Capitalism Trumps Hate

CEOs have often been ahead of cops and politicians on gay rights.

- By Richard Morrison

BIG BUSINESS WASN’T exactly the first place activists looked for allies as the modern gay rights movement emerged. Large corporations have long been seen as a force for social conformity, antagonistic or at best indifferent toward liberation movements. But legal scholar Carlos A. Ball’s new book, The Queering of Corporate America, makes a strong case that the business world has been one of the more favorable arenas for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and trans people seeking equality. (Ball uses LGBTQ throughout to describe this group.)

This wasn’t always the case, of course. Ball shows how advocates and managers learned to walk the path toward greater equality together, a story that should lead many readers to reassess what they thought they knew about corporate America, civil rights, and social change. Over the course of several decades, activists persuaded companies to adopt non-discriminatory hiring rules, to protect the jobs of people with HIV, and to extend health care and retirement benefits to same-sex domestic partners. Most of this was achieved at a time when few government agencies had such policies for their own employees and when most politicians—of both major parties—wanted nothing to do with gay rights legislation.