December 6, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) — For the first time ever, Walmart has scored a “perfect” 100 percent ranking on a leading homosexual lobby group’s “corporate scorecard,” meaning that to keep its score the retail giant will now cover transsexual employees’ “sex reassignment surgeries” as part of its healthcare coverage.
The decidedly anti-social-conservative “Corporate Equality Index” (CEI) is produced by Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the world’s largest homosexual-bisexual-transgender lobby organization. Companies are ranked by whether or not they adopt pro-LGBTQ workplace and giving policies. From year to year, HRC usually makes the criteria more stringent, thus driving corporations to adopt ever-more radical pro-LGBTQ internal policies and commitments to maintain their “perfect” scores.
Walmart’s new 100 percent score (up from 90 percent on last year’s scorecard) marks its steadily growing embrace of LGBTQ advocacy at the expense of its wholesome, pro-family image. In recent years, the corporation has begun funding “gay pride” parades, in which lewd behavior is paraded in front of children, and homosexual activist groups like the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund.
Lose points for backing natural marriage
Moreover, according to HRC’s biased “Index,” corporations are punished (losing 25 points) for giving to pro-natural marriage groups and causes while they are rewarded for giving money to LGBTQ causes. According to “Criterion 5 of the “Index,”
“The Employers will have 25 points deducted from their score for a large-scale official or public anti-LGBT blemish on their recent records. No employer received this deduction in the 2017 CEI.”
In recent years, to accrue points toward a 100 percent ranking, major corporations like Walmart have stepped up their giving of large grants to LGBTQ organizations and events.
HRC announced on page 6 of its 111-page CEI report:
“199 of the Fortune 500-ranked businesses achieved a 100 percent rating (compared to 151 last year), with 12 of the top 20 Fortune-ranked businesses at this top score. Ninety-two percent of the Fortune 500 include ‘sexual orientation’ in their nondiscrimination policies and 82 percent include ‘gender identity.’ For the first time, half of Fortune 500 companies offer transgender inclusive healthcare benefits, including surgical procedures.”
A sampling of other 100 percent Fortune 500 corporations is below.
Walmart settles with “gay” legal group
Meanwhile, Walmart announced that it has settled a class-action lawsuit with another homosexual lobby group to pay past compensation to its homosexual employees who had become same-sex “married” between 2011 and 2013 but were denied family health benefits.
The Boston-based LGBTQ legal organization GLAD announced in a Dec. 2 release:
“The $7.5 million proposed settlement would pay for claims by Walmart associates in the United States and Puerto Rico that they were unable to obtain health insurance coverage for their same-sex spouses from Walmart from Jan. 1, 2011 to Dec. 31, 2013. …
“In 2014, Walmart voluntarily made the same health insurance benefits available to same-sex spouses of its associates that it offered to opposite-sex spouses. As part of the proposed settlement, Walmart commits to continuing to do so in the future.”
A Walmart executive, Sally Welborn, senior vice president, global benefits, signaled that the settlement is part of the retailer’s pro-LGBTQ ethos (Walmart did not admit guilt as part of the terms):
“We’re happy both sides could come together to reach a resolution. Respect for the individual, diversity and inclusion are among the core values that made Walmart into the company that it is today. We will continue to not distinguish between same and opposite sex spouses when it comes to the benefits we offer under our health insurance plan.”
GLAD states that the number of people collecting from the class-action lawsuit is “expected to include no more than a few thousand current and former Walmart associates. Walmart employs nearly 1.5 million associates in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.”
Walmart plays both sides
Interestingly, unlike many other corporations adopting pro-homosexual policies, Walmart plays both sides of the social-issues “culture war.” It does this by cultivating good relations with both homosexual activists like HRC and Christian conservative organizations like American Family Association (AFA).
Last year, Walmart received high praise from one of the most prominent and respected pro-family leaders in America, Tim Wildmon, son of Don Wildmon, who founded the Tupelo, Mississippi-based AFA. See this 2015 article, where AFA president Tim Wildmon gives Walmart a “perfect 100” on its “Corporate Religious Liberty Index” because of Walmart’s answers “demonstrating that the corporation respects and values religious freedoms.”
Other “perfect” pro-LGBTQ corporations
The following corporations are among those that joined Walmart as Fortune 500 companies scoring 100 percent on HRC-skewed “Corporate Equality Index” (2017):
Apple
AT&T
Ben and Jerry’s
BB&T Corp.
Best Buy
Boeing
3M
Chevron
Capital One
Comcast
Clorox
Coca-Cola
Colgate-Palmolive
Crate & Barrel
Dell
Eastman Kodak
Ebay
Expedia
Fannie Mae
Freddie Mac
Ford
GameStop
Gap
General Mills
GM
GE
Groupon
Hallmark Cards Inc.
Harris
Hartford
Hasbro
Hershey
Home Depot
Hyundai Motor America
Hyatt Hotels
Intel
IKEA
IBM
JC Penney
JetBlue
John Hancock Financial Services
Johnson & Johnson
Kaiser Permanente
Kellogg Co.
Kimberly-Clark Corp
Land O’Lakes
Lexmark
McDonald’s
Macy’s
Merck
MetLife
MGM Resorts
Mattel
MillerCoors
Microsoft
Nationwide
Nestle-Palmolive
Netflix
New York Life
Nike
Office Depot
Owens Corning
PapPal
Pepsico
PetSmart
Procter & Gamble
Prudential
Raytheon
Replacements
Salesforce
Southwest Airlines
Sony Corp. of America
Sony Pictures
Sprint
Starbucks
T-Mobile
T. Rowe Price
Tesla Motors
Time-Warner
Toys-R-Us
UPS
Walmart
Walt Disney
Whirlpool
Wyndham Worldwide
VW
Viacom