Shareholders May Strike 'Sexual Orientation' from Ford's Employment Policy
by Allie Martin
May 10, 2006
(AgapePress) - - Ford Motor Company shareholders are preparing for their annual meeting on May 11 where, among other things, they will act on a proposal to amend the company's equal employment policy to exclude sexual orientation.
Ford's policy currently states that the automaker will not discriminate on the basis of gender, religion, sexual orientation, and other factors. But shareholder Robert Hurley, a retired doctor from Alton, Illinois, has submitted a proposal to be read during tomorrow's meeting in Wilmington, Delaware -- a proposal recommending that Ford change the policy to exclude any reference to sexual interests, activities, or orientation.
Initially, Ford asked the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to omit Hurley's proposal from its proxy statement. The SEC refused, however, and so the company recommended to shareholders that they vote against the proposal.
Ford has argued that amending its equal employment in the manner suggested could hurt its sales to homosexual rights supporters. Officials with the auto giant have also claimed that making the proposed changes would hurt the corporation's ability to recruit talent from some colleges and universities.
Hurley believes the recruitment concern is unfounded. Because his proposal addresses the auto manufacturer's written policy and not its actual activity, he contends, Ford is free to go and recruit personnel anywhere they choose, including the best universities in the country."
"And no university, as far as I've been able to discover, has any requirement that they have a written policy specifically listing any group or any activity of any group," the Ford investor insists. He feels the automaker should have no such requirement either, as he says a company has no business including privacy issues related to sexual interests or activities in its equal employment policy.
But what particularly concerns Hurley is the perception he believes the company's equal employment policy fosters -- the perception that Ford supports homosexuality. He says since a high percentage of AIDS cases are related to homosexual activity, the policy could be construed as indicating that the company is in favor of an unhealthy lifestyle.
That is the wrong message to send, the retired physician notes, especially with "16,000 people dying [from AIDS] every year, 45,000 diagnosed anew every year, and over 1.2 million cases in North America, 25 percent of which don't even know they have it yet. That's a public health problem."
Hurley suggests that he wrote his proposal recommending that Ford's equal employment policy exclude references to sexual orientation because he feels the company is, in effect, designating homosexuals, who lifestyle can be deadly, as being among special classes or groups to be singled out for preference. "It just appears to me," he says, "that if you name these groups then you appear to be promoting an adverse public health approach."
Ford sent out its proxy statement last month, and the company's shareholders have voted on the proposals submitted, including Hurley's. The results of the proxy vote will be announced at tomorrow's meeting.
Allie Martin, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
