Suit to decide workplace 'hate speech'

[aidanjm]

Originally posted by: PokerGuy

Originally posted by: aidanjm
people who are homophobic tend to be poorly educated and/ or not terribly bright. (there is a strong correlation between levels of education, intelligence, and acceptance of homosexuality).

I've certainly never seen any studies or evidence to support that. You probably just pulled it from your butt.

There are many population surveys indicating a positive correlation between levels of education and acceptance of homosexuality and/ or homosexuals.

E.g., here are some figures from recent research conducted in the USA by the Pew Forum:

Link:http://pewforum.org/docs/index.php?DocID=38

% of people with an unfavourable (negative) view of gay men

people who have graduated from college - 32%
people who have done some college study - %43
people who have graduated from high school - 63%
people who didn't graduate from high school - 66%

i.e., on average, people with little education tend to have negative views of homosexual people.

Originally posted by: PokerGuy

on the other hand, major corporations or organisations tend to recognise there are some very bright and creative people within the gay and lesbian communities and that it is important to have gay-friendly policies in order to attract these people as potential employees.

Complete BS. Yes, there are talented people among gays just like there are talented people in any group. Companies don't "seek them out" or anything like that, they alienate just as many potential talented candidates with pro-gay policies as they would attract.

Actually, it seems that many of the largest corporations in the USA do *specifically* seek out gay and lesbian candidates by advertising in gay media (magazines, cable tv, websites) and also by sponsoring gay community events and gay-related causes. They also have been instituting "gay friendly" HR policies such as treating gay and straight relationships equally with respect to things like sickness leave or other benefits and advertising these gay-friendly policies in gay media. They do this despite the risk of ticking off stupid people and christian conservatives. These changes are not due to legal obligations or fear of being sued (we know this because across most of America you can still fire someone for being gay, and in most parts of America there is no legal obligation to offer same-sex couples the same kinds of benefits offered to heterosexual couples). One has to conclude that corporate America is simply looking for the best candidates.

E.g.,

"Corporate America backs gay rights

A trickle of corporate support for gay and lesbian workers that began about 15 years ago has turned into a flood.

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Most of America's best-known companies are reaching out to gay and lesbian workers, as well as gay consumers, despite the criticism they get from conservative Christian groups.

Consider: No Fortune 500 company offered health benefits to the domestic partners of gay and lesbian workers until Levi Strauss did so in 1992. Today, more than half of the Fortune 500 offer those benefits.

Beyond that, blue-chip companies recruit gay MBAs. They seek out suppliers owned by gay and lesbian business people. And they advertise in gay media such as Logo, the cable TV network launched last year by Viacom...

Many companies are going beyond the workplace to appeal to GLBT audiences. Wal-Mart has joined the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and sponsored a panel at a conference of GLBT journalists. Kraft and Walgreen's were among dozens of sponsors of the Gay Games, an athletic competition that drew more than 12,000 participants to Chicago last summer. IBM helped organize GLBT engineers on college campuses...

Why the changes? Herrschaft and several corporate executives who joined in the release of the Human Rights Campaign report say companies that want to to attract and motivate workers need a diverse workforce in which everyone can feel welcome...

Of course, there's been a backlash. The American Family Association, a conservative Christian group, has called for a boycott of Ford because it says the automaker promotes "the homosexual agenda." The Family Research Council accused Wal-Mart of "surrendering to the radical homosexual lobby." Sponsors of the Gay Games got thousands of negative e-mails..."

Originally posted by: PokerGuy
It's about $$$

It's about $$$ in the sense of attracting the best, most talented and intelligent employees.

Originally posted by: PokerGuy
and reducing potential legal liability.

It would be very difficult to argue that gay-friendly corporate policies are about reducing legal liability, considering that in most parts of the USA it is still entirely legal to fire someone for no other reason than the person is gay or lesbian, and in most parts of the USA there is no legal obligation to put same-sex relationships on a similar footing to heterosexual relationships with respect to 'benefits' like sick leave etc.

Originally posted by: PokerGuy
The gay community is no more talented than any other group, and there is no more reason to seek them out than anyone else. The legal and PC (pr) environment is such that companies would rather not risk costs and bad pr.

That doesn't explain why corporate America is specifically sponsoring gay community events, providing funding for gay political causes, and advertsing in gay media. Really, this is about corporations going to considerable lengths to "advertise" to gay people that they are a good place to work at. Which all comes back to being able to attract the best candidates.

Originally posted by: PokerGuy
I don't want my company to have "pro gay" or "anti gay" policies, I want them to not care one way or the other -- that stuff doesn't belong in the workplace.

Offering domestic partner benefits to same-sex couples (not just heterosexual couples) and inclusion of sexual orientation in anti-harassment policies are signs that a company is welcoming towards and accepting of gay people. I can't see why any self-respecting gay person would choose to work in an organisation that simply ignores or remains silent on these issues.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: Train

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
...
It's pretty dumb to call something dumb and not provide challenging reasons as to why you think so. ...

It would be even dumber to sink to his (or your) level. But if you cant see why his post is dumb, maybe you are as much as him?

Actually, I specifically disagreed with some of his conclusions, stated so and gave my reasons why so in addition to ability only to put forth incoherent mutterings you also can't comprehend what you read.

But of course I asked you only to expose the eternal fact that bigots don't know why they believe as they believe. They just know with all the few fibers of their being that they are right and know the Truth and the Good. You even suffer the fantastical notion that you could won't sink to my level when in fact we aren't even in the same game.

Remember, you can always tell a bigot but you can't tell him much.

 

[aidanjm]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
I, for example, strongly disagree with the notion that bigots are stupid. I think they are brilliant at hiding from themselves the true nature and reality of their bigotry. They are not what I would call intelligent, in it's pure form, however, but cunning in rationalizations. They are as good as they come at that.

I was being a bit mischievous when I linked intelligence to acceptance of gay people. What various studies show is that the more formal education people have, the more likely they are to be accepting of gay people. Obviously there will be exceptions, i.e., there will be people with very little formal education, who have very open-minded, tolerant, wise attitudes towards gay people and homosexuality. And there will be people with a great deal of formal education at universities who remain hostile towards gay people. But the general trend is for people with more education to be more accepting of gay people. Obviously there are all sorts of other factors which correlate with attitudes towards gay people, such as gender, age, political beliefs, whether or not you know a gay person, etc.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: aidanjm

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
I, for example, strongly disagree with the notion that bigots are stupid. I think they are brilliant at hiding from themselves the true nature and reality of their bigotry. They are not what I would call intelligent, in it's pure form, however, but cunning in rationalizations. They are as good as they come at that.

I was being a bit mischievous when I linked intelligence to acceptance of gay people. What various studies show is that the more formal education people have, the more likely they are to be accepting of gay people. Obviously there will be exceptions, i.e., there will be people with very little formal education, who have very open-minded, tolerant, wise attitudes towards gay people and homosexuality. And there will be people with a great deal of formal education at universities who remain hostile towards gay people. But the general trend is for people with more education to be more accepting of gay people. Obviously there are all sorts of other factors which correlate with attitudes towards gay people, such as gender, age, political beliefs, whether or not you know a gay person, etc.

I fully understand the temptation. But I think that what to you might well call being only mischievous, to a bigot, is like getting stabbed in the heart.

As I said somewhere here or at least thought I posted, it is as hard to be good as a gay as it is to be good as a Christian. You have to love the bigot but not the bigotry. That means, in my opinion, at least, that one can't blame the bigot as stupid because it's not a lack of intelligence that creates bigots, but the acquisition of that disease by force as children. The bigot had to conform to the beliefs of the bigots who raised him or suffer horrible pain, one example of which was being called stupid for not being born with the parents bigotry. Bigots are sensitive about being called stupid because they got into terrible trouble if they were slow to learn bigotry. They were made to feel terribly stupid.

It is consciousness and self examination that cure bigotry and education can help to facilitate these things. Knowledge is power, the power to change.

 

[Darwin333]

Originally posted by: Rainsford

Originally posted by: Darwin333

Originally posted by: Rainsford
Don't get me wrong, these people have every right to express their views, but companies shouldn't have any responsibility to employ people with such disruptive attitudes.

The same argument could be made as to why a company shouldn't hire outwardly homosexual employees. If most of your employees are conservative heterosexuals then the outwardly homosexual could be seen as "disruptive".

"Hate speech" is an absurd idea. Let employers decide what behavior they will allow from their employees and stop messing with the freedom of speech.

Not really. A better comparison would be whether or not a company should allow a "Straight people are evil" club started by gay employees. Or aren't you able to see the difference between a club concerned with supporting the behavior of its members and a club concerned with condemning the behavior of others?

It doesn't matter if its a club supporting or condemning a behavior. I used the word "disruptive". If 95% of your employees are devout Christians and the other 5% starts a homosexual club that club will be disruptive to that company regardless of whether or not its supporting or condemning something.

 

[PokerGuy]

aidanjm, nice post, some valid points made. Having worked at two fortune 100 companies in middle and high-middle level management, I got some pretty frank comments from a lot of the senior execs, and having heard many of their more "candid" and "off the record" comments, I'm highly suspect of the motivations behind some of their activities to supposedly attract more talented gay workers.