So I spent my day pouring through Supreme Court updates and … collecting memes as they unfolded. Memes based on the red HRC equality sign. I found over 35 versions. Check them out here.
Memes with bacon, Siracha sauce, apples, Muppets, SNL characters, and what I think is a sloth. People are very creative. Grumpy Cat, Paula Dean. Bert and Ernie.
Image: LGBTQ UK History
Do you like bigotry with your condiments?
Heinz has donated to the Boy Scouts and plans to continue that relationship regardless of their anti-LGBTQ policies.
The New Civil Rights Movement shares:
Ketchup-maker H.J. Heinz Company gave $12,000 to the Scouts during the fiscal year ending April 27, 2011 — and stands by those donations.
“The H.J. Heinz Company Foundation has had a long-term partnership with the Boy Scouts of America for the past 25 years and that partnership continues today,” Heinz spokesman Michael Mullen said in an email.
Formerly Pittsburgh based ALCOA donated $30,000 to the Boy Scouts in 2010. PNC donated $49,000+.
About 14% of the Fortune 500 continue to donate to the Boy Scouts even when their own internal policies prohibit funding organizations that discriminate based on sexual orientation. And this can come back to haunt them as the HRC will now deduct points from their Corporate Equality Index score based on these decisions.
Earlier this month, HRC announced that corporations that have donated to the BSA would lose points on the group’s Corporate Equality Index, which rates corporations on LGBT-inclusiveness.
“To receive a perfect score, companies would have to prohibit philanthropic giving to non-religious organizations that have a written policy of anti-gay discrimination, or permit its chapters, affiliates, or troops to do so,” reads a press statement HRC released last month.
Heinz 2013 score is 60 out of 100, down five points from 2012. PNC and ALCOA both received perfect scores in 2013. Sadly, Berkshire-Hathaway (new owner of Heinz) has no score so as much as you might love Warren Buffet, we probably can’t expect change from that quarter.
A complete list of the corporations supporting Boy Scout bigotry can be found here.
In 2008, Heinz pulled a “controversial” UK commercial featuring a same sex couple.
I have yet to blog on Pitt’s absurd and dangerous decision to impose “bathroom rules” on their trans students, staff, faculty and guests. I have been gathering some information both in terms of how to best help our trans sisters and brothers be safe and to figure out … well, the possible motivation.
I would like to see Pittsburgh’s LGBT community speak out more forcefully on this. Yes, there are facts to gather and two other safety situations going on, but there’s an immediate threat to the safety of men and women targeted by this rule.
I hope to have more to share soon. If there is anything I can do to help, please reach out. I’m appalled and worried.
