BOYCOTT WAL-MART OVER GAY AGENDA FOR 4TH OF JULY HOLIDAY FREEP KAREN BURKE 1-479-273-4314

FREE REPUBLIC ^ | July 2, 2003 | the eagle has landed

[TheEaglehasLanded]

Wal-Mart Announces New Gay Policy Wednesday, 2 July 2003

SEATTLE -- Wal-Mart Stores, the nation's largest private employer, has broadened its corporate anti-bias policy to include gay and lesbian workers, the company announced Tuesday.

Wal-Mart spokeswoman Mona Williams said that the company implemented the changes because "It's the right thing to do for our employees. We want all of our associates to feel they are valued and treated with respect — no exceptions."

The decision was disclosed by a Seattle gay rights foundation that had invested in Wal-Mart and then lobbied the company for two years to make its discrimination policies more inclusive.

A spokeswoman told The New York Times on Tuesday that Wal-Mart had already sent out letters Tuesday to its 3,500 stores, after which store managers would explain the change to its 1.5 million employees.

Along with prodding from groups, such as the Pride Foundation, the spokeswoman said several gay employees wrote senior management about six weeks ago to say they would "continue to feel excluded" unless Wal-Mart changed its policies.

With the change announced by Wal-Mart this week, 9 of the 10 largest Fortune 500 companies now have rules barring discrimination against gay employees, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

Activists will now press for DP health benefits.

The exception is the Exxon Mobil Corporation, which was created in 1999 after Exxon acquired Mobil, and then revoked a Mobil policy that provided medical benefits to partners of gay employees, as well as a policy that included sexual orientation as a category of prohibited discrimination.

Wal-Mart said it currently had no plans to extend medical benefits to domestic partners.

Though no one directly linked the company decision to the Thursday's Supreme Court ruling against the country's sodomy laws, it certainly didn't hurt.

"A major argument against equal benefits, against fair treatment of employees, has been taken away," said Kevin Cathcart of Lambda Legal. "And so even within corporations it's a very different dialogue today, a very different dialogue."

There is no federal law prohibiting discrimination in the workplace on the basis of sexual orientation, but 13 states, the District of Columbia and several hundred towns, cities and counties have such legal protections in place for public and private employees.

Wal-Mart's new policy reads in part: "We affirm our commitment and pledge our support to equal opportunity employment for all qualified persons, regardless of race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, disability or status as a veteran or sexual orientation."

[I got the rope]

ROFLMAO!

[TheAngryClam]

Probably the same people who've figured out that heterosexual sodomy can be a lot of fun, and thus don't begrudge other people the same use of their body, regardless of whom it's with.

[I got the rope]

I read your profile. You're a curious and confused one. You seem to love God and the Constitution, but I can't understand why you would accept this type of behavior. God gave us liberty and free-will because he loved us.

If you believe this and wish to ignore simple biological function ...then you must conclude that homosexual behavior is wrong in God's eyes.

[Clint N. Suhks]

consentual sex between adults

From the Office of Redundancy for the Department of Redundancy, either the clinical/legal definition for “capacity” for consent MEANS adult or your hypocritical defense of the 9th is moot.

[Clint N. Suhks]

It is obvious that they don't care about their employees/customers with decisions like this.

Yep, it's the RED states who shop there

[Clint N. Suhks]

Some people believe that adults have the human right to have sex with other adults as long as they don't force them.

So do consensual incestuals, bestials, consensual pedophiles and hypocrites like you.

[oceanperch]

I do not think civilazation will ever be moral anarchy.

Every decade I have been in seems to have it's "in" group.

Where are those groups now in the majority? No. Just remnants are left.

I wonder what group will be shouting in the street in this next decade.

Any guesses?

[Clint N. Suhks]

Some people like to have sex with others of the same gender.

Sodomy IS NOT sex.

[breakem]

I'm getting so good at calling Clint's rants, in the future I can post both side. Gotta hit the sack. C-YA.

Look at my first post to you and look at Clint's posts. That's how you run a thread for awhile. I forgot to tell you. Clint thinks he can have sex with his pets because he owns them and can do what he wants with his property. He thinks that's "consentual." He thinks having sex with blow-up dolls is the same as hitting on Fido. So now you see how these threads last so long and how they are repetitious from day to day. ROTFLMAO.

[TheAngryClam]

Well, the God thing is a little off, although I do enjoy the Ecclesiastes quote. I'm one of the clot of a few pagan freepers.

As for the Constitution, I do love it- and that's the crime of the Supreme Court's decision in Lawrence v. Texas. Elsewhere on FR, I quoted Barry Goldwater (another Conservative who recognized it was none of the government's business what adults did). What he wrote in Conscience of A Conservative bears repeating:

It so happens that I am in agreement with the objectives of the Supreme Court as stated in the Brown decision. I believe that it is both wise and just for negro children to attend the same schools as whites, and that to deny them this opportunity carries with it strong implications of inferiority. I am not prepared, however, to impose that judgment of mine on the people of Mississippi or South Carolina, or to tell them what methods should be adopted and what pace should be kept in striving toward that goal. That is their business, not mine. I believe that the problem of race relations, like all social and cultural problems, is best handled by the people directly concerned. Social and cultural change, however desirable, should not be effected by the engines of national power. Let us, through persuasion and education, seek to improve institutions we deem defective. But let us, in doing so, respect the orderly processes of the law. Any other course enthrones tyrants and dooms freedom.

And thus it is. I think that sodomy laws are a beyond stupid extension of the government's power. Yet, the (state, not federal) government has the power to ban it, like they have the power to pass tons of other stupid laws.

Similarly, Wal-Mart has the power to institute policies as it sees fit, and you, as the consumer, can go there or not.

Personally, I loathe going to Wal-Mart, because there are only two types of customers- incredibly wealthy yuppie women yacking on cell phones to their Oprah book club friends and who drive Lexus landcruisers, often with Howard Dean stickers on them. The other kind is dirty, shoeless children running around, sometimes with the woman who spawned them overseeing her brood, sometimes not. Additionally, one has to confront their own mortality, in the form of the greeter at the front, who is always, always, the eldest employee at the store (someone could file an age-discrimination lawsuit over that). Add to that the sanctimonious hiding of Cosmo and its million "Women's Magazine" clones, and you have one of my visions of personal hell. (I put that in bold because I'm rather proud of that rant, and don't want people to miss it because this post is long).

So, in summation, the beauty of this country is that people can, with few exceptions, do pretty much what they damn well please. I find it incomprehensible that my fellow conservatives, whom I thought were big on personal freedom (insofar as no one else was being hurt- i.e. no freedom to murder), would be linking arms and marching down the street in solidarity with all the other people who seek to control your behavior.

Banned smoking from anywhere recently? What about lobbying school boards to only sell milk to children, not soft drinks? Told anyone that the words they were using were "offensive" and must not be uttered lately?

I'd like to see a cogent argument in favor of anti-sodomy laws that doesn't rely on "God" or some thinly disguished proxy (e.g. "nature"). My suspicion is that there isn't one.

[TheAngryClam]

Problem: pedophilia isn't "consensual," because children lack the capacity to give consent.

Same reason they can't form binding contracts.

[Clint N. Suhks]

Clint thinks he can have sex with his pets because he owns them and can do what he wants with his property.

Cite the LAW poormouth, where in the Constitution gives you that right? You won’t answer that pesky little question, get a pair, BECAUSE you can’t.

[breakem]

You ask me to cite a law when I am quoting your position from several threads. How in the h3ll can I cite your source for your opinion? This is what I mean when I say you are illogical and impossible to engage on a serious level.

[breakem]

re 53. I have tried several times to explain that concept to Clint. If you can differentiate consentual adult sex and from blowup dolls (I'm serious) from beastiality for him, I would be most appreciative. I have lost patience after trying several times. Maybe you can break it down to terms he can understand.

[Clint N. Suhks]

Problem: pedophilia isn't "consensual," because children lack the capacity to give consent.

NOT true, legal consent is measured by IQ of 70-75, you honestly think SOME children don’t have the capacity of a downs syndrome adult legally emancipated?

Same reason they can't form binding contracts.

ONLY through arbitrary law.

[TheAngryClam]

Maybe sock puppets will help.

[breakem]

LOL! No, he will see that as a sexual reference!

[breakem]

Is it an arbitrary law that children are under control of their parents and can not independently engage in contracting. You are going a very long stretch just to "proof" two guys or gals can't engage in sex.