Thomson Reuters Is Latest Big Minnesota Employer to Side Against Ballot Campaign

Another of Minnesota's Fortune 500 companies and one of the world's largest news providers, Thomson Reuters, sided against a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in the state.

"We believe the Minnesota Marriage Amendment, if passed, would limit our ability to recruit and retain top talent," the company said in an email to employees on Friday. "For this reason, we do not believe that the Amendment would be good for Thomson Reuters or the business community in the state.”

The company has about 8,000 employees in the state, according to the Associated Press, and about 60,000 worldwide. It joins General Mills and St. Jude Medical as prominent businesses in the state opposing the ballot initiative in November. A petition has gained nearly 30,000 names in its quest to convince Minnesota-based Best Buy to do the same.

Target said it's going to remain neutral, having been burned by its political involvement in the past, but has shown its LGBT support in other ways like T-shirts sold for Pride month and It Gets Better video.

Minnesotans United for All Families issued a statement praising Thomson Reuters and pointing out the larger problem at play, saying, "Companies must be able to recruit and retain the top talent in their industries, and this freedom-limiting amendment would severely and negatively impact Minnesota companies’ ability to do so."

The group, which is leading the fight against the ballot initiative also pointed out a group of top Minnesota law firms that wrote an op-ed in the Star Tribune in this week to say basically the same thing — the ballot initiative is bad for business.

"As a number of our state's corporate leaders have noted, the marriage amendment endangers our business climate, signaling that ours is a community that does not welcome members of the LGBT community," they wrote. "This directly impacts Minnesota businesses, including law firms, which are dependent on attracting and retaining the best and brightest talent, regardless of sexual orientation."

Thomson Reuters elaborated on exactly why discrimination hurts its business in its email to employees.

“As we’ve heard from employees, recruiters and customers, one thing has been very clear: we’re a better place when we have a rich variety of perspectives, talents, backgrounds, lifestyles and experiences in our workplace, and within the broader community from which we recruit," the company wrote to employees in an email Friday. "We believe that building a culture that thrives on diversity and inclusion and provides equal opportunities to everyone is a critical factor in our ability to serve our customers and be successful."