A community's openness to diversity is at the heart of the debate this week around the Tampa Bay area in the wake of the Hillsborough County Commission's volatile resolution that the county "abstain from acknowledging, promoting or participating in gay pride events."
But in interviews at far reaches of the local business community regarding the possible impact of the action on business, tourism and economic development, the range of response is, ironically, diverse.
Many local businesses are taking a wait-and-see attitude.
"If this gets national attention, it could be disastrous," said Mary Scott, GM of the Marriott Waterside Resort in downtown Tampa. Scott is hoping that because her hotel is in Tampa, convention planners and tourists won't make the connection to Hillsborough County.
"Most of our customers know Tampa, not Hillsborough."
Event planners, who have a direct link to tourism because of their out-of-state customers, are wary.
"This could be directly detrimental to the hospitality industry if it escalates to become a bigger issue," said Paul Thomasson, president of Extravaganza Productions Inc. In contrast, some religious groups that embrace the policy might be more likely to come, Thomasson said.
"Any time the government takes away opportunity for events and gets into a slanted view against people, its hurts everyone," he said.
A survey by the consumer research firm Packaged Facts and Witeck-Combs Communications found the U.S. buying power of gay men and lesbians totaled about $580 billion in 2004 and would reach a projected $745 billion in 2009.
There is a huge market for companies that cater to the gay marketplace, said Bob Witeck, CEO of Witeck-Combs, a Washington, D.C.-based public relations and marketing communications firm that has a special expertise in the gay and lesbian marketplace.
It's not that gay and lesbian households are wealthier, Witeck said, but that they have more discretionary income. "These are households with fewer children and they are more likely to spend their income on products from companies that they believe support them."
The hospitality and tourism industry views the marketplace as a major opportunity, and regularly promotes the market with campaigns in other markets such as Philadelphia, New York, Boston and South Florida to attract gay and lesbian tourists, Witeck said.
Government actions such as the vote by the Hillsborough County Commission are inherently anti-business, said Daryl Herrschaft, deputy director for the WorkNet project for the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington, D.C.-based national advocacy group.
"They create an environment that is not conductive to a free exchange of ideas or a place where people want to move to," Herrschaft said. "It's a black mark that serves no obvious purpose. It seems like a rhetorical kind of issue, but it actually has real-life impact on the functioning of business."
When Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) was debating where to relocate its corporate headquarters, the company was on record as not wanting to move to a state that did not have a reputation for diversity, specifically around sexual orientation. The company moved to Chicago from Seattle in 2001.
Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE: PG) publicly spoke out against a measure in Cincinnati 10 years ago that denied gays and lesbians certain basic rights. Convention planners enacted a well-publicized boycott, and it was repealed, he said.
How the ruling will impact business is yet to be played out, but it clearly singles out a group of people whom the commission disagrees with and punishes them, said Mike Brill, president of the Tampa Bay Business Guild, a gay friendly organization of local businesses.
"[The issue is] about whether we treat all groups the same or choose to exclude certain ones," Brill said.
The basis for the commission's ruling was religious, according to two of the six commissioners who voted for the action.
"We clearly stated that we won't fund or promote any sexual lifestyle," said Jim Norman, commissioner from District 5.
The issue isn't new, said Norman.
He was part of the commission's decision to remove sexual orientation as a protected human right from county policies in 1996 and "in 1993 we voted to discontinue sending money to the arts council when they were promoting the gay lifestyle in front of children."
He insisted that this ruling is not the same as discriminating against a class of people.
"We don't take down displays for black activities."
Norman declined to group gay rights in the same category as other minority rights, repeating that this was about sexual behavior, not orientation.
"That's an old argument that is not supported by the medical community, nor the psychiatric community," said Brill.
"It's the start of censorship," he said.
If the commission can select what can and can't be displayed in county libraries, no group is immune to being discriminated against, he said.
While businesses may be holding back to see what happens, individuals are not.
The Hillsborough County Commission has been flooded with e-mail pertaining to its controversial resolution on gay pride events.
As of Tuesday, June 28, those e-mails were running 10-1 against the ruling, said Kenneth Tinkler, who is handling the public records requests for the commission.
© 2005 American City Business Journals Inc.
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