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."

[DAnconia55]

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.

You left out the old people standing in the middle of the aisles blocking traffic and drooling all over the merchandise.

[TheAngryClam]

I'm fortunate. There's a Sun City retirement community on the other side of town, and a Wal-Mart near it.

That means the old people go to that one, leaving my Wal-Mart full of the over-wealthy second wives of lawyers and the former featured guests of daytime talk shows.

[oceanperch]

Drug users are passe.

Adultery, sleeping around ect. has had it's moments of fame but it still considered immoral by most and frowned upon.

If Joe Shmoe is a good citizen loving father and husband yet yearns to dress up as a woman and walk the seedy streets to turn on I really do not want to know about it and if he is "open" as this being part of his lifestyle my attitude would definetly change as my respecting his charactor.

Restraint seems to be an unpopular action with some. Life is full of sacrafices and moderation in all areas for longevity. IMO Everyone has vices that they should practice restraint in order to survive in the long run.

[I got the rope]

I answered that.

[oceanperch]

True.

Something to be said about being humble and not full of Pride.

[DAnconia55]

He's right. It is arbitrary law that prevents children from engaging in contracts (or giving consent).

He's leaving out something important though. There is no alternative except to give the state ownership over all children.
Mark me down as a 'no' for that one.

While we can change the age of consent/contract age - (or perhaps require a class and test before granting full privelege?) - there does have to be SOME standard.

That said, I most certainly DID consent back when I was 15. (And would have at 14, too - had the opportunity presented itself :)) - And I don't think my adult girlfriend at the time should have gone to jail, either.

[I got the rope]

I'm not even going to go into how stupid and insulting the moral equivalency arguement is between skin color and sodomy. DUmb.

[DAnconia55]

You two catch the thread the other day - where one poster wanted to ban condoms (Sale of), and delicense doctors who provided birth control?

I hillary you not.

[TheAngryClam]

I didn't actually draw that parallel. I wanted you to focus on Barry's states' rights approach to laws, rather than via the courts.

[I got the rope]

Mexicans?

[TheAngryClam]

Volitional and legal consent aren't the same thing.

Which is why (to take Clint's couple of favorite fantasies) you'll always be raping that little boy, or the dog that sure seems happy to be humping your leg.

As for your inflateable woman, Clint, I know she seems real to you, and you've possibly even named her, but one cannot rape inanimate objects.

That, or millions of little boys have been serial rapists of their bedsheets throughout the centuries...

[TheAngryClam]

God bless the fundies.

[kuma]

Well as I stated in an earlier post the only thing that Wal-Mart has going for them in this is that they seem to be equally interested in protecting people with religious beliefs as well at least at this point in time.

However, there have been steps by the militants to eliminate freedom of speech for religious people from the public square. That's why these things have to be resisted. This is where special rights, hate crime legislation etc... is planting it's ugly roots.

I wonder breakem, will you seriously bother showing up when John's start losing their jobs because Adam's are offended by their "thoughts". Somehow I think you will be piping in calling the John's "haters".

Please refrain from telling me that is far-fetched. These things are already happening in the socialist population centers. An Atlanta judge may not get an appointment simply because he refused to take his children to Disney's Gay Days. Ya know he's a hater. By that approach social conservatives have been deemed unfit for government office.

That is "sensitivity training" and socialism. This is the true end on this path. Parents are told who they should associate their children with. It is already in the schools also. Where is your fight against sensitivity training. I haven't ever witnessed it.

[kuma]

One of those pressing issues is whether or not U.S. Supremes UN Constitutionally over-ride U.S. Constitutional Representatives. If you don't like a law you need to follow the procedures to remove it. This is what makes you like the Democrats. You favor their methods.

[DAnconia55]

This is where special rights, hate crime legislation

Two different things.

Until the SC decision, gays in a few states could be arrested for doing something with their bodies that I could do to my wife legally.

This is NOT "equal protection under the law" - from the 14th Amendment.

[DAnconia55]

See #95. The SC was upholding the Constitution.

[kuma]

Well let's not show any bias there. You seem to have a great deal of concern for one employee and none for the other.

I personally believe that if John brings Jane to the picnic and neither Adam nor Steve wish to speak to them that it holds no bearing on their job performance.

So quick to throw out Freedom of Association as well aren't you.

[I got the rope]

Is this where you make up some illogical reason for sodomizing girls. The rectum is not a safe place to be for either you and for them. You need help.

[TheAngryClam]

Actually, I have little concern for either, and believe that both of them should just shut their damn mouth about their coworkers while on the job.

Wal-Mart might believe differently, and if so, it's their place as the employer to tell their employees what's expected of them on the job.

If someone doesn't like it, because they can't be gay enough, or they can't be christian enough, or punk enough because they have to shave the mohawk, as far as I'm concerned, that's just too damned bad, get another job.

And remember, the First Amendment only applies to the government. Wal-Mart can tell you to shove that religious freedom the same place some of that person's coworkers are putting something else.

[TheAngryClam]

I don't know my GIRLFRIEND (yes, one happy fornicator here!) seems to enjoy being on the receiving end of oral sex (SODOMY!).