US companies carry the flag for gay rights

Bob Page still remembers having to scrub the spray-painted "fags" off the buildings housing his dinnerware retailer, Replacements, when it became known as a gay-friendly employer.

JPMorgan first stopped supporting the Boy Scouts in 1998 because the organisation refused to include gay men as members.

American Airlines' former chief executive, Donald Carty, spoke out in favour of a Dallas city ordinance banning discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation back in 2002.

All three companies are among the 379 that have signed on to a brief urging the US Supreme Court to strike down state bans on same-sex marriage, in a landmark case that will be argued on Tuesday.

But they are also charter members of a smaller group of firms: companies that have helped to shape the marriage equality debate by championing the business case for promoting a workplace that supports lesbian, gay and transgender employees for more than a decade.

Just as Americans' opinions on same-sex marriage have shifted rapidly over the past two decades, so too has the role of big business in morphing from a strong - but largely silent - protector of LGBT workers into one of the most powerful public advocates for gay rights.

Last month, companies including Apple, Walmart and Salesforce led a fierce backlash against a so-called "religious" freedom law in Indiana, forcing the state's legislature to clarify that it would not allow businesses to discriminate against LGBT customers.

Well-known executives such as Lloyd Blankfein, chief executive of Goldman Sachs, and Google's Sergey Brin have been outspoken supporters of same-sex marriage for years.

But, like the long march to the Supreme Court for this week's case, corporate America's evolution has taken time.

In 2002, when the Human Rights Campaign first began compiling an index rating how large US businesses treated their LGBT employees, consumers and investors, just 13 companies ranked achieved a "perfect" score. This year, 366 businesses did.

Back then, the criteria were relatively modest. HRC looked for policies such as a written code prohibiting discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, health benefits for same sex partners and financial support for LGBT events or organisations involved with fighting Aids.

Frequently, change was being driven by lesbian and gay employees themselves, who marshalled support for friendlier policies through internal LGBT employee networks, then just beginning to be established at some large companies. 

Grace Figueredo, head of diversity and inclusion at Aetna, one of the largest US insurers, remembers the boost its own "Angle" group received when Mark Bertolini, now the company's chief executive, became its first executive sponsor in 2003.

"They had been looking for a sponsor for ten years, and then Mark came on," says Ms Figueredo. "To have that kind of champion at CEO level, a progressive champion, shows the kind of commitment that was there."

At smaller businesses such as Greensboro, North Carolina-based Replacements, change meant being willing to take a public stance on diversity in an area of the country where animosity towards openly gay individuals still runs high.

Mr Page, himself gay and the father of twin boys, tells the story of the time he had to call the local sheriff to remove a woman who was trying to physically block employees from entering the company's premises with her car.

"No, we didn't fly under the radar," he said with a trace of gallows humour. "We never did."

This week the Supreme Court will examine whether state laws that prohibit same-sex marriage are unconstitutional, in a case most observers expect to settle the legal status of gay marriage nationwide once and for all. Currently, 36 states and the District of Columbia allow same-sex couples to marry.

For those who have long worked on gay rights-related cases, from fighting to repeal sodomy statutes still on the books in some states or challenging the now-defunct federal "Defense of Marriage Act," which defined marriage as between one man and one woman, it is a case that feels long overdue. 

"People ask me how we have gotten to marriage equality so quickly and I say because we've been working for a very, very long time," said Paul Smith, a civil rights lawyer at Jenner & Block who has litigated many of the leading cases.

In their brief filed with the Supreme Court, dozens of companies from Alcoa to Zynga argue that inconsistent state marriage laws hurt their ability to attract and retain top talent, and create an expensive and unfair administrative burden by forcing them to comply with of patchwork of different laws in different states.

Many advocates hope that a ruling in favour of same-sex marriage will allow them to focus their attention on other battles, such as putting in to place laws that prohibit discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation in areas such as housing and employment in more than just the 21 states that have them now. 

For others, it will represent the culmination of a far more personal battle.  

"Oh I am so very hopeful," said Mr Page. "How could they possibly reverse all this now?"

© The Financial Times Limited 2015. All rights reserved.
FT and Financial Times are trademarks of the Financial Times Ltd.
Not to be redistributed, copied or modified in any way.
Euro2day.gr is solely responsible for providing this translation and the Financial Times Limited does not accept any liability for the accuracy or quality of the translation