The HRC runs a yearly assessment of over three hundred companies that employ over nine million people. It looks at the company’s policies regarding LGBT employees and determines those places that are safe and supportive. It also looks at the places that offer no protection to their LGBT employees. In these times, a focus on the bad companies is strategically smart. Economic downturns make boycotts scarier. So we need to be threatening this kind of negative action against discriminating companies.

Here are some companies that are good to look at for boycott efforts:

Auto Zone

Auto Zone does not provide same-sex partner benefits and does not prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender. If you’ve ever been in need of an affordable auto part, there are plenty of retailers competing for your business. Auto Zone should be off our list.

Cracker Barrel

I hate these places and think they are very depressing, but sometimes you are driving around that dead zone that often happens near airports and there’s nothing but a Cracker Barrel lying around. Keep moving. This company does not offer benefits, prevent descrimination based on gender and does not provide sensitivity training regarding sexual diversity.

Exxon

I have trouble finding a gas company I can trust. And Shell is definitely out of the picture because of their brutal slaughter of the Ogoni people in Nigeria. Well Exxon is also out. This company is the single worst LGBT employer on HRC’s list. Exxon does not prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity and does not provide spousal health benefits to same-sex partners.

Today, as you move about your home town. Think boycott. HRC gives us the information, now we have to do the action.

Manchester owns the Manchester Grand Hyatt and the San Diego Marriott Hotel and Marina.

Last year he donated $125,000 to Protect Marriage, the group behind the ballot measure.

A group called Californians Against Hate immediately launched a boycott of Manchester’s properties. The boycott has resulted in several groups canceling conventions at the hotels – costing Manchester’s facility an estimated $2 million.

Among those who bailed out of meeting at the hotel are conventions for the International Foundation of Employee Benefits, the San Diego Board of Realtors, the American Assn. of Law Schools and the California Nurses Association.

Several months ago, The San Diego Union-Tribune reports, with loss of business at the hotels mounting, Manchester sought the help of Los Angeles public relations specialist Howard Bragman, a gay man who married had his partner last year and fought Prop. 8.

Now Manchester wants to donate an equal amount of money – $125,000 – to California LGBT groups in return for an end to the boycott. The money, The Union-Tribune reports, would be used by the groups to hold meetings and fundraisers at his hotels.

Californians Against Hate dismissed the attempted settlement, saying the boycott will continue.

“He is clearly trying to buy his way out of this, and it will not work,” spokesperson Fred Karger told the paper in an e-mail.

“Their proposal is a real slap in the face to the gay community and to all fair-minded people who believe in equality and support full civil rights for all gays and lesbians,” Karger said.

After Prop 8 passed last November, a legal challenge was mounted. The California Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling on the constitutionality of the vote any day.

US rights group TruthWinsOut, founded by 365gay columnist Wayne Besen, has called for a boycott of the island and some of its most famous products, to protest several violent homophobic incidents and Jamaica’s refusal to repeal laws against sodomy.

Wednesday, the group will launch a national boycott of Jamaica in New York City at the famed Stonewall Bar – birthplace of the gay rights movement. TruthWinsOut leader Besen said that the bar’s owners and boycott supporters will dump Jamaican liquor – Red Stripe beer and Myers’ Rum – down the sewer.

“We, as the owners of the Stonewall Inn, birthplace of the Gay rights movement, refuse to support, in any way, shape or form, the oppression of any people especially our gay brothers and sisters in Jamaica,” the Stonewall Inn said in its statement.

“We ask all people of all walks of life to send a clear message to the Jamaican people and their government, that as long as they continue to allow and condone violence and hatred toward the Gay community, we will neither buy their products nor support their tourist trade.”

“If you love your gay friends and family members, you won’t visit Jamaica,” said boycott co-organizer Wayne Besen. “If you care about the human rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, you won’t buy Jamaican products. We hope that all gay and gay friendly bar owners and restaurateurs across the nation will participate in ‘rum dumps.’ We can no longer subsidize our own slaughter.”

But in Kingston, the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians All-Sexuals and Gays, said the boycott could backfire and result in more violence.

“Because of the possible repercussions of increased homophobic violence against our already besieged community, we feel that a tourist boycott is not the most appropriate response at this time,” J-FLAG said in a statement.

“In our battle to win hearts and minds, we do not wish to be perceived as taking food off the plate of those who are already impoverished. In fact, members of our own community could be disproportionately affected by a worsened economic situation brought about by a tourist ban.”

Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding has told Parliament his government will not yield to “perhaps the most organized lobby in the world” and will not abolish prison sentences for sodomy.

Golding made the comment during debate on a new sexual offenses law primarily aimed at combating rape and child abuse. Jamaican LGBT rights groups and international human rights organizations had urged the government to include a repeal of the sodomy law in the new act.

Gay sex is punishable by up to seven years in prison under a law which dates back to British colonial rule. Britain has long since abolished the law and has urged its former colonies to do the same.

Jamaica has been described by human rights groups as having the worst record of any country in the New World in its treatment of gays and lesbians.

In January 2008, a group of men approached a house where four males lived in the central Jamaican town of Mandeville, and demanded that they leave the community because they were gay, according to Jamaican human rights activists who spoke with the victims.

Later that evening, a mob returned and surrounded the house. The four men inside called the police when they saw the crowd gathering. The mob started to attack the house, shouting and throwing bottles.

Those in the house called police again and were told that the police were on the way. Approximately half an hour later, 15-20 men broke down the door and began beating and slashing the inhabitants.

Human Rights Watch, quoting local activists said that police did not arrive until a half hour after the mob had broken into the house – 90 minutes after the men first called for help.

One of the victims managed to flee with the mob pursuing. A Jamaican newspaper reported that blood was found at the mouth of a nearby pit, suggesting he had fallen inside or may have been killed nearby.

The police escorted the three other victims away from the scene; two of them were taken to the hospital. One of the men had his left ear severed, his arm broken in two places, and his spine reportedly damaged.

There have been no arrests.

The attack echoes another incident in the same town on Easter Sunday, April 8, 2007 when approximately 100 men gathered outside a church where 150 people were attending the funeral of a gay man.

According to mourners, the crowd broke the windows with bottles and shouted, “We want no battyman [gay] funeral here. Leave or else we’re going to kill you. We don’t want no battyman buried here in Mandeville.”

Several mourners inside the church called the police to request protection. After half an hour, three police officers arrived.

Human Rights Watch said that instead of protecting the mourners, police socialized with the mob, laughing along at the situation.

A highway patrol car subsequently arrived, and one of the highway patrol officers reportedly told the churchgoers, “It’s full time this needs to happen. Enough of you guys.”

The highway patrol officers then drove off. The remaining officers at the scene refused to intervene when the mob threatened the mourners with sticks, stones, and batons as they tried to leave the service. Only when several gay men among the mourners took knives from their cars for self-defense did police reportedly take action by firing their guns into the air. Officers stopped gay men from leaving and searched their vehicles, but did not restrain or detain members of the mob, Human Rights Watch said.

More than 30 gay men are believed to have been murdered since 1997 J-FLAG says. In most of the cases the killers have never been brought to trial.

Arrests, however, have been made in several cases which received international attention.

In 2004, Brian Williamson, Jamaica’s leading LGBT civil rights advocate, was brutally murdered. He had been stabbed at least 70 times in the neck. A 25-year-old man is currently serving a life sentence for the murder.

In December 2005, Lenford “Steve” Harvey who ran Jamaica AIDS Support for Life was killed.

Harvey was shot to death on the eve of World AIDS Day. His organization provided support to gay men and sex workers. Four men were arrested almost a year later.

In 2006, the bodies of two women believed to have been in a lesbian relationship were found dumped in a septic pit behind a home they shared. The killers of Candice Williams and Phoebe Myrie have not been caught.

Students at University of the West Indies in Kingston rioted last year as police attempted to protect a gay student and escort him from the campus. The incident began when the student was chased across the campus by another student who claimed the gay man had attempted to proposition him in a washroom.

The same year, a young man plunged to his death off a pier in Kingston after reportedly being chased through the streets by a mob yelling homophobic epithets.

In February 2007, three men in “tight jeans” and wearing what some witnesses described as makeup were cornered by a mob of 2000 in a drugstore. There were yells of “kill them” along with gay slurs and demands the three be sent out “to face justice.” Police had to fire tear gas into the crowd to rescue the three.

Reggae, or Jamaican dancehall music, is blamed for fueling homophobia. Reggae star BujuBanton’s hit song Boom Boom Bye Bye which threatens gay men with a “gunshot in ah head.”

It’s something of a coincidence that I spent much of my holiday weekend reading The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk. I picked up Dan Shilts’ definitive biography of Harvey Milk at my local bookstore last week (shout out to Lambda Rising, one of the last LGBT bookstores in existence) on something of a whim, and I haven’t been able to put it down since.

So when I first heard yesterday about #Amazonfail, the change (purposeful or otherwise) in the Amazon.com ranking system that meant most LGBT focused books lost their sales ranking, the first thing I did was search for Mayor of Castro Street. After a weekend of reading that complex and important biography, I was pretty shocked to find that it too had lost its sales ranking. Was it a serious, difficult book? Certainly. Was it adult material? Certainly not.

Of course my experience was mirrored by many. Jezebel pulled together a list of books that saw their rankings purged,including Ellen Degeneres: A Biography, Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, Queer Theory, Gender Theory: A Primer, and Heather Has Two Mommies, potentially the most frequently banned children’s book in America.

Books that Jezebel pointed out weren’t removed from the rankings? Ron Jeremy: The Hardest Working Man in Showbusiness, Hot Cougar Sex, Super Beauties: Nude and Natural, and The Complete Asshole’s Guide to Handling Chicks.

Given the contents of the two lists, it has been difficult to believe Amazon’s initial response– that in deference to their entire audience, they removed books with adult content from the rankings. The explanation is not close to credible.

Yesterday evening (after the story blew up all over the blogosphere and particularly on Twitter), Amazon finally realized that their explanation wasn’t flying and started circulating a new explanation. The books had their ratings stripped, the company explanined in emails, because of a “glitch.”

Perhaps it was a “glitch,” I have no way of knowing. But that “glitch” has not, I’d like to point out, been fixed a day later. And since the “glitch” hasn’t been fixed, the most disturbing part of the situation also hasn’t been fixed.

If you search “homosexuality” on Amazon right now, the first items that come up include A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality, You Don’t Have to Be Gay, and Can Homosexuality Be Healed? I can’t help but think of some poor kid searching for a book to help him deal with a complicated part of his life and being faced with those choices.

Those search results are a real problem, and they represent to me, a clear validation of that viewpoint by Amazon.

Perhaps inspired by the book I’d been reading all weekend, and it’s hero’s repeated dependence on economic boycott as a change strategy, I fired off a strongly worded email to Amazon last night, explaining how they’d lost my business until they issued a public apology for this misstep, accidental or not.

I received a form letter explaining the “glitch” immediately, but that’s not enough for me, not this time. I want a public apology and I want the “glitch” to be fixed, the sooner the better. Every minute it stands is one minute that important information isn’t available for those that are seeking it.

But I also know that my email alone isn’t going to change minds or policy at Amazon. It’s only through collective decisions, collective action, the flexing of collective economic muscle that things like this can be changed.

So what have you done today? Sent an email to Amazon yet?

I have pointed out before the ridiculous fact that the orchestrators of serious boycotts ( think Pepsi) are complaining that boycott threats justify eliminating fundamental public disclosure measures. I am heartened by the fact that the Judge hearing the petition by the Yes on 8 compaign was quick to explain the protected nature of the “harrassment” speech at issue.

But there is an important lesson to be learned here.

When your enemies jump up and down you need to start paying attention. The chief complaint in this lawsuit was the potential for retaliatory boycotts. So, we need to start boycotting.

Now, an effective campaign does not target low-level employees from the Yes on 8 list. Instead, the name of every small business owner, every CEO or managing partner should be identified and publicized. Our large organizations that are most able to lead on this issue should disseminate a list of business, both for California and for the enture country. We should have transparancy about why certain businesses made the list and why some did not. We should have guidelines about how to boycott and what to say when asked about the boycott.

This court ruling is an opportunity. I hope we take it.

The AFA, in an Action Alert to its more than two-million members, urges supporters to sign an online pledge to boycott Pepsi products and to call the company to tell it “to stop promoting the homosexual agenda.”

“PepsiCo has refused a request by AFA to remain neutral in the culture war,” the Action Alert said.

“In the last two years, Pepsi has given $500,000 to the Human Rights Campaign and $500,000 to the Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. The $1,000,000 was to be used to help promote homosexuality in the workplace,” the AFA said.

“Pepsi refuses to give money to any pro-family organization that opposes the homosexual agenda. Plus, every homosexual organization we know of is overwhelmingly pro-abortion,” according to the Action Alert.

Previous AFA boycotts have had impact on companies, although the group has had some success.

In October it ended a boycott of McDonald’s after the fast-food giant agreed to end its support for the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce.  In addition, a company employee to was appointed to chamber’s board of directors resigned.

McDonald’s incurred the wrath of the AFA after it made a $20,000 donation to the chamber, and Richard Ellis, who until September was vice president of communications for the chain was named to the chamber’s board of directors. The company said Ellis resigned after moving to McDonald’s Canadian operation.

The AFA previously boycotted Disney for several year’s over its support for Gay Days at Disney World, although the company was not an official sponsor of the event.

It boycotted Cincinnati-based Proctor and Gamble over the company’s support for the repeal of a city charter amendment that prevented Cincinnati city council from enacting any laws that would recognize gays and lesbians.

The group boycotted Kraft for its support of the Chicago Gay Games and threatened to boycott Wal-Mart over its involvement with the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce.

An AFA boycott of Ford was heralded as a success by the organization which noted that it had resulted in a drop in sales and share value.  But most financial analysts said that Ford’s problems were really the result of vehicle designs that failed to impress the public. Ford was the only carmaker of the Detroit big three to decline a federal bailout.

The conservative Christian group launched its nationwide boycott of Ford in 2005 over the automaker’s support for LGBT issues, briefly put it on hold and then reinstated it.

The AFA claimed victory when Ford began pulling its ads from LGBT publications, but industry observers and the company said the ad pullout was part of a downsizing of expenses.

I am amazed by a story run by the AP today in which supporters of Proposition 8 are asking for court relief from campaign finance laws. One complaint is that business who employ people who donated to Prop 8 are facing boycotts.

Now I don’t believe that businesses should be held accountable for the political views of mere employees, but I also believe that boycotts are perfectly legal, important tools for the promotion of social causes. In fact, the anti-gay lobby has been, perhaps, the most successful boycotter of all.

They consistently encourage businesses (like McDonalds) to pull funding for equality organizations, encourage television networks to pull shows with gay content and encourage individual organizations to tone down their pro-rights language.

How can they be complaining about boycotts?

This case will not be about the right to a secret ballot. It is about the right to funnel large amounts of money to certain political causes. This, thank goodness, has never been a privilege in the United States.

The truth is that, progressive and conservative donors risk exposure for their affiliations. Legally, the U.S. does not protect them from the fallout of their declaration. Instead, it is up to the people to avoid a similar situation to the kind of witch hunts for communist individuals during the McCarthy era.

So my suggestion to our community is to carefully craft an effective dissent strategy. Leave the individuals who donated to Prop 8 alone. Look to the bigger players, the CEO’s, the corporations, etc. Organize targeted boycotts that get the big players and forget about the employees at Home Depot.

And for God’s sake, stop sending white powder in envelopes. Not only is that illegal, but it is so 2001.

Did you call in gay? Did you refuse to spend money? Tell us what you did – or didn’t do – and why.

In the days following the election, GLBT people and their supporters spilled into the streets to rally against Proposition 8 as well as the anti-gay measures voters adopted in Florida, Arizona and Arkansas.

Then on Nov. 15, a massive nationwide grassroots demonstration organized over the Web by jointheimpact.com brought out tens of thousands of people in cities from Boston to Dallas to Seattle in a display of activism that gay journalist Rex Wockner dubbed “Stonewall 2.0.”

Activists also took aim via the Internet at Proposition 8’s supporters—the organizations and individuals who contributed a total of more than $30 million to deny same-sex couples in California the right to wed.

Californians Against Hate posts what organizers call a “dishonor roll” listing over 800 contributors to Yes on 8 who gave a minimum of $5,000. The Web site antigayblacklist.com also lists individuals, businesses and ministries that supported Proposition 8 along with their locations and the amounts of money that each donated.

In addition, Proposition 8 contributors have been outed on such sites as facebook.com and craigslist.com. Even the restaurant review site yelp.com has been brought into the foray, with visitors posting appallingly bad reviews of eateries whose owners’ support for Proposition 8 left a bad taste in their mouths.

With so many names being named, could boycotts be far behind?

Even before the votes on Proposition 8 had been tallied, bloggers had begun calling for a boycott of Utah businesses in retaliation for the Mormon Church’s support for the measure.

Mormons reportedly contributed between one-fourth and two-thirds of every dollar spent to ban same-sex marriage in California (an exact number is difficult to tease out of the financial filings). The Mormon Church is headquartered in Utah and owns roughly two-thirds of the state.

Utah would seem to be vulnerable to an economic boycott. Tourism is one of the state’s largest industries, delivering about $6 billion annually to its economy by way of ski resorts, national parks, the Sundance Film Festival and other attractions.

So far, however, no cohesive boycott effort appears to have coalesced. Still, the Mormon Church is reeling from a flood of criticism and nationwide protests targeting its temples. A demonstrator reportedly burned a Book of Mormons in front of a temple near Denver. Church officials have reacted with outrage, issuing a statement Nov. 14 decrying the public’s reaction.

“People of faith have been intimidated for simply exercising their democratic rights,” the statement said. “These are not actions that are worthy of the democratic ideals of our nation. The end of a free and fair election should not be the beginning of a hostile response in America.”

Fred Karger, who organized Californians Against Hate, filed a formal complaint against the Mormon Church Nov. 20 with California elections officials. Karger alleges the church violated the state’s Political Reform Act by failing to detail and report “non-monetary contributions” to the campaign.

Californians Against Hate has called for boycotts of Manchester Hotels and A-1 Self Storage, both of whose owners gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Yes on 8 campaign. Manchester Hotels’ properties include the Manchester Grand Hyatt and Grand del Mar Resort in San Diego along with the Whitetail Club and Resort in McCall, Idaho.

Other individuals and groups have called for boycotting the Texas-based Cinemark theater chain. Cinemark CEO Alan Stock, a Utah Mormon, donated $9,999 to the Yes on 8 campaign. Ironically, Cinemark operates theatres that will screen Gus Van Sant’s biopic “Milk,” about martyred gay San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk, which opens nationally Dec. 5.

Bob Shimmin, Cinemark’s openly gay vice president of food and beverage, says the proposed boycott is unfair, noting the corporation’s commitment to workplace diversity. “Cinemark did not make this donation,” he wrote on afterelton.com.

“It creates a dangerous precedent when corporations are held responsible for the individual religious or political beliefs of an employee. … If Cinemark were boycotted from the right for my views as an officer of the corporation should I be fired? Should our 15,000 employees be impacted? … Right or wrong, individuals must have the right to express their beliefs.” (Read Shimmin’s full opinion piece on Cinemark and Prop 8.)

In the coming days and months, GLBT people and their allies will find themselves pondering such issues as the anger over Proposition 8 continues. For a listing of upcoming protests, go to jointheimpact.com.

Still, there is a point where the proponent of discrimination is so central to the operation of the company it is as if the company as a whole did not support equal rights. This may be true of a CFO or key spokesperson who believes LGBT people are second class citizens. It is true of a CEO who works to deny LGBT individuals their rights.

The CEO of Cinemark theatres is sufficiently central to the Cinemark’s operation that his support of Prop 8 constitutes Cinemark’s support of Prop 8. If they don’t want to be aligned with a political movement, then they should tell the individuals charged with representing the company to stop involving themselves in politics.