Let Your Shopping Dollars Support Our Community
November 30, 2005: Just in time for the Holidays, HRC has released a terrific guide to help you decide what companies will get your hard-earned dollars. This is the form letter that HRC wants you to email to your friends - let’s just pretend you got this in your inbox, OK?
Just in time for the holiday season, the Human Rights Campaign has released its Buyer’s Guide.
The Buyer’s Guide is a wonderful resource that gives you the information you need to support products from companies that support equality.
I’ve decided to support companies that have demonstrated a commitment to fairness and equality in the workplace, and I hope you’ll do the same. Click here to find out how you can help and get your own free buyer’s guide.
For those of you who, like me, are shopping for kids, HRC gives Hasbro a decent score of 86 on the Equality Meter (I made that phrase up - I don’t know what they call their scale, but higher is better) and the company that makes those awful plastic Little Tykes toys a 29. I could have told you that no gay person was involved in designing those eyesores!
December 2nd, 2005 at 8:38 am
I looked through the buying guide and was quite disturbed. Companies that ranked quite low (below 50%) actually often offer domestic partner benefits, have non-discrimination policies, and/or have sensitivity training. I am all for working for gender-identity issues to be included and think it’s important, but suggesting these companies are evil or bad and we shouldn’t support them sends the wrong message to companies that have made steps in the right direction and are providing support/recognition to families headed by same-sex couples. I’m disappointed in HRC for this one and would hope that they would do better for our community!
December 3rd, 2005 at 7:57 am
Sarah, good for you for looking at the details. I have to confess that I generally just HRC’s judgement, and I didn’t drill behind the overall scores. When I tried to do as you suggested just now, though, I couldn’t, because the links weren’t correct - I clicked on the one for the company that makes Little Tykes toys, and got the information for a company called Vivendi. Ugh.
December 4th, 2005 at 12:44 pm
Jus t a point of note while we are on this subject:
COURTS across the US are cracking down on women, especially teachers, who have sex with underage boys.
At least seven women, four of them teachers, have been charged or sentenced in the past month.
The flurry of prosecutions follows the sex-abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. Experts say that the trend reflects a growing recognition that sexual abuse of boys can be just as serious as that of girls.
December 5th, 2005 at 1:14 am
Patrick, I don’t understand how your note relates to this subject, but yes, we all agree that sexual abuse of children is wrong.