Category Archives: General Info

The Business-Based Case Against a North Carolina Anti-Gay Constitutional Marriage Amendment

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Note: These are NC State House Bill 777 and Senate Bill 106.

This week the North Carolina State Legislature is covening to consider proposals to amend our state constitution. One of the amendments under considerations is referred to by many as the “anti-gay marriage amendment” which would add to the North Carolina Constitution that only marriage between one man and one woman would be recognized by the state of North Carolina. It would go even further and state “No other relationship shall be recognized as a valid marriage by the State.” There are already effective state laws on this, so I wonder why a restrictive statement like this would need to be added to a constitution which by definition is supposed to define and protect rights.

Since I am a business consultant with one of my areas being diversity management, I want to address solely from a business perspective why this amendment is harmful to the North Carolina economy. I will fully agree that when something good for business is harmful to the society as a whole, it should not be done, but when something that is good for business also coincides with human rights and moral civility, it is a no-brainer. In this case opposing this amendment is both good for business and the right thing morally.

Here are the three reasons why the anti-gay marriage amendment is bad for North Carolina Business:

1. Corporations will hesitate to relocate or build facilities in North Carolina compared to other states. Most large corporations understand the value of diversity and even have programs to welcome and include LGBT People. One proof point is the major corporation Northrup Grumman almost reversed their decision to move their headquarters to Virginia when a state government leader came out with a very anti-gay stance. Other Virginia leaders had to do some major backpedaling and damage control to not lose Northrop Grumman. Link to newspaper article about this.

Is this the message we want to send from North Carolina?


2. GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender) talented people would opt to move to a more progressive state that does not blatantly discriminate against them. As every state competes to have the best and brightest talent work for them, we should not erect big signs on our border that scream “Gay people not welcome here.”
3. This divisive measure is a highly-charged mean-spirited political maneuver which will divide our state and waste energy and time that should be focused instead on addressing much more pressing issues like unemployment, economic development, technology deployment and education.

To learn more about this issue and to get involved please check out the Equality NC Website.

UPDATE SEPT 6: The Raleigh News and Observer published an article that supports the content of this blog. Link to article.

UPDATE SEPT 7: An excellent 4 minute video from Replacement Ltd’s Lead Council Andrew Spanhour. Link to Video.

More on Mentoring

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In my last blog I wrote about some of the aspects of my July trip to Kenya and Rwanda. I included some comments about mentoring. Then last week I presented a workshop titled “Peer Mentoring for Students and Teachers” at the Gaston County Teaching and Learning Conference.

Mentoring is one of the most powerful yet underrated and underutilized personal development tools. We could all become stronger and more proficient in what we do if we participated more in mentoring relationships. And mentoring can help us develop in many different spheres of our lives – our vocations, volunteer and community work, church work, and even hobbies.

Simply put, mentoring is a pair of individuals working together in order to achieve specific objectives for skills growth and development. The pair consists of an individual who as skill, knowledge and experience (the mentor) that the other individual (mentee or protégé) has a need to acquire. And the mentor also benefits from the relationship in that he or she is growing their leadership and coaching skills.

Traditional and Peer Mentoring: The three young men in the back are community volunteers in Gisenyi, Rwanda who have set up an informal weekend mentoring program with 14 and 15-year-old street orphans to encourage them to stay in school to build a better life. The boy on the left is 15-years-old and often watches out for, mentors and takes care of some of the 14-year-olds.

And there are various types of mentoring relationships:
• Traditional – two people of different rank or status where the senior mentors the junior – such as teacher to student or sales manager with a new salesperson.
• Peer – where two people of the same rank or status form a mutual mentoring relationship – such as two teachers or two employees in the same job
• Reverse mentoring – a new concept where the traditionally junior member of the relationship actually mentors a senior person in an area of life knowledge – such as a student who grew up in a ghetto mentoring a white teacher who has always lived in a suburban middle class environment.

These mentoring relationships can range from structured and scheduled to informal where the mentee occasionally contacts the mentor periodically when he or she needs assistance. And finally, one benefits most by having multiple mentoring relationships addressing various aspects of life and vocational growth at the same time. This is termed as having a “constellation of mentors.”

Feel free to email me at [email protected] if you want me to send you a copy of my mentoring powerpoint presentation.