Anti-Gay Actions Could Hurt State's Business Prospects

KENTUCKY - Gov. Ernie Fletcher and other politicians talk a lot about luring businesses to Kentucky, but critics cite extensive research that suggests anti-gay actions by Fletcher and state lawmakers may drive companies elsewhere.
Detractors contend that Fletcher's April 11 move to strip discrimination protections from homosexual employees and the General Assembly's decision to provide $11 million to a private university that expelled a gay student will make Kentucky seem unsavory to many companies that officials hope to attract and retain.
"Bigotry is bad for business and having a governor who is obviously bigoted is fundamentally incompatible with business," said Alan Hawse of Lexington, vice president of information technology for California-based Cypress Semiconductor.
Hawse, who oversees about 40 highly paid employees in downtown Lexington and another 175 in California, Minnesota, the Philippines and elsewhere, said the state's already lackluster image has been further tarnished by recent events.
"We go from a backwater state trying to attract business to a backwater, bigoted state trying to attract business," Hawse said Friday.
Brett Hall, a spokesman for Fletcher, called Hawse's assertions "absurd." He said the Fletcher administration has no intention of discriminating against gay or lesbian job candidates and employees.
"We don't ask people if they're gay and how would we know?" Hall said. "I can't imagine it would be an issue at all."
He disagreed with the notion that the state's hiring policies and the legislature's decision to fund a pharmacy college at the University of the Cumberlands will spook businesses looking to relocate to Kentucky. (Fletcher is expected to decide Monday if he will veto an $11 million appropriation for the school.)
But a recent survey of corporate America suggests that Fletcher's critics have a point.
In a poll of nearly 1,000 businesses conducted in late 2004 by Louisiana State University, about half of respondents said the tolerance level of a community was an important factor when seeking to relocate.
On a scale of one to 10, with 10 being very important, 48.1 percent of respondents ranked "perception that the local community is tolerant and progressive" with a seven or higher.
In contrast, only 35.3 percent gave a similar rating to "right to work," a measure unsuccessfully pushed by Fletcher this year that would allow people to work in labor-represented jobs without joining a union or paying union fees.
Fletcher has repeatedly said that not having a right-to-work provision puts Kentucky on the corporate "no-call list."
'It's about setting a tone'
Locating in a tolerant community is perhaps even more important for knowledge-based businesses, which thrive on the ability to attract creative workers, said Gary Gates, senior research fellow for the Williams Institute, a sexual-orientation policy group at the UCLA School of Law.
Gates, along with economist and author Richard Florida, has done extensive research documenting the correlation between a community's economic prosperity and the tolerance of its citizens.
After analyzing dozens of variables, they found that the concentration of same-sex households within a region was the strongest predictor of a vibrant high-tech economy.
Not because gays and lesbians are smarter or earn more money, but because creativity thrives in places that are tolerant, open and diverse. "It's about setting a tone," Gates said.
If a gay person is welcome, then just about anyone who is somehow "different" feels at ease, goes the theory.
Kentucky's leaders are "sending out an unwelcome signal to a lot of creative and innovative people, whether they're gay or not," Gates said.
Companies lead the way
At the same time, businesses such as printer maker Lexmark International, based in Lexington, are striving to recruit all types of workers, Lexmark spokesman Tim FitzPatrick said in a written statement.
The company even offers employees the opportunity to join a variety of networking groups, including the Gay/Straight Alliance of Lexmark Employees.
"Diversity in all of its definitions continues to be a key focus in our recruitment efforts and also a consideration in succession planning because we recognize diversity as a strength that will help us compete more effectively in a global marketplace," FitzPatrick said.
Lexmark is among the 7,400 companies, including 211 of Fortune 500 companies, now offering spousal-equivalent benefits to the partners of gay and lesbian employees.
A number of other companies in metro Lexington offer same-sex partner benefits, including Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky, Gray Construction and the Lexington Herald-Leader.
Many more companies have policies that ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
"If you believe that the market is what rules in this world, all the trends in corporate America say that increasing amounts of policies that promote diversity are good for the bottom line," Gates said. "Companies aren't doing this because it's nice; they do it because it's good for business."
Tourism can be hurt
Places labeled as intolerant also suffer tourism troubles.
In Cincinnati, the convention center lost at least $25 million of business in the decade after passing a law that banned any provision protecting gays and lesbians, according to the Greater Cincinnati Convention and Visitors Bureau. The anti-gay law was repealed in 2004.
Lexington, like Louisville and Covington, has a fairness ordinance that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. A proposed constitutional amendment that would have overturned those ordinances was defeated in the state Senate earlier this year.
Fletcher's April 11 decision to undo a 2003 order by former Gov. Paul Patton and remove sexual orientation and gender identity from the state's anti-discrimination list puts Kentucky in the company of Ohio and 21 other states that have no statewide laws and policies protecting gay workers.
"It has an overarching impact on the state in terms of attracting tourism, attracting conventions and attracting businesses that want to make their home here," said Christina Gilgor, executive director of the Kentucky Fairness Alliance. "It is very unfortunate that the governor has chosen to scapegoat a minority group in this way."
from The Herald-Leader