Shunning Gay-Friendly Businesses, Sharron Angle Sells Out Economic Beliefs
Sharron Angle prides herself on her conservative credentials. Fiscal or social, her policies consistently and reliably fall on the right. That doesn't mean, however, that they don't come into conflict.Angle, who's running against Sen. Harry Reid in Nevada, recently filled out a questionnaire for the political action committee (PAC) Government is Not God, and had to answer whether or not she would accept campaign donations from a company that had LGBT-inclusive benefits. Angle answered in the negative.
The Republican's so homophobic, so repulsed by LGBT equality, that she absolutely refuses to associate with anyone, including massive corporations, who support LGBT Americans.
This isn't surprising, of course: again, Angle has firmly aligned herself with the nation's most extreme conservatives. Her social discrimination, however, ends up eroding, if not demolishing, her economic platform, and hurts her campaign.
Like a good conservative, Angle believes that government should stay as far out of business affairs as possible. Unless it means cutting taxes for companies, of course, in which case she's all about it. "The fastest way to get the economy moving again is to cut spending, pay back the national debt, and make permanent the Bush Tax Cuts which are due to expire in just a few months," her campaign website insists. "Steps like these would go a long way toward giving the business community the confidence they need to start creating jobs and hiring again."
That's a truncated version of Angle's economic philosophy. An older, white-washed platform took Angle's beliefs a bit further: "Freedom to act would encourage the private sector to produce good paying jobs and put American citizens back to work."
Okay, Angle believes that companies should be left alone so that they can hire competent employees and expand their business in peace. Then why does she reject companies that don't conform to her right-wing perspective? Isn't turning your back on those who are different just as bad as trying to police them? Either way, someone's getting shafted for not toeing the line.
Angle's discriminatory stand against inclusive companies has two unacknowledged consequences for the candidate. First, it cuts her off from potentially lucrative donations. If Target, for example, wants to support her economic agenda by donating money, that's too bad, because Angle will refuse the HRC-approved company's money, with which they can be quite liberal for conservative causes.
The second, more subtle, impact is that Angle's tacitly punishing inclusive corporations; they can't help her campaign unless they conform to her worldview. She's telling companies how they should build their business. She is, in a word, "dictating" her beliefs. Those who disagree with her are left in the cold, a policy that's more closely associated with fascism than the free market Angle allegedly adores. If the government can't tell an executive how to run their company, what gives Angle the right?
Angle's staunch social conservatism eclipses the fact that we gays are here, we're queer, and we're willing to work. More importantly, companies are willing to hire us: 85% of Fortune 500 companies include sexual orientation in their non-discrimination policy; more than a third [only 35%] do the same for gender identity. Fifty-seven percent, meanwhile, provide domestic partner health insurance. These numbers could be higher, yes, but it's clear that the most successful corporations understand the importance of LGBT inclusion.
Now Angle's fallen into a bit of a quagmire: how can she prove to LGBT-friendly corporations that they fit into her economic model, while also shunning those companies' gay employees? Answer: she can't, and her campaign will definitely pay the price.
Photo credit: RogerSMJ's Flickr.
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