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Wal-Mart, Focus on the Family Spar Over Homosexuality
CNSNews.com ^ | 7/07/03 | Jeff Johnson

Posted on 07/07/2003 7:37:43 AM PDT by kattracks

Capitol Hill (CNSNews.com) - One of the country's largest pro-family ministries is taking the nation's largest retailer to task for equating homosexuality with immutable characteristics such as race and gender. Focus on the Family said Wednesday that it is "profoundly disappointed" that Wal-Mart will also force its more than one million employees to undergo so-called "sensitivity training."

Wal-Mart spokesman Tom Williams told CNSNews.com Thursday that the company has, in fact, added "sexual orientation" to the list of protected classes in its equal employment opportunity and non-discrimination policies.

"We felt it was the right thing to do at this time for our employees," he said. "We want everyone who works for Wal-Mart in the states - that's 1.1 million people - to feel that they are valued and that they are treated with respect, no exceptions at all."

Williams said the move also "makes a lot of sense" from a business standpoint.

"Our continued growth requires us to be one of the more desirable employers around," he said. "We think that clearly stating our policy of respect and protection for everyone regardless of 'sexual orientation' will help us compete for talented employees who otherwise might not feel comfortable coming with us."

Focus on the Family says Wal-Mart's action 'is a profound betrayal'

Dr. Bill Maier, vice president and psychologist in residence at Focus on the Family, said the "right thing to do" would have been for Wal-Mart to consider the values of the overwhelming majority of its shoppers and employees.

"Singling people out for their differences is a profound betrayal of Dr. Martin Luther King's dream, and that is exactly what Wal-Mart's policy does," Maier said in a press release.

"Focus on the Family shares Wal-Mart's commitment to treating all people with dignity and respect, but this sensitivity training offends the values of the vast majority of Wal-Mart's associates and customers," he said.

While Wal-Mart said its decision was based on fairness and good business, homosexual activists are claiming credit for pressuring the company to make the change.

"Wal-Mart's decision is in response to nearly two years of discussion between the company and the Equality Project partners," said a press release from the Pride Foundation, one of the partners in the effort.

The "Equality Project" is a coalition of pro-homosexual investment groups that use their claimed $100 billion in capital to influence companies to give special employment status based on a worker's claimed homosexuality, just as federal law requires employers to do for immutable characteristics such as race, gender, age and disability.

"This change helps ensure that Wal-Mart's gay and lesbian employees will be judged on their merits, not on their sexual orientation," claimed Zack Wright, a spokesman for the Pride Foundation.

"The inclusion of sexual orientation in Wal-Mart's nondiscrimination policy is the only example of fair treatment for gays and lesbians that some people will ever see, particularly in rural, more conservative areas," Wright continued, taking a swipe at the largest segment of Wal-Mart's customer base.

Groups already pushing for even greater concessions

But even as the activist groups were praising the company for agreeing to their demands, they were hinting at expectations of further concessions.

"Wal-Mart's recognition of sexual orientation is an important first step toward equality," said Marsha Botzer, a member of the Pride Foundation board. "I look forward to continuing our discussion and eagerly anticipate the day when they will also include gender identity in their non-discrimination policies."

"Gender identity" is the umbrella phrase used by liberal activists to refer to individuals choosing to identify themselves as members of the opposite sex. Individuals who dress or have surgery to change the appearance of their bodies to that of the opposite sex are said to be "expressing their gender identity."

Stephen Crampton of the American Family Association (AFA) warned that Wal-Mart can expect more demands from homosexual activists in the future, now that they have proven unwilling to stand up for traditional morality.

"Just as Neville Chamberlain gave in to Nazi Germany's outrageous demands, so Wal-Mart has capitulated to the radical homosexual agenda," Crampton said.

The AFA believes the next step for homosexual activists will be pressuring Wal-Mart to extend health benefits to same-sex partners of employees, followed by corporate recognition and support of homosexual clubs and public events like "gay pride" parades.

Wal-Mart officials acknowledged that a computer-based non-discrimination training program for all employees would include discussion of "sexual orientation." The change to the policy will have no effect on employee's eligibility for benefits.

The company does not offer insurance or other benefits to sex partners of unmarried employees, whether heterosexual or homosexual.

'Sensitivity' or 'diversity training' used to further homosexual agenda

As CNSNews.com previously reported, groups that monitor anti-discrimination policies believe homosexual activists are using mandatory workshops and diversity training programs to advance their agenda throughout corporate America.

"Diversity training is becoming mandatory catechism class for the church of the politically correct," said Jordan Lorence, an attorney and senior vice president for the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative public policy group based in Arizona.

Lorence said that, until recently, homosexual activists have been willing to tolerate others who disagree with but do not publicly protest their sexual behavior choices.

"But what is happening now is that we're seeing a subtle but radical transformation of that traditional norm, and the vehicle in which this change is coming is diversity training by employers, either public or private," he said.

"I don't want to minimize racial tensions or sexual harassment," he added. "Those can be handled by seminars or training to be respectful of people's differences, but not compelling a uniformity of thought."

See Earlier Story:
Wal-Mart Includes Homosexuals in Anti-Discrimination Policy
(July 2, 2003)

E-mail a news tip to Jeff Johnson.

Send a Letter to the Editor about this article.




TOPICS: Culture/Society; Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: afa; focusonthefamily; fof; homosexualagenda; jamesdobson; profamily; walmart
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Comment #81 Removed by Moderator

To: mrfixit514; DAnconia55; gcruse
>>But I don't want my government and society sanctioning a practice for which God destroyed 2 cities. <<

Same here.
82 posted on 07/08/2003 8:51:31 AM PDT by SerpentDove ((optional, printed after your name on post):)
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To: FastEddy; Dataman
the gay culture of death and disease Where do you get this stuff, The Gay Hater's Handbook?

Dataman, naughty, naughty, naughty! You didn't read your daily lesson from The Gay Lover's Handbook. Page 14 reads: "The Gay culture embraces life and health and dandelions and roses and anything else that is natural; for we all know anal sex is natural...We all know those fundies who believe that sex is only for procreation and believe that certain anatomical parts were only created for certain functions...we know better...we've evolved." And also the excerpt found on p. 59: "Anyone can catch AIDS, including virgins. It is an equal opportunity disease. So the next time a gay friend dies from AIDs, remind your hetero associates that they, too, should be beware, lest they fall."

83 posted on 07/08/2003 8:53:31 AM PDT by Colofornian
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To: SerpentDove
Who said anything about sanctioning the practice? The purpose of the constitution is to limit what government power may be brought to bear on us. Getting the state to stop throwing consenting adults in jail for what they do in private is not sanctioning. It is putting government back into its box.
84 posted on 07/08/2003 9:57:20 AM PDT by gcruse (There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women[.] --Margaret Thatcher)
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Comment #85 Removed by Moderator

To: FastEddy; Colofornian
Where do you get this stuff, The Gay Hater's Handbook?

heteros that smoke and drink live longer than homos

Do your own search. A google search on "average homosexual lifespan" will give you dozens of links, some of them openly homo, that give a lifespan as low as 30 years. Where have you been?

86 posted on 07/08/2003 10:12:23 AM PDT by Dataman
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To: Jimbaugh
those who supported them will be burned in the same ash heap with idea that homosexuality is normal.

Nah, that's not going to happen except in the Taliban's wettest dreams. You know it and I know it, but experience shows that those who rail against homos most stridently are those with the most to closet hide.

87 posted on 07/08/2003 11:40:41 AM PDT by Jim Cane
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Comment #88 Removed by Moderator

Comment #89 Removed by Moderator

To: FastEddy
Which group do you think contributes more to the annual cost of health care in the States: gays or smokers/drinkers?

If you think there is some kind of moral equivalence between lighting a cigarette and homosexual perversion, good luck on changing minds.

90 posted on 07/08/2003 1:49:02 PM PDT by Dataman
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To: FastEddy
However, there are those experts who believe gays may actually have a longer life expectancy because on average they are more educated and make a higher income than heterosexuals. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hahahahaha! That must mean that fascination with fecal matter is a pursuit of the more educated elite! Homos live longer???? Gays are happy, healthy, educated people?


91 posted on 07/08/2003 1:58:14 PM PDT by Dataman
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Comment #92 Removed by Moderator

To: FastEddy
However, there are those experts who believe gays may actually have a longer life expectancy because on average they are more educated and make a higher income than heterosexuals.

I would think that the considerably higher rate of HIV infection among gay men would tend to produce a lower life expectancy (and much higher medical costs)

93 posted on 07/08/2003 2:04:16 PM PDT by SauronOfMordor (Java/C++/Unix/Web Developer looking for next gig)
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Comment #94 Removed by Moderator

To: FastEddy
Which group do you think contributes more to the annual cost of health care in the States: gays or smokers/drinkers?

An answer would have to take into account the relative percentage of each in the population.

On the website of "GLID, the Gay and Lesbian Independent Democrats", we have:

Young gay and bisexual men are not absorbing by the HIV prevention messages they have grown up hearing. In a survey of men between the ages of 15 and 22 in seven major metropolitan areas, 12% were found to be HIV positive and in New York, the percentage of HIV+ young people was over 12%, the highest of any of the cities studied. For young black men who have sex with men, the data was especially grim: 16 % were found to be HIV+ and 91% were unaware of their HIV status. The New York City Department of Health estimates that a third of black men under thirty are HIV+
(In the above they are talking about gay men, not all men)

HIV+ status means a BIG health-care cost hit

95 posted on 07/08/2003 2:15:01 PM PDT by SauronOfMordor (Java/C++/Unix/Web Developer looking for next gig)
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Comment #96 Removed by Moderator

To: ICX
It should be a non issue.

it should be, but it's not.
news flash: gays did not become a protected class by having a long history of NOT being persecuted.

97 posted on 07/08/2003 2:54:46 PM PDT by jethropalerobber
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Comment #98 Removed by Moderator

To: FastEddy
It would depend on his company's insurance plan and the percentage of gays in his company. If the insurance company bases premiums on payout history (which many do) or his company mostly self-insures for the first $N of yearly costs (which many companies do), then the health history of people at his company would have a direct and immediate impact on his insurance premiums.

One reason why companies are so reluctant to hire men over 45 is that middle-aged men get medical problems (like heart attacks, strokes, cancer) at a higher rate than younger men, and the insurance companies take the age-makeup of the company into account for that reason. If the insurance companies can take into account things like age, sex, and smoking history, then sexual preference should be a valid factor as well

99 posted on 07/08/2003 5:58:35 PM PDT by SauronOfMordor (Java/C++/Unix/Web Developer looking for next gig)
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To: Colofornian
"Anyone who can't make their case without alluding to Nazism doesn't have a case to make. They're peddling hysteria."

Translation: I, Grand Wizard of All Rhetoric (GWAR), Past & Future, hereby decree that ALL allusions, references, parallels, history lessons, character lessons, to Nazism are banned from public discourse (apriori), lest you incur my hype that you are a hypester.

But oh great GWAR One, isn't that a form of censorship--a form of encouraging prior restraint of certain expressions?

So be it. Let it be written. Let it be.

What an odd response.

All the poster was saying is that those who need to shriek "Nazi!" at those they disagree with pretty much discredit themselves by making such such wild and hysterical accusations.

Anyone who has real arguments wouldn't need to resort to such foolishness.

And you're claim that this response has anything to do with censorship makes no sense at all.

100 posted on 07/08/2003 6:14:19 PM PDT by Jorge
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