Fridae

The largest US gay rights group has called for a boycott of ExxonMobil because of the oil giant's refusal to provide domestic-partner benefits or reinstate a written non-discrimination policy covering sexual orientation to all gay and lesbian employees.

Before the merger with Exxon in March 2000, Mobil Corp. offered both domestic partner benefits and a nondiscrimination policy to its employees. After the merger, Exxon Mobil discontinued those policies.

Elizabeth Birch, executive director of Human Rights Campaign, said the world's largest publicly traded oil company is moving backward rather than forward. "It's the first US employer to rescind a nondiscrimination policy covering sexual orientation." She told the San Francisco Chronicle.

ExxonMobil however maintains that HRC is "distorting the truth". Spokesman Tom Cirigliano told the Chronicle that the company maintains a policy on discrimination and harassment that includes sexual orientation but that it had not included gays and lesbians in its equal employment opportunity statement.

He also added that the company is providing health benefits to the partners of gay and lesbian employees whose unions were legally recognized in Canada, the Netherlands, and Vermont and for those workers who worked for Mobil Corp. before the two companies merged.

The boycott comes a year after gay activists successfully pressured United Airlines to honor San Francisco's domestic partner ordinance.

According to the HRC, more than 3,700 US employers offer domestic partner benefits, including 127 of the Fortune 500 companies.