A Stitch in Haste

Some people really need a hobby:

Conservative Christian groups are urging a boycott of two of consumer product maker Procter & Gamble's key products, charging the company is aligning itself with gay rights groups, according to a published report.

The New York Times said Friday that James Dobson of Focus on the Family and the Rev. Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association are angry at P&G for a statement on the company's internal Web site opposing an anti-gay rights statute in its hometown of Cincinnati. The law exempts gays and lesbians from special civil rights protection.

The two influential conservatives charge that by opposing the Cincinnati statute, the company is joining a push to allow same-sex marriage. They are urging supporters to boycott Crest toothpaste and Tide laundry detergent.

"For Procter & Gamble to align itself with radical groups committed to redefining marriage in our country is an affront to its customers," Dobson told the paper.

Procter & Gamble spokesman Douglas Shelton told the Times the groups are mixing two unrelated issues. Shelton said the company opposed just the Cincinnati statute and not efforts by the group to amend the Ohio Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. "The issue that these organizations are trying to put in our laps is one that we have not taken a position on," he said.

Boycotts are all well and good I suppose, but I wonder why the bigots are limiting themselves just to Tide and Crest? Is it possible that P&G makes just too many products for them to live without?

And of course, spending power works both ways -- it can be selectively deployed as well as selectively withheld. As both sellers and employers, many businesses are ahead of the curve on their interaction with the gay community (which, incidentally, is generally thought to have above-average discretionary income, although hard data are scarce).

If Cincinnati wants to shoot itself in the foot with a dumb law (wouldn't be the first time), then so be it. But as the dominant business in that city (heck, as a dominant business, period), P&G has the right, perhaps even the obligation, to speak up.

Good for them.

UPDATE: This issue fell off my radar screen. Beaverhausen Blog has the latest.

Okay folks, I'm standing athwart yelling "Stop!"

In a move that angered many of the company's gay employees, the Microsoft Corporation, publicly perceived as the vanguard institution of the new economy, has taken a major political stand in favor of age-old discrimination.

The Stranger has learned that last month the $37-billion Redmond-based software behemoth quietly withdrew its support for House bill 1515, the anti-gay-discrimination bill currently under consideration by the Washington State legislature, after being pressured by the Evangelical Christian pastor of a suburban megachurch. The pastor, Ken Hutcherson of Antioch Bible Church in Redmond, met with a senior Microsoft executive in February and threatened to organize a national boycott of the company's products if it did not change its stance on the legislation...

Now it's very cute for local not-quite-newspapers to run "exposés" about a company like Microsoft. But as you read through the tirade, you quickly see that the piece is nothing more than a collection of rants by low-level, and in many instances anonymous, Microsoft employees who can neither speak for the company nor produce any memos, emails, or any other hard proof of, well, anything.

Let's look at Microsoft's record:

• Employs 57,000 people; 28,000 in the State of Washington alone (in over 9 million square feet of Washington office space).


• Annual revenues of $36 billion.


• Income taxes of $4 billion (I shudder to think how much they pay Washington State in property taxes).


• Recently paid a special $32 billion dividend, more than the GDP of some countries.


• Has been playing some very self-confident brinksmanship with the European Union, where the stakes were not a boycott by a few hundred (probably computer-illiterate) bigots, but 5% of their global revenues.


• A founder, chairman and CEO who is not known either as an arch-conservative or a spineless wimp.

Who could possibly believe that such a "behemoth" (the Stranger's rather un-journalistic term) is about to be intimidated by some third-rate Bible-thumper?

The Stranger may be selling, but I'm not buying.

Those unfortunately falling for the yellow journalism include Obsidian Wings, SuperTan, Good As You, AmericaBlog, TowleRoad and GeorgiaBoy.

Bravo on the other hand to Soul of Wit and Bent for remaining skeptical.

Meanwhile, here's an Advocate story about how Microsoft really feels about its gay employees. Which is more likely -- schizophrenic mega-corporation or incendiary local hack quasi-journalist?

A man teeming with God's Love wants to express it in the same way Jesus would — on the stock market:

A pastor who threatened a national boycott against Microsoft and other major corporations for endorsing a gay rights bill urged supporters Tuesday to buy up the companies' stock and dump it to drive prices down.

Rev. Ken Hutcherson, pastor of Antioch Bible Church in the Seattle suburb of Redmond, said the stock-dumping plan had been part of his strategy all along.
...
He wants supporters to buy one or two shares over the next few months, then sell them May 1.

I think it would be a wonderful idea for Bigot Reverend Hutcherson to try this. I really hope he goes ahead with this plan...

...because pump-and-dump is illegal:

It shall be unlawful for any person, directly or indirectly ... To effect, alone or with one or more other persons, a series of transactions in any security ... with respect to such security creating actual or apparent active trading in such security, or raising or depressing the price of such security, for the purpose of inducing the purchase or sale of such security by others.

Of course, this section of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 is not intended to apply to idiots like Bigot Reverend Hutcherson, but to so-called "boiler rooms" that might — unlike Bigot Reverend Hutcherson — actually achieve something nefarious. Still, I'd love to see a gay advocacy group file a class action against Hutcherson the day after the dump (the 1934 Act allows for private lawsuits as well as criminal prosecution). That would be fun, especially when Hutcherson's defense would likely be "we had no impact on the market." Heh.

On the other hand, Bigot Reverend Hutcherson could try a different tactic, one that many agitators try — shareholder votes. Back when I used to own Philip Morris Altria stock, I remember that there was some gaggle of nuns who owned I think exactly one share of stock and every year put a shareholder referendum on the ballot calling for Philip Morris to, um, stop selling tobacco. You can imagine how such votes play out each year. Heh.

Also, no word yet on whether Bigot Reverend Hutcherson will also try to smite Microsoft for its true sins rather for the faux sin of not hating gays.

Meanwhile, here are some fun facts about Microsoft:

--shares outstanding: 10.9 billion
--average daily trading volume: 6.6 million shares
--market capitalization: $288 billion
--annual revenue: $39.8 billion
--special one-time dividend paid December 2004: $32 billion

Good luck trying to pump-and-dump that.

More thoughts at Good As You.

(Cross-posted at Spectrum Bloggers.)

A basic premise of corporation law is that shareholders, in exchange for the protection of limited liability in the case of bankruptcy, also have limited input regarding how the business is actually run. Shareholder power is for most part limited to voting for directors (who in turn appoint the officers), and ratifying certain major events, such as a merger, share repurchase, name change, and so on. All decisions regarding the day-to-day operations of the firm are supposed to be at the sole discretion of the officers and not the shareholders.

So when activist shareholders attempt to interfere in the operations of the firm via proxy contests, the firm is legally permitted to refuse to put the initiatives on the shareholder ballot. This is not at all unusual or controversial. See SEC Rule 14a-8, Question 9, Part 7.

What is unusual is for the SEC to intervene in these disputes in a patently improper way:

Ford Motor Co. shareholders will decide whether to amend the company's equal employment policy to exclude sexual orientation after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission denied Ford's request to keep the issue off its proxy statement, the automaker said Tuesday.

Ford's policy now says the company won't discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, gender, religion and other factors. Shareholder Robert Hurley of Alton, Ill., has submitted a proposal recommending Ford change its policy to exclude any reference to sexual interests, activities or orientation.

Ford asked the SEC to exclude the proposal from its proxy statement... But in a recent decision, the SEC said Ford can't exclude the proposal. The SEC said a rule that allows companies to reject proposals that deal with "ordinary business operations" doesn't apply to this case.

Oh really? Crafting your hiring, firing and recruitment policies does not fall under "ordinary business operations"? Go figure.

There is really no debate here. Ford is 100% right and the SEC is 100% wrong. The SEC is supposed to be an independent agency insulated from petty politics. But one has to wonder who pressured whom to craft an unprecedented and nonsensical interpretation of such a straightforward rule. Some things just aren't up for a shareholder vote, no matter how much the bigots' sensibilities are offended. The SEC should know better.

As for the outcome of the bigot proxy proposal, it will of course fail by an embarrassing margin. Members of the Ford family control something like 20% of Ford stock, and institutional investors certainly won't be swayed by this Klaxon of bigotry.

Ford has enough problems without bigot policies imposed on it by bigot shareholders. How sad that the SEC has so improperly chosen to compound the company's woes with this distraction.

(Cross-posted at Spectrum Bloggers.)

UPDATE: Similar shenanigans against Kraft Foods.

POST SCRIPT: The vote was 95% against the proposal.

There are two high-profile cases of anti-gay bigotry in the form of shareholder proposals demanding that major corporations cease to be gay-friendly in one way or another.

Sorry, make that only one high-profile case:

Kraft Foods Inc. shareholders Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a proposal that the Northfield-based food and beverage giant cut sponsorship for the Chicago-hosted 2006 Gay Games and future competitions.

Saying the event promotes gay activity that increases the likelihood of transmission of sexually transmitted diseases and is inconsistent with the company's health-focused initiatives, shareholder Marcella Meyer of Chicago presented the proposal before the annual meeting in East Hanover, N.J. She saw 99 percent of the votes cast against the proposal, as company directors recommended.

Wow.

Of course, there's a fundamental difference between the bigot shareholder proposal of Ms. Meyer and the bigot amendments being submitted in states across the country -- besides the outcome, that is. Ms. Meyer is now free to sell her shares, leave the community of Kraft shareholders and sulk in the privacy of her own hatred, no worse off than she was had she never bought Kraft stock in the first place.

Gays in states with bigot amendments can make no such claim. Yes, they can theoretically relocate to Massachusetts or Vermont or Canada or wherever. But even doing that would not make them "no worse off" than had the bigot amendments never been enacted. Ms. Meyer didn't lose anything she was truly entitled to. Gays lost quite a bit that they were truly entitled to.

The very definition of a corporation is that shareholders have little or no input in the operations of the business. The very definition of "equal protection" is that the majority does not have absolute input in the operations of society or government.

Anyone who refuses to acknowledge these self-evident truths really does have a mob mentality.

A bigot comments on one modest bullet point in the Homosexual Agenda's PowerPoint presentation:

Matt Barber, policy director for cultural issues with Concerned Women for America, said small businesses are being targeted because they are known for conservative values.

Funny, I thought small businesses — all businesses — are known for trying to maximize profits, which increasingly means reaching out to the gay community, as customers, employees and investors.

My bad.

(Via Good As You.)