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Business Diversity at Stake in Same-Sex Marriage and Civil Unions Bans, TooOpinion: "Lifestyle" discrimination, and indiscriminate constitutional tinkering, can have unintended labor and economic consequences
Milwaukee – October 31, 2006 – In the debates over eight states’ ballot proposals to ban same-sex marriages and/or state-recognized civil unions of couples gay or straight, a high-minded moralizing is in abundance on all sides. Meanwhile, measured considerations of the pragmatic meaning of such proposals on our state seem in relatively short supply. Leaving morality aside for the moment, the proposal raises practical concerns that threaten the diversity, robustness, and competitiveness of our communities. Such is the case, at any rate, in my current home state of Wisconsin, where ballot Question 1 seeks a constitutional amendment to ban all at once same-sex marriages and civil unions and domestic partnerships. I am a straight, married Milwaukee resident, raised in a Christian family, and speaking practically, ballot Question 1 is redundant, wasteful, and self-defeating. It’s redundant because same-sex marriage is not legal in our state now. For matrimonially inclined gays and lesbians seeking to wed in Wisconsin, nothing will have changed on November 8. Regardless of one’s political or religious leaning, then, it is pointless as a “defense of marriage,” and I believe wasteful in its redundancy. Its proponents have spent inordinate amounts of funding, time, bandwidth, paper, and public resources spamming my fellow Wisconsinites only to restate what is already a fact of our law. Beyond the marriage non-issue, however, the Question 1 is also a Trojan Horse. It hides within it new, additional prohibitions that, if passed, will bring significant, detrimental changes to Wisconsin, creating discrimination against my unmarried neighbors, both straight and gay. Its precise wording:
What does this have to with diversity and competitiveness?
Discrimination as a Pipeline IssueFirst, our state and our more forward-thinking businesses have been fairly progressive in terms of domestic partnerships – providing for the equitable sharing of property, healthcare and work benefits, aid especially for women in such issues as domestic violence, and other privileges and responsibilities. Undermining these widely beneficial policies would be detrimental to the well-being of our citizens, communities and institutions, not to mention our competitiveness in economic, cultural, and educational spheres. When the University of Wisconsin System ultimately stood in opposition to the proposed ban, its arguments were (to the dismay of many leftward activists) practical, not moral. In a manner not unrelated to Michigan’s defense of Affirmative Action a few years ago, the Wisconsin argued, correctly, that the ban would negatively affect its ability to recruit the people and talent it needs to remain competitive in its educational and research mission. Its intellectual and financial strength depend upon recruitment of diverse, high-quality students, faculty, researchers and staff from out of state, as well as from within. These concerns are shared by our state’s leading businesses in all sectors. Like many Midwestern states, we are bracing for a dire labor shortage, and at a time when we have only recently managed to retool and diversify our economy after a slump in our traditional industries. As a diversity recruitment professional, raised on the East Coast, and a former academic who once taught and sat on hiring committees at UW, I can tell you: it is already devilishly hard to recruit and retain diverse, top-quality talent here. Our institutions have several stereotypes and real recruitment obstacles to overcome. Outside the Heartland, we are perceived to be a sleepy, frigid, possibly quaint but certainly lily-white hinterland, sprinkled with a handful of famously segregated cities like Milwaukee, thought to be stuck in a bygone industrial era. We need smart, talented people to move here – straight or not, married or not. But Ballot Proposal 1 not only propagates our reputation as a cold, uninviting and intolerant backwoods, but undercuts some of our more powerful weapons in the coming war for educated worker talent. In a Sept. 4 article by AP Business Writer Emily Fredrix about the impending labor crisis, Jonas Prising, president of North American operations for Manpower, Inc., suggested that business survival in places like Wisconsin will rely heavily on effective recruitment and retention of worker profiles that have been long ignored, underrepresented, or taken for granted. This would include not only minorities, women, disabled workers, immigrants, and yes, gays and lesbians, but another class of citizens that stands to be disproportionately affected by Wisconsin's Question 1: older workers and retirees. Prising estimated that people 55 and older make up 15 percent to 20 percent of the workforce, and rising. A ban would affect many of our state’s elderly couples who, for religious, legal or family reasons choose not to marry (or remarry). This extends to the burgeoning population of Baby Boomers heading into retirement with someone they love and without the ring. Whether they’re smarting from second or third divorces and “won’t be fooled again,” or have family complications, or are respecting the loss of beloved spouse, etc., many are opting out of the nuptials for any number of good reasons that aren’t really our business. What is our business, though, is incentivizing all experienced talent to continue participating in our workforce, rather than alienating them, judging their “lifestyle” choices, or forcing them to rigidly think, live, love or marry as proponents of Question 1 think it appropriate or proper. Fortunately, business and academia have for years now been miles ahead of the politicos in regard to grasping the value and harnessing the benefits of diversity and inclusiveness. Nationwide, leading institutions of all stripes, from the University of Wisconsin to Microsoft, are increasingly proactive in fostering a welcoming environment where diverse people can live and work productively. Not for altruism but for competitiveness, more and more are specifically extending fair partnership benefits to gays and lesbians, or reaching out to entice and accommodate retiring Boomers who want to stay in the workforce. An increasing number of municipal bodies are also learning to understand diversity as not a function of quantity and quotas, but of quality. City planners and state economic ambassadors are now specifically encouraging the creation of stable gay and non-traditional communities, the “creative classes,” to spearhead the reinvigoration of neighborhoods in major Heartland cities past their industrial prime. Gay communities have spurred astonishing renewal in my city, helped to rejuvenate once-crumbling neighborhoods rife with poverty, transformed streets lined with crack dens, and contributed meaningfully to the tax base. As a Milwaukee homeowner, I’ve observed how gay communities have not only helped raised surrounding areas’ commercial and property values, but also – and, not incidentally – the quality of life, cultural richness, and ethnic integration. I’ve sidestepped here, but do not discount, the moral conflicts underlying our Question 1 and the other seven state initiatives purporting to “defend marriage” in the midterm elections. But the number of dedicated activists hotly debating its morality is far outweighed by those voters who say they know (or think, or understand) little about the initiative one way or the other. To these, perhaps, it really doesn’t matter that I personally believe discrimination in the form of banning civil unions is bigoted, backward, and morally wrong. To these, perhaps a more relevant line of questioning than “right or wrong” may be simply, “Is it wise? It is good for us? Is it good for anyone?” On the axis of maintaining stable, diverse, and robust communities, as well as a strong, nationally competitive business landscape, at least, the resounding answer must be: taking two steps backward to ban civil unions will be lousy for us all.
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