How to Support Gay-Friendly Businesses

If you want to support gay-friendly businesses, you have to know which companies - big and small - fit the bill. Here's how to find out if a company is leading or lagging on gay and lesbian issues.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• Employment application

1. Ask for an employment application, then look at the government-required nondiscrimination statement - if "sexual orientation" is listed, the company has taken the first step toward recognizing the special needs of gay and lesbian employees.
2. Find out if the company trains its employees about gay and lesbians issues as a part of diversity training. You can call the business (or the company's headquarters) or search to see if the company has been profiled by The Gay Financial Network (gfn.com).
3. Determine whether the company offers health insurance and other benefits to its employees' domestic partners. You can find a list of companies that do on the Human Rights Campaign's WorkNet (at hrc.org).
4. See if the company has an affinity group for gays and lesbians - that's a group where gays and lesbians find ways to increase awareness of their causes with management. A list of companies with these kinds of groups can also be found on WorkNet.
5. Check for ads by the business or company in gay and lesbian publications. Few companies have reached this level of support for the gay and lesbian community, but you can be sure the ones that have are leaders on gay and lesbian issues.
6. Look at the diversity of the workforce, if you can, and do business where you are comfortable with the level of diversity. A diverse workforce means the company is probably committed to fairness.

Tips & Warnings

• The government doesn't require sexual orientation in the statement, but many companies now add it themselves.
• Some companies have statements on their Web sites or in other publicity materials that say they aim for a diverse workforce and respect the rights of all employees, but carefully consider whether to do business with any company that does not back these statements up with progressive policies.
• Carefully consider whether you want to do business with companies that refuse to answer your questions about their gay-friendliness. They may have something to hide.