[livius drusus]

Following up on my post above, I looked for a definition of gay friendly on Human Right's Campaign's website and found the 2004 Corporate Equality Index (pdf file) which ranks large companies according to 7 criteria:

HRC criteria for rating companies' approach to GLBT issues

1. Include the words "sexual orientation" in their primary written non-discrimination policy.

2. Include the words "gender indentity" or "gender identity and/or expression" in their primary written non-discrimination policy.

3. Offer health insurance coverage to employees' same-sex partners firm-wide; or provide cash compensation to employees to purchase health insurance for a domestic partner on their own.

4. Officially recognize and support a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employee resource group; or would support employees' forming a GLBT employee resource group if some expressed interest by providing space and other resources; or have a firm-wide diversity council or working group whose mission specifically includes GLBT diversity.

5. Offer diversity training that includes sexual orientation and/or gender identity and expression in the workplace.

6. Engage in respectful and appropriate marketing to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community and/or provide support through their corporate foundation or otherwise to GLBT health, educational, political or community organizations or events.

7. Engage in corporate action that would undermine the goal of equal rights for gay lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

By these standards -- which I think are remarkably extensive -- it seems to me that Microsoft's Brave Sir Robin act would not change their status as a gay friendly corporation. I thought criterion 7 might possibly cover something like withdrawing support for a gay rights bill, but according to the footnote, companies only lose points under that criterion if they actively undermine GLBT employment practices or direct corporate contributions to anti-gay organizations.

Microsoft scored an 86% last year, btw, the industry average for computer companies. They lost points because they neglected to add gender identity and/or expression categories to their non-discrimination policy.