as much due in so far as how your orientation affects the person you are at work..."

So we're given our due, are we? That's nice of you, dearie. You haven't been putting that girdle around your neck and cutting off the flow of oxygen to your brain, have you?

I think it would be wise to keep a few heterosexuals around if for no other reason than to keep breeding the human race. Forgot about that, did you? Like where would all the baby queers come from if nobodoy "insisted upon being" heterosexual?

"...as a person who is gay, bisexual or asexual."

Ohhh - now our sexual perversions are affecting our work? I thought this was an issue of what people do in the privacy of their own homes. I thought queers were just normal people except when poking body parts into the wrong holes. I thought you couldn't tell unless they decided to tell you. Now you're telling me that sexual perversion comes into the workplace? How?

Take that back. I don't want to know how.

One final thought, dearie. An orientation is something that is easily changed. You're facing north? Face south. You like duck? Does that mean you can't eat chicken? You like to shoot yourself in the foot? That's obvious, actually, but you could put down the d*** gun.

Not only does "Sexual orientation perversity training" not belong in the workforce, neither do you, dearie. Do I sound belittling? Maybe it's because I never knew you could make money peddling lunacy and I didn't think of it first.

Shalom.

I have a problem with the logic in this letter. The statement "all four orientations" clearly indicates that in the authors mind, this is the limit of normal human behavior. To someone who feels that animals or children are "normal" this argument would seem as judgmental and restrictive as the argument the author is complaining about.

Clearly it's a circumstance of someone who is argue from a pre-defined position, and has no facts to back that up. even the statistics quoted are obviously manipulated and fraught with inaccuracy.

BTW, I'm not advocating sex with children or animals, (I find both abhorrent) I'm just pointing out a few of the more obvious logical problems with the argument.

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