Fortune 500
companies: 92% provide gay nondiscrimination policies

Equality Forum, a Philadelphia-based GLBT rights organization, has announced that more than 92% (463) of the 2007 Fortune 500 companies include sexual orientation in their employment nondiscrimination policies.

According to the press release, when Equality Forum began contacting Fortune 500 companies in the fall of 2003, only 323 companies--or about 65%-- provided sexual orientation protections. Equality Forum, along with professors Louis Thomas of University of Pennsylvania and Ian Ayres of Yale Law School, contacted 177 CEOs and human resources directors of companies that didn't offer nondiscrimination policies. By the fall of 2004, 405 (81%) had adopted protections.

Of the 37 Fortune 500 companies that have not adopted protections, 38% (14 companies) are headquartered in Texas, the press release noted.

A Gallup poll in May found that 89% of U.S. citizens believe that gays and lesbians should have protection against workplace discrimination. (The Advocate)