As Pride Month provides a time to celebrate the success and support of LGBTQ members, organizations have taken the mantle to honor the individuals who fall within the community. Verizon is no different. Through the multitude of support it has given, Verizon is leading the charge for the LGBTQ community.
To begin demonstrating support for Pride, Verizon scheduled and attended many pride festivals and activities, bringing their support directly to communities. Similarly, Verizon continued their support of PFLAG by furthering their contributions to the organization.
While many of Verizon's actions have come from direct, personable interactions, a vast majority of their contributions have come from the legal side. This year, Verizon endorsed the Equality Act, an important bill that prohibits discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity in areas including public accommodations and facilities, education, federal funding, employment, housing, credit, and the jury system. Furthermore, they opposed state bills that are discriminatory against LGBTQ individuals. Verizon senior executives signed a Joint Statement from Tech Industry Leaders highlighting diversity, fairness and equality as integral values to our industry. We also joined Georgia Prospers, a business coalition that opposed anti-LGBTQ state legislation.
As many of Verizon's actions have come from the legal side, they have similarly made contributions on the business side as well. During Pride month, Verizon joined the Human Rights Campaign’s Equality Is Our Business statement, along with dozens of major U.S. businesses expressing opposition to discriminatory bills and emphasizing support for equality. In another effort of support, Verizon joined more than 300 major U.S. corporations in submitting a “friend of the court” brief in support of marriage equality in Obergefell v. Hodges, a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that all states must make marriage equally available to all citizens and recognize existing same-sex marriages. Finally, Verizon provides LGBTQ-inclusive HR benefits such as same-sex couple adoption benefits which have helped many employees, like Daniel Richani and Craig Cadogan, fulfill their dream of adopting children.
Through these actions Verizon has endorsed, they have drastically changed the LGBTQ community landscape.