Rest easy. None are in South Carolina.
On the other hand, as I've argued before (here, for example, and, in more detail, here), maybe South Carolinians should question the aggressively antigay posture its ruling party has adopted over the last couple of decades. From the ritualized marriage ban votes to The Palmetto Scoop's "waving the bloody fag" campaign to shoot down a $4500 ad buy targeting gay UK tourists, to the Legislature's attempt to give straight high school students high school victims extra protections under law from date violence while specifically the same protections be denied gay students, South Carolina's political culture sends a strong message that as much as its leaders think they want high tech and innovative companies to move here, and world-beating start ups to flower here, they really aren't interested in anyone that will challenge their nostalgic, 1950s worldview.
Consider the issues South Carolina faces, then consider how many are addressed, in some measure, by Florida's comments:
The idea that most gay people live in urban enclaves like the Castro in San Francisco or Chelsea in New York City is something of a myth, Gates notes. "Gay people live everywhere," says Gates, "in cities, suburbs, and even in the country—one in seven same-sex couples live in rural areas." The 2000 Census found same-sex couples living in 99 percent of U.S. counties.
While politicians and voters continue to debate whether LGBT people have the right to marry, to adopt children, or serve openly in the U.S. military, a growing body of research suggests that considerable benefits accrue to those cities and metro areas that have sizable, visible concentrations of gay men and lesbians. Income levels are higher, as are many other measures of life satisfaction.
Research I conducted with Charlotta Mellander revealed that metro areas with higher proportions of gay men and lesbians also have higher housing values—a finding that landed me on The Colbert Report. A study I conducted with Gates in 2001 discerned a close association between regions with higher proportions of same-sex couples and concentrations of high-tech businesses. And there’s more:
• Ronald Inglehart’s World Values Surveys have found that tolerance in general, and tolerance toward gays and lesbians in particular, is associated with the shift to a more modern, more democratic, and more affluent “post-materialist” political culture.
• Soul of the Community, a study conducted by the Gallup Organization, found that more open and tolerant attitudes toward LGBT people (as well as to other groups) was one of two key factors, along with natural beauty and environmental quality, that corresponded with higher levels of satisfaction with and emotional attachment to a community.
• A cross-national study by Marcus Noland of the Peterson Institute for International Economics found that tolerant attitudes in general correlated with more open attitudes toward globalization, as well as with higher rates of economic performance.
As Gates and I have pointed out elsewhere, the presence of LGBT people isn’t a sufficient condition for wealth creation in and of itself; gay men and lesbians are no more sophisticated, economically productive, innovative, or entrepreneurial than any other group on average. But places that attract gay people and lesbians tend to have the same open-minded attitudes and business styles that foster innovation. A visible LGBT community is the proverbial “canary in the coal mine,” signaling openness to new ideas, new business models, and diverse and different thinking kinds of people—precisely the characteristics of a local ecosystem that can attract cutting-edge entrepreneurs and mobilize new companies.
In other words, we are leaving money on the table every time South Carolina bids for a game-changing get like Boeing. To the extent policymakers and business leaders have to admit they're open to "to new ideas, new business models, and diverse and different thinking kinds of people—precisely the characteristics of a local ecosystem that can attract cutting-edge entrepreneurs and mobilize new companies, " but only up to a point, they're hobbling the state in the devil-take-the-hindmost-race that is economic development. They're not playing a card other cities, states and nations are happy to play.
Here's a concrete example from the aerospace industry, which Governor Sanford, Senator Graham and others wooed at the Farnborough Air Show last week:
Here's a concrete example from the aerospace industry, which Governor Sanford, Senator Graham and others wooed at the Farnborough Air Show last week:
RICHMOND -- A Maryland state senator and gay rights advocates are urging defense giant Northrop Grumman to reject Virginia as a location for its new corporate headquarters because of the Commonwealth's position on state protections for gay employees.
In a letter sent Thursday to the company's CEO, Maryland State Sen. Richard S. Madaleno Jr. (D-Montgomery) argued his state's stand on gay rights better mirrors the company's own longstanding commitment to gay and lesbian employees.
"Here in Maryland, we value our gay and lesbian citizens as part of a diverse population that makes the state strong," Madaleno wrote. "Virginia is doing the opposite and letting its LGBT citizens -- and those considering whether to move and work there -- know that they and their families are unwelcome second-class citizens. And they are counting on corporations like yours not to care."
The Los Angeles-based company is currently deciding between Virginia, Maryland and the District as a new home for its 300 top executives, running an unusually public contest among the three.
Madaleno, who is gay, wrote that new Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) are "turning back the clock" on gay rights, as Maryland's attorney general has announced the state will recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. Virginia voters in 2006 amended the state constitution to prohibit gay marriage.
On Friday, the chief executive office of Equality Virginia, a gay rights group, sent Northrop Grumman CEO Wesley Bush a similar letter. The group has scheduled a news conference on the topic for Monday.
Tucker Martin, a spokesman for McDonnell, responded that companies can enact the same corporate policies for their own employees in Virginia as in other states. He jabbed back at the Maryland rhetoric, insisting Virginia has been winning jobs because it doesn't have the "high taxes and excessive government interference and regulations found in some neighboring states."
"This Maryland legislator isn't really interested in job-creation," Martin said. "If he was, he would spend his time trying to enact Virginia's model of low taxes, limited regulation and strong right-to-work laws."
In that case, Northrup-Grumman chose northern Virginia. The key point is that something like diversity protection became an issue in a really big corporate relocation. It will surely happen again (in fact, it has before).
So if we're not willing to maximize our competitive advantages in our pitch to come to South Carolina, it just means when we do seal the once-a-decade big fish we're gonna have to pay more on the cards we can lay on the table- usually more land, more tax subsidies, more pressure to deny South Carolinian services and amenities the endless, largely self-imposed pressure to run regressive tax and tuition systems to feed the corporate tax bribe account and keep wages low and residents ill-educated.
So if we're not willing to maximize our competitive advantages in our pitch to come to South Carolina, it just means when we do seal the once-a-decade big fish we're gonna have to pay more on the cards we can lay on the table- usually more land, more tax subsidies, more pressure to deny South Carolinian services and amenities the endless, largely self-imposed pressure to run regressive tax and tuition systems to feed the corporate tax bribe account and keep wages low and residents ill-educated.
Blogger Take Down The Flag makes the same point from another angle. He posits that South Carolina leadership's perverse insistence on keeping the Confederate flag on the Capitol grounds contributes to negative perceptions of the state and leads to lost business opportunities through boycotts and the uncountable number of lost chances we'll never know of because business people elsewhere decided that the state's just to backward-seeing and weird to want to associate with. Leaders in adjoining states recognize this.
In other words, we're helping out competitors by tarnishing our own brand.
Excellent work, Waldo. Our legislature doesn't get it at all.
ReplyDeleteFor example, Sen. Glenn McConnell complained -- when the ACC decided to give their baseball tournament to NC instead of SC -- that the ACC's decision was "unwise, unfair and clearly based on intolerance and ignorance" and that the "NAACP has shamelessly chosen to single out South Carolina for an economic boycott."
http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2009/sep/19/acc-should-be-ashamed-back-naacp-boycott/
Augghh! It's our job as a state to compete against our neighboring states and to try to win economic development opportunities. NC used our allegiance to the Confederate flag against us and beat us, winning the battle for the ACC tournaments. The NAACP chose to help NC instead of SC, and they are free to do as they see fit. There's nothing shameless about any of it. There's nothing unwise, unfair, intolerant, or ignorant. What there is is WE LOST.
Sen. McConnell can complain sour grapes from now until forever, and he probably will. Meanwhile, leaders in other states will do exactly as Maryland State Sen. Richard S. Madaleno Jr. did, writing to the CEO of the prospective company. It's easy to imagine some legislative leader from NC writing the ACC or any group or business, saying, "SC is letting its LGBT, black, hispanic, asian and northern-born citizens -- and those considering whether to move and work there -- know that they and their families are unwelcome second-class citizens. And they are counting on corporations like yours not to care."
And here's Rep. Bobby Harrell in a 2004 column by Andy Brack about a Palmetto Bowl that has never come about.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.statehousereport.com/columns/04.0627.bowl.htm
" "That [Confederate flag] issue is settled in South Carolina," Harrell said. "I don't anticipate we would have some outside group come in and say they know how to do it better."
To which the NCAA's Thomas replied in a separate phone interview, "Then you're not going to have people from the outside bringing money into the state." "