Religious right uber-nut Peter LaBarbera is quite distressed with the new HRC report on gay friendly companies. You see, they're all for the free market until someone sells a product they disapprove of or refuses to fire someone they regard as sinful. And I love this kind of rhetoric:
The battle to restore corporate neutrality on the homosexual issue will be a long and tough one, but it must be fought.
Ah, yes, "corporate neutrality." A delicious little catchphrase, but let's break it down. He actually seems to be arguing that if companies have policies barring discrimination against gay employees - that is, if they agree not to fire someone just for being gay - they're not "neutral". Because "neutral" is a world where gay people are all fired because Peter LaBarbera doesn't approve of their choice in sexual partners. I'm glad we cleared that up.
When I started reading this blog I thought it was kind of funny how hypocritical these people are, now it just depresses me that so many believe the same things. At least logic seems to be gaining some ground, at least in some places.
"And they'll know we are Christians by our hate, by our hate. They will know we are Christians by our hate."
If you're not with us, you're against us. And if you're against us, you're not neutral...
Or something like that.
I thing "neutrality" in this sense is that gay people aren't mentioned at all in any corporate policy ... out of sight, out of mind.
Once they've achieved "corporate neutrality" POOF! We'll all vanish!
Interestingly, my Zone Alarm parental control (BlueCoat) classifies the "Americans For Truth" website as porn. Good job, that.
It is doubtful that "Porno Pete" LaBarbera would object to a corporate anti-discrimination policy that would bar discrimination based on one's religion.
Great find to expose the religious right. I reported on it similarly to you at Liberal Values, but also couldn't resist noting the Orwellian language here.
Americans for Truth!!!
Advocating neutrality means advocating discrimination.
We can be certain that the Republicans will not give up their support for Corporate America to appease the religious right. While they will engage in all sorts of pandering, serving the interests of Corporate America remains the prime directive of the Repubican Party.
"Neutrality" in this context means "sitting back and doing nothing while homophobes fire gays".
The Republicans are not going to "give up their support for Corporate America to appease the religious right". The Republicans are Corporate America! Without big money they are nothing. They could (and hopefully will someday) survive without the Religious Right. But they'll always be corporatist first and foremost.