Oxymoron

Remember Lockheed, the great All-American company dedicated to protecting and defending our freedom by producing the most dominant fighter jets in the sky? Take a look at what recently showed up on our internal web page, the one that tens of thousands of employees see every day:

This is brought to us by our Fort Worth Diversity Council, you know, the one that excluded me as a member. The banner is a link to a promotion of “National Gay Pride Month”. I know that today's society says to be proud of things that ought to be shameful. But I didn’t think that Lockheed would stoop to this kind of thing. I am guessing that someone said “Hey, you have Hispanic Heritage Month and Black Heritage Month, so why don’t you celebrate Gay Pride Month? We feel excluded!” But certainly they recognize that these are not analogous. Hispanic Heritage Month is a celebration of the different cultural and ethnic backgrounds of our employees, not lifestyle choices about who people have sex with. I think that ought to be a personal matter.

Lockheed has established the standard that anything offensive is not permitted. That policy covers email, internet content, posters, and speech. So I can’t send out non-business related emails using company assets if someone might be offended by them, and I can’t put up potentially offensive posters in my office. But I know that a lot of people find this promotion of “Gay Pride Month” to be offensive. I do. So I sent an email to management saying that I find it offensive. They can’t argue with that and say that I don’t feel that way. So all that remains is to see if they comply with their own policy.