How to: stick it to the gays, 50 boycotts at a time

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has released its latest Corporate Equality Index, which once again demonstrates that corporate America is actually far ahead of government in protecting the equality of gay, lesbian and transgendered employees.

The index measures the policies and practices of 583 major corporations and, as has been the case every year, the number of companies scoring a perfect 100 has risen substantially from the year before.

In the last few years, the number of companies with perfect scores has gone from 101 to 138 to 195; this year it’s 259. When they began the survey in 2002, only 13 companies made the mark. That’s pretty remarkable progress.

Naturally, that leaves the professional anti-gay contingent with quite a bunched up set of panties. Peter LaBarbera, founder of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, says the good Christian folk of this country must stand up to these evil corporations who have “sold [their] soul to the homosexual lobby”:

“What we are surprised at is that more people aren’t engaging these corporations, because to get a top ranking at HRC you have to essentially say that you only support the gay side,” he points out. “If you do anything that constitutes being even close to supporting the pro-family side — for example, helping a pro-marriage effort or a campaign to stop gay ‘marriage’ — you cannot get a perfect rating according to HRC.”

LaBarbera says many conservative Christians are weary because they have been losing the fight against homosexual activism. But it is time, he urges, for those individuals to engage within the corporate world. He says if this fight is lost then “our freedom to engage for truth in America” will be lost as well.

And it might surprise people to find out that, for once, I agree with LaBarbera. I think the anti-gay crowd should do what it is trying to do to McDonald’s and Ford and boycott every company that scores high on the HRC’s index. And to help them out, I’ve prepared a list of some of the companies they now have to avoid.

You can’t fly on American Airlines, Continental or US Airways, all of which scored a perfect 100. You might also want to avoid United, Southwest, Delta, Northwest, and JetBlue; all scored above 80. In fact, Sarah Palin is gonna have a difficult time flying anywhere since Alaska Airlines also got a perfect score.

Who can you fly? Well, you could try Nepal Airlines, the faith-based airline that sacrifices goats to appease God. On second thought, that won’t work either. Nepal Airlines has two planes, both of them made by Boeing; Boeing got a perfect 100, too. Go Greyhound!

In fact, you might want to start boycotting the military, too. Most of the major defense contractors scored very well. Honeywell, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman all scored a perfect 100. Lockheed got an 85. Who would have guessed that our good ol’ red-blooded and (presumably) straight American fighting men are using weapons that advance the gay agenda? If they don’t ask, we won’t tell. Actually, you’re gonna have to stop watching religious channels like Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) as well, since they are broadcast on satellites made by gay-loving companies.

Shopping could be a problem too. You can’t shop at Abercrombie and Fitch, The Gap, JC Penney’s, Macy’s, or Nordstrom. Can’t wear Levis jeans or Nike shoes. And even that staple of middle American fashion, L.L. Bean, scored a 79. Ah well, there’s always K-Mart. And in a pinch, you can always wear a plain white sheet.

Then again, it’s going to be difficult to get to the mall anyway since cars are pretty much out entirely. Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, Toyota, Subaru and Volkswagon all scored a perfect 100. You could try Volvo, but that’s a Swedish company and you know how those morally bankrupt Scandinavians like to treat gay people like human beings. It may be horse and buggy time.

Finances are gonna be damn near impossible. Want to find a hetero-normative mortgage? Good luck. Bank of America, Citigroup, Countrywide, JP Morgan Chase, Fannie Mae, Indy Mac, Washington Mutual and Wells Fargo all scored 100. Heck, I bet gay marriage is the real cause of the foreclosure problem.

Need a morally upstanding credit card? Avoid American Express, Mastercard and Visa; all got perfect scores. Can’t do Discover either, since they’re owned by Morgan Stanley and damn if they didn’t get a 100 as well.

Banking in general is gonna be a real problem for the righteous, and you might as well give up on any thought of investing your money or saving for retirement. Bank of America, Bear Stearns, Capital One Financial, Charles Schwab, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Wachovia — all get perfect scores on the Sodomy Scale. I guess that leaves the old coffee can under the bed, but you’ll have to make sure it isn’t Maxwell House or Gevalia; they’re both owned by Kraft Foods which, you guessed it, got a perfect score too.

Speaking of which, eating and drinking could be a bit difficult as well. No Coke or Pepsi, they both got 100. Nothing from Kraft or General Mills, which wipes out about half the products in the supermarket. No Budweiser. For crying out loud, even Coors, typically a friend to conservatives, has been corrupted by the forces of buggery and scores a perfect 100. And even that old American standby, Campbell’s Soup, got a 95.

Ironically, you can safely eat Heinz 57 sauce; despite being associated with a certain gay-loving Massachusetts liberal, they only scored a 46. It doesn’t look like you’ll have much to put it on, though; perhaps it will go well with the manna from the sky you’ll be relying on in your quest to take a stand for decency in America.

It’s probably a good thing that most of you believe in faith healing, too, because getting health insurance without supporting those godless sodomites may prove impossible. AAA, Hartford, Metlife, Prudential, ING and Nationwide are all perfect 100s. Even the obviously misnamed American Family Insurance Group scores a 95.

Don’t they know that you can’t use the word “family” unless you’re anti-gay?

Even if you did have health insurance, your doctor couldn’t prescribe you any medication made by Eli Lilly, Bristol Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson and Johnson, Merck or Pfizer.

Don’t worry; I’m sure that rash will clear up soon. And if it doesn’t, take solace in the fact that you’re doing the right thing. Wear it like a badge of honor for your brave and virtuous stand against immorality and equality.