ExxonMobil Shareholders: Still Anti-LGBT After All These Years

Well, this isn't really a surprise; it's nothing new, it's business as usual.

Last week ExxonMobil shareholders once again voted down a proposal to add LGBT employees to the corporation’s nondiscrimination policy. See, at ExxonMobil, if you're an L, a G, a B, or a T, you can be discriminated against, just because.

In fact, ExxonMobil are so horridly anti-LGBT that they voted 805 to 20% against the resolution asking the corporation to amend “its written equal employment opportunity policy to explicitly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity and to substantially implement the policy.”

The proposal has been introduced each year since Mobil and Exxon merged in 1999 and the highest level of support came in 2008 at nearly 40%.

“It’s disappointing, but this isn’t the end of the issue for us,” said Resource Center Dallas’ Rafael McDonnell, who has lobbied the company on the issue. “We’re going to continue to reach out and engage them.…I think the White House needs to go back and revisit this executive order.”

The proposed executive order would require contractors to include sexual orientation and gender identity in their nondiscrimination policies if they do business with the federal government, which  ExxonMobil does. However, President Barack Obama’s administration indicated earlier this year that he doesn’t plan to sign the proposed order anytime soon.

So, let the discrimination stand. And continue.

Back when the company was just Mobil, it was one of the first corporations in the world to include sexual orientation in its nondiscrimination policy and offer benefits to the same-sex partners of gay employees. But when it became ExxonMobil those policies were ended.

Meanwhile, ExxonMobil maintains the lowest possible rating on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, with a minus-25.

And that ain't about to change any time soon.

Luckily I have never bought gas at an ExxonMobil station, but I would certainly encourage everyone to boycott them until they drag their homophobic asses into the 21st century with the rest of us.

via The Dallas Voice