Bank of America and Cisco Systems say
they are sorry for axing Frank Turek, a vocal opponent of gay
marriage.
The companies on Tuesday inaugurated
the National Organization for Marriage's (NOM) Corporate Fairness
Project, which asks companies not to discriminate against employees
or vendors who publicly oppose gay marriage.
According
to NOM, both companies say they are sorry for firing the
motivational speaker.
Turek's 143-page anti-gay marriage book
Correct, Not Politically Correct: How Same-Sex Marriage Hurts
Everyone led him to lose speaking gigs at Bank of America and
Cisco Systems.
“I was Googled, I was outed, I was
fired for being somebody who has a traditional marriage viewpoint,”
Turek said in a five-minute video for NOM. “I am open to working
with people of all sexual orientations or political views. In fact,
that's what inclusion and diversity should be about.”
“If we don't start speaking up, we're
going to lose our ability to even make a living in this country,”
the Charlotte-based speaker added. (The video is embedded in the
right panel of this page.)
Turek has previously warned that gay
people are on a “road to destruction” and said that a
gay gene would not make gay marriage OK.
Jonathan Baker, director of NOM's
Corporate Fairness Project, said he had received “assurances from
both companies that this kind of discriminatory treatment violates
corporate policy and will not happen again.”
“We're grateful these two companies
have made it clear they will not tolerate discrimination against
employees or vendors based on their views on same-sex marriage. As
Frank Turek said, it's simply un-American as well as unwise for
anyone to say you have to share one politically correct viewpoint in
order to keep your job,” Baker said.
“This is not the end, it's the
beginning of NOM's campaign to make sure decent law abiding people
who believe that marriage is the union of one man and one woman are
not treated as outcasts or racists. It is not bigotry to say that
marriage is the union of a husband and wife, it's common sense;
corporations need to respect the diverse views of their employees and
customers,” added NOM President Brian Brown.