If you’re like me, you don’t want to support businesses that don’t support you.  I feel very strongly about that and if someone makes me aware of a company that is anti-gay then I will no longer support or do business with that company.

I bet a lot of you feel the same way so I figured I’d make the Californians Against Hate website available to you as it lists individuals and organizations that donated to the “Yes on Prop 8″ campaign.  There are even non-California donors on here…so even if you’re not from Cali you might want to check it out.

There is a 2 page list, but of the top 5 donors only 2 of them were from California. The 2 California donors in the top 5 were:

• Howard Ahmanson, Jr., Irvine, Ca.  Howard owns Fieldstone and Co. and he Donated $1,395,000.00
• Terry Caster and Family, San Diego, Ca.  They own A-1 Self Storage and they Donated $693.000.00

The out of staters were:

• Knights of Columbus, New Haven, Ct.  Donated $1,425,000.00  (Catholic Church)
• John and Josephine Templeton, Bryn Mawr, PA.  They own the John Templeton Foundation and they donated $1,100,000.00
• National Organization for Marriage, Princeton, NJ.  Donated $1,041,134.80

I urge you to go through the list and if you find businesses that don’t support you then I guess they don’t support you doing business with them either huh?  At least for me, I know they wouldn’t get my money anymore.  But please be certain that if you see a company name on here that it is either a) the company itself that made the donation or b) the CEO, President or Owner made the donation.   Because you are getting individual donations from folks that state where they work and this does not necessarily mean that the company they work for is against gay marriage, but just that individual person is.

Please be aware of this issue and do your due diligence prior to boycotting any businesses.  Again, here is the website to check out the donations to the “Yes on Prop 8″ campaign.

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Posted under Gay Relationships, gay marriage, glbt rights, take action

Well I received email from Equality Advocates PA asking for me to take action in regards to HB 1400, which is legislation to amend the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act to prohibit discrimination on the bases of sexual orientation and gender identity or expression in employment, housing, and public accomodations.

You want to send your letter to the House State Rep of your district. I live in Oxford, PA, so I’m in District 13 and Art Hersehy is my House State Rep (I’m probably on his nerves as I just sent him an email yesterday asking him to take action on the Property Tax Elimination Act. And now I’m emailing him today too about HB 1400 hehehe)

If you want to find out who your House State Rep is then go here.

After you find out who he or she is then email, hand write, visit or call them but say the following:

Subject: Please Vote HB 1400 out of State Government Committee!

Dear (insert their name),

Please vote House Bill 1400 out of State Government Committee! This important bill would amend the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act to prohibit discrimination in employment, housing, and public accomodations because of one’s sexual orientation and gender identity or expression.

I feel it is important for all members of our society to be protected from discrimination.

An overwhelming majority of Americans believe that hard working and law-abiding citizens should not be discriminated against in the workplace, yet under Pennsylvania law, it is legal to fire someone simply for being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.

I ask that you take a stand for equality by supporting civil rights bills that protect lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender Pennsylvanians from discrimination, and voting this bill out of committee!

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Your Name
Your Address (including zip.)

I added a little more to my email but overall it says the same thing. Here are a few more points you can touch on if you like:

- Current PA law provides basic legal protection against discrimination on the bases of race, color, religion, ancestry, age, national origin, handicap or disability, education and the use of a guide dog, but not sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression

- Twenty states have already amended their state civil rights laws to protect against this type of discrimination

- All 27 Fortune 500 companies headquarted in PA prohibit discrimination based upon sexual orientation

- Although several municipalities protect its citizens against this discrimination by local ordinence, 79% of Pennsylvanians are not covered by non-discrimination protections

Ok that about does it for this issue folks. Please take action and then report back here and let us all know what your Rep. said (Art Hershey was pretty good at getting back to me about my issue yesterday, so we’ll see how he does with a gay and lesbian issue in our uptight, conservative and republican district!)

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Posted under Government, glbt rights, take action