Telstra’s lesson in marriage equality – corporate social responsibility is not to be toyed with

Telstra isn’t a person.
It is around 18,000,000 customers, 1,500,000 shareholders, 38,000 staff and 12 directors.
This issue divides the community 70:30, so who, exactly, is the Telstra taking the position?
While their internal anti-discrimination policies are laudable, the larger step to public policy advocacy will always be inflammatory to some customers.
Business should remember that the business of business is business.

It seems that publicly bullying corporations into taking socially divisive positions on the PC side is now the norm. Whatever your own opinion about same sex marriage, a corporation doesn’t have one. A single opinion. A company is made up of many employees of various opinions. Strait jacketing companies to support an issue is antipathetic to a liberal democracy. We should be wary of continuing with it. It certainly impedes freedom of speech, thought, association and open debate. An insidious manifestation of the new, puritanical Australia, as Barry Humphries has noted.

I am not catholic but why should anyone be bullied into toying the line of a certain section of society. Every company and Individual in this country has the right to self determination. This article is so one-sided and assumes what it advocates is what everyone wants for themselves!

Yes, but, did the thousands who cut their ties with Telstra > Catholic Church?

… a principle’s not a principle until it costs you money

“Telstra isn’t a person” – well observed. But Telstra is a legal entity. The directors of the company may choose to use the brand equity, presence and culture as they see fit to lawfully pursue any issue they choose. Not sure why it’s so hard to grasp.

The only bullying here seems to be the menacingly worded letter from the Catholic Church – who apparently fail to see the irony of their words. But let’s face it – they have about 1,000 years of authoritarian form here, so no surprise.

So Telstra main competitor Optus is on the supporter’s list. Who would Catholic Church turn to? The infrastructure that the hardly-upto-it TPG/iinet et al uses belongs to Telstra, so really the Catholic Church cannot escape Telstra’s service even if they wanted to. Nup, the church bullied up and Telstra lost its spine. Do we really expect any different from either of these institutions?

Public bullying? No one bullied Telstra into supporting ‘Marriage Equality’, they were approached and asked if they would support the campaign and they said, Yes, we will.

If Telstra or any other corporate or business chooses not accept that LGBTI people are part of a wider society just like people that believe in religion then they and any other corporate should lose the revenue they value from us and our families and our friends. I do not tell people of faith how to live and I have the civil right to be afforded the same respect – Marriage is NOT a religious ceremony, it is a civil action that just sometimes happens to be performed in a religious house.

No one seems to point out that the Catholic church threatened Telstra……now thats bullying – PERIOD!

With this double-banger PR disaster following closely on the heels of the multitude of network issues that were poorly communicated, I am surprised we are not hearing about some PR leadership there being shown the door to go learn some issues management 101.

The article states “But within Australian society there are elements which are deeply threatened by the concept of marriage equality, or who see it as an affront to their own beliefs.”

The real issue is the definition of “marriage”. The kindergarten view is it is something two people do who love each other. So in that easily-marketed context, equality is an option.

But to many, “marriage” is more than that. It is the natural foundation of a family, primarily for the purpose of having children. It is naturally better for children to be raised by their mother and father. It has been the natural foundation of successful societies for thousands of years. So in this context, it isn’t hard to see why changing the recipe of success raises debate as it is not natural.

So given many of these companies claim to be environmentally friendly, why are they supporting something that is unnatural?

Of course, we can avoid the cost of a same sex marriage plebiscite in Australia by simply leaving the Marriage Act as it is – no cost there…..and parliament has already voted on he Marriage Act about 10 years ago and it passed with the support of Labor politicians, so the matter should be done and dusted. However, the same sex marriage people want the change and are facilitating such an intense push that it requires an expensive solution to resolve. They cause the problem and then claim to be part of the solution. Their suffering that they claim to have is all self-inflicted. To claim that it is a human right is also a nonsense because marriage is already available to gays – it’s just that they must marry the opposite sex. Marriage is therefore a virtue, not a right. It is not listed as a right with the United Nations and same sex marriage was never considered necessary or desirable in the history of marriage in Australia until only the past few years after John Howard orchestrated a definition in the Marriage Act. If marriage is so desirable by same sex people, then it is vital to realise what made it so desirable in the first place (that being a primary commitment between a man and a woman to raise children as a family unit), but the same sex marriage advocates totally ignore this millennia-old definition and want the definition changed to make marriage solely a “relationship/sexual” gimmick (….what….all those past civilisations got it wrong because we are the “enlightened, smart, progressive” ones?….how arrogant and blind can people get by trashing marriage in this way?). There is no “marriage equality” because they leave out ALL the various marriage “options” (such as polygamy, marry yourself or, as Chris Sevier in the USA is trying to do, marry your laptop, etc).. There is therefore no legal, historical or rational basis to call marriage a human right or to redefine it to include same sex people – so that leads to a question of what are the other agendas are in play with the SSM issue? It is certainly the formal severing of marriage from parenthood, pure and simple – the rights of children are ignored to serve the selfish desires of the SSM parents. Plus it is a direct attack on the Biblical teaching of God creating man and woman in His own image and likeness to become “one flesh” as Christ is the bridegroom and the Church is His bride – same sex marriage is completely opposite to this Biblical concept. Plus, gays are desperately wanting to be able to use the word marriage to gain some respectability that they self consciously lack, so it’s not about marriage equality.

I for one would like to welcome the Imaginary Fairy Religious Right sufferers of religion to the discussion.

But why do they insist on this contorted logic that acts as an embarrassingly thin veil to their twisted bigotry. And committing almost every logical fallacy in the process.

MattP,

The real issue is the definition of “marriage”. The kindergarten view is it is the natural foundation of a family, primarily for the purpose of having children. So in that easily marketed context, bigotry is an option.

But to many, “marriage” is more than that. Today it is something two people do who love each other. It extends to same-sex and different-sex couples who cannot or choose not to have children. Over the centuries, “marriage” has included polygamy, polyandry, divorce, monogamy, arranged marriage… changing from society to society and from century to century. So in this context, it isn’t hard to see why clinging to the static definition of one society from yesteryear raises debate, as it is quite absurd.

to Neil,
Such venom from a man of faith. Get off your pulpit and join the human race.

Marriage was never about children, it was originally a contract of ownership of a woman by a man and thankfully we are past that kind of crap in the modern world we live in here in Australia.

By the way…..the world is round, not flat and millions of years old, not 7,000 years.

The article is about Telstra and what a corporate supports. This story does not warrant biblical dribble.

The question to be answered is; should a corporate or business support any organisation, religous, community or otherwise or not. I say, Yes they should.

Neil, let’s for a moment imagine that the law dictates that you cannot partake in something that is open to everyone else. Can you not see how isolating that is? Marriage might not be a human right per se, but being treated equally under the law is. No one is suggesting that religious organisations have to marry same sex couples, so I fail to see how this will impact you directly.

Please don’t roll out the “Think of the children” line. There are mountains of peer reviewed studies that show that kids with same-sex parents turn out just as well as those with opposite-sex parents. I’m sorry you cannot see the issue for what it really is. I really hope that you can open your eyes and see things from someone else’s point of view, rather than your own.

To Toby Ralph
Telstra IS what the majority of those, customers, employees and shareholders think. In the same way that a Democracy is [should be] what the majority of people think. In 2016 the “the business of business is” its Brand and that is massively influenced by Social Media, the conversation around it, how it aligns with peoples values and what people say about Telstra to their friends. That is Business.

This latest flip-flop makes it now more about leadership – and the vacuum that Thodey has left.
The RC Church has always been one of the biggest telco customers as they aggregate all usage (schools, churches, etc) and also high margin as they over index on the use of high margin voice. This is not the first time they have attempted to wield power in the corridors of 400 George or 242 Exhibition. But they have no where else to go – Optus is also a signatory to the marriage alliance advocacy.
SO a bit of leadership using some back room diplomacy would have made this a non-issue.or at the very least, not played out in the public domain.

Idiotic bullshit from an idiotic organisation

No. Telstra’s mistake, as it is also an egregious mistake by the other “join the bandwagon” corporates, was to intervene in matters that are private, religious and social, which are none of their concern.
As a business they have a clear responsibility: to be profitable and to treat their staff and customers ethically.
Not to preach sanctimoniously for a minority activist group, not to finger-wag on Leftist policy agendas, and not to effectively vilify the silent majority who do not share their views.
Puling out of this cesspool of grandiose ‘virtue’ was the right call.

Blah. Blah. Corporations should be agnostic on this issue that toy the line of some “I am discriminated help me lobby”. Simon Canning becoming the custodian of public trust is a disgrace and his attempt to find a refuge for this issue under CSR is a farce. The Australian population doesn’t wake up worrying about Marriage Equality.

Equality is a no brainer and anyone who is against equality is either nasty or extremely ignorant. Nastiness and ignorance can also be applied to the greatest threat to the human race – climate change. When will brands like Telstra going to champion a pro environment agenda? (It probably will not happen anytime soon because many of their clients are the enviro-wreckers..?) People can shift their spending to pro-environment companies and they are beginning to do so. Whilst our future societies should be equal, lets hope that the actions of our so called ‘leaders’ today will enable an equal society to thrive in an environment that tolerates the existence of humans.