对于Wall Street的许多人来说，同性恋权利是人类和商业问题

As the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to issue two major rulings on gay marriage, few in the business community are watching as closely as Wall Street executives.

Almost 280 corporations, including 14 banks and asset management firms, are among the interested parties that have filed a so-called friends-of-the-court brief to the Supreme Court as it deliberates on the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act. DOMA, as the law is known, defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman, and keeps legally married gay Americans from collecting a range of federal benefits generally available to married people.

The amicus brief — a legal document filed by an interested party to offer additional information on the case — argues in favor of overturning the act on the grounds that it places an undue financial burden on corporations, especially those operating in states that have legalized gay marriage, and places them at a competitive disadvantage.

A similar amicus brief has been filed in another major gay-rights case before the Supreme Court, that of California’s Proposition 8, an amendment outlawing gay marriage that was passed by referendum in 2008. Kenneth Mehlman, a partner with private equity firm KKR & Co. and a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, organized a group of over 130 prominent Republicans, including hedge fund managers Dan Loeb and Cliff Asness, to sign an amicus brief recommending that the court strike down the law.

该法院是由于本周6月27日本周两种案例的规则。

Wall Street has been providing growing support for marriage equality and for equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs Group, madea video in support of marriage equality2012年。对冲基金经理保罗歌手为支持同性恋婚姻提供了重大的竞选贡献。歌手，210亿美元的创始人纽约对冲基金艾略特管理，有一个女同性恋的儿子。

一些全球银行也塔基•ng steps to help protect their LGBT employees in countries where the attitude toward gay rights can be hostile. In November 2012 Citibank and Barclays, two of the largest foreign companies operating in Uganda, spoke out against proposed legislation in that country that would make homosexuality punishable by death. Despite the banks’ opposition, the law was eventually passed.

In May Blankfein spoke at a one-day conference at Goldman’s New York headquarters organized by Out On The Street, a group that seeks to rally support for the LGBT community among senior executives at major banks and financial services firms. Blankfein said his stance has probably cost the bank some business and gained some too, but that it was an ethical issue on which it was better to be “on the right side of history.”

Out On The Street was founded in 2011 by Todd Sears, a former investment banker at Credit Suisse, Merrill Lynch, Schroders, and DeSilva & Phillips. Sears spoke recently with亚博赞助欧冠Senior Writer Imogen Rose-Smith about Wall Street and the LGBT community. Sears was calling from Singapore, where he was preparing for the group’s first meeting — taking place October 24 in Hong Kong.

亚博赞助欧冠机构投资者:在过去的十年中，华尔街已经走向同性恋权利和LGBT社区的态度。你觉得怎么样？

西尔斯：我认为国家和欧洲走了很长的路要走。它不仅仅是华尔街，而且还在社会上。越来越多的人对外舒服。这使得人们更难歧视。它使得排除更难和更难。在华尔街侧，街道看着它作为一个人才方程和商业方程式。如果我们不包括任何原因的人百分比，我们正在失去他们。和华尔街不想失败。

One of the things that struck me about the Out On The Street conference at Goldman was the emphasis on the business case for promoting gay rights. Was that deliberate?

当我建立了我的峰会时，我专门不想要人力资源峰会，因为人力资源设定了多样性标准，但它无法推动它。看看人才方程。由于荒谬的歧视政策，华尔街必须跳过这么多篮球只是为了雇用人们。高盛几乎失去了一位非常高级的伴侣，因为他的伴侣来自U.K.而且不能和他一起回到美国。他们不得不经历一大吨的东西让他留在美国

在我们的欧洲首脑会议上，有人被问及与众不同的地方是否提供了他们因歧视而拒绝的工作机会。人们拒绝的两个顶级地点是中东和新加坡。乘坐新加坡：他们有法律反对同性恋男性。新加坡试图求宇街 - 他们希望在香港推出 - 但要这样做，他们必须摆脱这种荒谬的法律。歧视是错误的，而不仅仅是从人权角度来看，这显然是，但这是来自商业角度的错误的东西。

仍然存在很多国家，在那里仍然是危险的同性恋。对于在支持LGBT员工支持的国家经营的银行和金融服务公司，在工作中闲逛但不在家中或在您的社区中存在动态。是否存在创造虚假安全感的风险？

I was struck by something Grahame Wright [a Singapore-based partner with the accounting firm Ernst & Young] said. He put it this way: In a country like Singapore, where it is very challenging for gay and lesbian people to be out because of the family dynamic — they can be out at work but they can’t be out at home — gay and lesbian people create their own family, their family of choice. What he thinks is that there is the opportunity for these firms to be the family of choice for these gay and lesbian employees. I think it is a very interesting perspective. While there is potentially a danger of a false sense of security, the bigger opportunity is to lead by example and come up with an inclusive framework that is supportive that governments can then actually emulate.

Are you confident that the court will overturn DOMA?

At the risk of jinxing it, yes. The law has so many flaws, including the fact that some of the Congress folks who signed it have come out against it. Two hundred and eighty corporations, including 14 Wall Street firms, say it should be overturned. The president who signed it into law said it should be overturned. There is no constitutional reason to keep it.