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Royal Bank Coerces Employees to Display Gay Pride Symbol

TORONTO, October 4, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) launched a sexual orientation campaign to request its employees to "be supportive" of "gay, lesbian and bisexual issues," in a company newsletter published in September. The Canada Family Action Coalition (CFAC) is calling the move an abuse of power by the employer, foisting their "misguided morality" on their staff.

The Bank opened the campaign with the first edition of a regular newsletter, "Rainbow Space," with its purpose to "highlight the importance of sexual preference as one of RBC's primary diversity elements." The RBC makes a strong appeal for employees to personally demonstrate support of homosexual, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues by displaying a rainbow coloured triangle on their "desk, cubicle, or office." "Apparently displaying the sticker is voluntary," the CFAC says in a release, "however the document goes on to imply that unsupportive co-workers are homophobic and won't be tolerated."

"The 'Rainbow Space' campaign is not just an abuse of power," CFAC continues, "it is fanatically distorted." In their terminology section the Royal Bank describes gender as something "assigned to them at birth." "Basic commonsense is a child is born a boy or girl, however not according to the Royal Bank," the CFAC said. The Bank also uses the gay ideology term "Two-spirited" to describe "people who embody both the male and female spirit."

In addition the RBC categorically states, "About 10% of the population, including within RBC's employees, is gay or lesbian." A recent Statistics Canada survey found that 1.0% of the population is homosexual or lesbian. "The use of extremist terminology in an attempt to mislead employees is appalling," the CFAC maintains.

Almost five years ago the Royal Bank's Vice-President announced that RBC was taking the lead on such issues as the Toronto Gay Pride Parade. In 1999 VP Edmee Metivier said, "You don't always do sponsorship for the rewards, you do it for a good cause. We respect the right of our customers to reject this idea," Metivier added. "But we see ourselves as leaders."

"If unchallenged this militant campaign will spread from corporation to corporation-including Canada's largest employer, the government," CFAC warns. "It is conceivable that within a few months you will not be hired by corporate Canada or given a promotion unless you are 'supportive' of homosexual, lesbian and bisexual issues.

In an effort to stop this trend, Canada Family Action Coalition is calling upon "all people of faith, good will and commonsense to boycott the Royal Bank beginning October 4th by closing your personal and business accounts and refusing to invest in their misguided morality."

Read the RBC Rainbow Space newsletter (PDF): http://www.familyaction.org/PDFs/rbc.pdf

Send comments to the CFAC, at:

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