Out at Work

The HRC released its annual corporate equality index:

More large U.S. companies have fair-minded policies toward gays than ever before, continuing a trend that began in the 1990s...

This year 101 companies got a perfect score, close to doubling last year's group of 56 companies that received 100 percent. The top-ranked companies ranged from Dow Chemical Co. and Chevron Corp. to bankrupt building materials company Owens Corning and Walgreen Co., the nation's largest drugstore chain.

Raytheon Co. became the first defense contractor to achieve a perfect score. This summer the Waltham, Mass.-based company become the first big military supplier to expand its equal opportunity employment policy to include transgender workers.

Raytheon's chief diversity officer, Hayward Bell, said that while the defense industry as a whole was considered more conservative and less tolerant than other industries, Raytheon sought to be progressive.

However, only one company has gone back in time:

ExxonMobil has the dubious distinction of being the only U.S. company to roll back both benefits eligibility for its employees' domestic partners and a sexual orientation nondiscrimination policy," the Human Rights Campaign Foundation said in its report.

Then again, you might remember that the Exxon Valdez is the oil tanker owned by Exxon that caused one of the worst man made environmental diasters in history. Is it any surprise that a company who had such little regard for the environment would have such little regard for people?

Equality marches on!

Addition: World Net Daily (I know!) publishes the list of companies who got a perfect score on the HRC Index. Check to see if the companies you do business with are here.