It’s a good day to be gay and not Christian (well, the kind who are obsessed with what i do with my tacohole).
Shareholders Reject Bid To Strip Gay Protections At Wells Fargo
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
(San Francisco, California) A motion by a Wells Fargo shareholder to remove protections for LGBT workers from the company’s non-discrimination policy was defeated this week at its annual meeting.
Wells Fargo & Co. is the fifth largest U.S. bank by assets.
The motion called for the company to “to formulate an equal employment policy …that does not make reference to any matters related to sexual interests, activities or orientation.”
It said that homosexuality has been “condemned by the major traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam for a thousand years or more”.
The motion was crafted by Pro Vita Advisors, a group that helps promote conservative values.
The motion said that “While the legal institution of marriage between a man and a woman should be protected, the sexual interests of, inclinations and activities of all employees should be a private matter, not a corporate concern.”
The proposal was easily defeated.
Nearly 90 percent of the Fortune 500 companies have non-discrimination policies.
Conservative groups have attacked Wells Fargo for the past three years over its “pro-gay policies”.
In 2005 Focus on the Family withdrew its funds from Wells Fargo.
“Focus on the Family has elected to end its banking relationship with Wells Fargo, motivated primarily by the bank’s ongoing efforts to advance the radical homosexual agenda. These efforts are in direct opposition to the underlying principles and purpose of Focus, and thus a decision of conscience had to be made, and a stand taken,” said a statement from FOF at the time.
Focus said Wells Fargo had donated more than $14 million to pro-gay organizations in the last two decades.
Similar shareholder challenges to non-discrimination policies that include gays have been fought and lost at Ford Motor Company.
The only way Wells Fargo could have made me happier would have been if their response simply read “Get stuffed.”
