Business suits up for culture wars -- April 2, 2015 column

By MARSHA MERCER

For decades, social conservatives have blamed liberals, “the media” and Hollywood for promoting same-sex marriage and gay rights. Now they can add big business to the list.

The culture wars are back – they never went far -- and corporations are emerging as a powerful new player on behalf of  lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

“America’s business leaders recognized a long time ago that discrimination, in all its forms, is bad for business,” Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote Tuesday in an op-ed in The Washington Post.

Cook, who came out as gay last year, was among the chiefs of national and international companies as well as celebrities who criticized Indiana and its Republican governor, Mike Pence, for enacting a religious freedom law that critics saw as encouraging discrimination against the LGBT community.

Nothing focuses the mind of a state official like the threat of boycotts or trouble for local businesses, so Pence reacted when other states banned their employees from traveling to Indiana and companies and organizations threatened to cancel conventions. Angie’s List, a nationwide business-rating service, put on hold its plans for a $40 million expansion in Indianapolis.

Pence backed off the law he had previously signed, saying it needed a clarification or fix after all.

“Was I expecting this kind of backlash?” Pence said. “Heavens, no.”

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, both Democrats, quickly put out the welcome mat to businesses turned off by Indiana’s law. Virginia has a version of the religious freedom law but McAuliffe signed an executive order in 2014 with protections that Indiana lacks. It prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, gender, religion and sexual orientation.

McAuliffe invited Indiana businesses “to take advantage of Virginia’s open, inclusive and thriving business environment.”

When the Arkansas legislature passed a law similar to Indiana’s, Arkansas-based Wal-Mart joined other companies in asking Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, to veto the measure.  

The bill “threatens to undermine the spirit of inclusion present throughout the state of Arkansas and does not reflect the values we proudly uphold,” Wal-Mart CEO Doug McMillon tweeted.

Hutchinson refused to sign the bill he had supported, saying it too needed work. His son Seth had signed a petition asking him to veto it, Hutchinson said, noting generational differences in opinion.

About 80 percent of people 18 to 29 think gay marriage should be valid, a Gallup poll found last year. Support declines with age, and among people 65 and older, only 42 percent support gay marriage.

Three weeks before Pence signed Indiana’s religious freedom law, 379 employers filed a friend of the court brief March 5 in the U.S. Supreme Court supporting same-sex marriage.

The firms range from cupcake bakers and plumbers to Fortune 100 companies. Some are names that the youngest Americans grew up with: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Starbucks and Twitter.

Others are traditional economic stalwarts: Aetna, Alcoa, Colgate-Palmolive, Dow Chemical, General Electric, Goldman Sachs, Marriott, Pfizer, Proctor & Gamble, United Air Lines, Verizon Communications, Wells Fargo and Xerox. And from the world of sports, the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Rays.

The companies asked the court to affirm the rights of gay people to marry in all 50 states, but the brief did not cite social or civil rights reasons. Their legal argument was all about business and the burden the “fractured legal landscape” places on employers.

Currently, 13 states ban same-sex marriage and it is legal in 36 states and the District of Columbia. The legality of same-sex marriage is unclear in Alabama, where state and federal courts have issued conflicting orders.

Having such a patchwork of state laws “creates legal uncertainty and imposes unnecessary costs and administrative complexities on employers,” the brief said. Employers are forced to treat workers in similar circumstances differently simply because they live in different states. 

The court has scheduled oral arguments April 28 in Obergefell v. Hodges, which consolidates four same-sex marriage cases. A ruling is expected this summer.

“Allowing same-sex couples to marry improves employee morale and productivity, reduces uncertainty, and removes the wasteful administrative burdens,” the brief argues.

Everyone has a right to his or her religious beliefs, but business clearly believes the economic case for equal rights has been made. In today’s culture wars, social conservatives ignore that fact at their political peril.

© 2015 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Family values, fundraising, fairness -- and Obama's stance on same-sex marriage -- May 10, 2012 column

By MARSHA MERCER

To those who were shocked, shocked to hear that campaign politics might have figured into President Barack Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage, I have bad news. It was ever thus.

Obama fired off a fundraising email the day after he said he personally supports same-sex marriage. Unseemly, yes, but hardly surprising. Political strategizing has been at the heart of the war over marriage equality since the Defense of Marriage Act was a glimmer in Bob Dole’s eye 16 years ago.

As President Bill Clinton ran for re-election in 1996, Dole, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, co-sponsored the Senate bill that defined marriage as between a man and a woman.

Dole wanted to stir the “family values” pot, but Clinton grabbed the spoon.

As Dole shepherded the bill banning same-sex marriage through Congress, with the help of House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the White House announced that yes, indeed, Clinton would sign it. And in September he did so, ignoring the outrage of gay supporters. The re-election campaign soon ran ads on Christian radio stations, lauding the president for fighting for “our values.”

Clinton sanded the edges off what Dole had hoped would be a wedge issue in that campaign. But the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, lives as the law of the land. Obama disavowed DOMA and has refused to defend it in court – but the law still blocks thousands of lawfully wedded same-sex couples from receiving benefits available to heterosexual couples. We’ve yet to hear how Obama proposes to change that.

In 1996, no state had legalized same-sex marriage. Today, six states and the District of Columbia permit it, but under DOMA no state must recognize same-sex marriages that are performed in another state.

Section 3 of the law specifies that for federal purposes ``the word `marriage’ means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word ‘spouse’ refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or wife.”

The law effectively cuts out same-sex married couples from more than 1,100 federal benefits, according to the Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people.

Married same-sex couples cannot file joint tax returns, take unpaid family leave, receive surviving spouse benefits under Social Security or receive family health and pension benefits as federal civilian employees.

Obama told Robin Roberts of ABC News Wednesday that, “For me, personally, it is important…to go ahead and affirm that I think that same-sex couples should be able to get married.” But he dodged questions about what he will actually do, saying the issue should be left to the states.

A day earlier, North Carolina became the 30th state to ban same-sex marriage, reinforcing current law with a constitutional amendment.

It’s difficult to imagine how Obama can stick to the stance that his views are merely personal when he says fairness and justice are at stake. He stood for fairness when he backed repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the policy that prevented gay men and lesbians from serving openly in the military.

The main rationale for not defending DOMA in the courts was Obama’s determination that the law was unconstitutional, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. wrote House Speaker John A. Boehner in February 2011. Nevertheless, law is law, and the president ordered his attorney general to continue enforcing it.

House Republicans hired a lawyer to defend the law in the courts.

The Supreme Court likely will decide the issues at some point. For now, Obama has a campaign to run and pay for. One in six of his top bundlers, who have brought in $500,000 or more, have publicly identified themselves as gay, The Washington Post reported.

Obama is trying to walk a line between voters with strong feelings. He stressed in the ABC interview that he deeply respects pastors and others who believe in traditional marriage, and he indicated that same-sex marriage isn’t a current priority.

“I’m not gonna be spending most of my time talking about this, because, frankly, my job as president right now, my biggest priority, is to make sure that we’re growing the economy, that we’re putting people back to work, that we’re managing the draw-down in Afghanistan effectively,” he said.

But he’s not shy about using the issue to bring in campaign cash. For now, Obama’s strategy is to describe himself as a practicing Christian who believes in the Golden Rule.

“Treat others the way you’d want to be treated,” he said before boarding Air Force One for a trip to the West Coast for fundraisers, where his support of same-sex marriage could boost his haul.

©2012 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.