Advocates of Gay Rights Look to Technology to Further the Cause : Workplace: About 600 participants gather to discuss company policy, 'coming out' and other issues.

By MARTHA GROVES

Oct. 19, 1993 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

PALO ALTO —

Networking has long been a crucial tool in the movement to gain workplace rights for gay, lesbian and bisexual employees. And now, computer technology professionals--using the in-your-face name Digital Queers--have harnessed electronic networks to advance the cause.

“E-mail furthers discussion and raises awareness of the issue of gay rights in the workplace,” Karen Wickre, co-founder of Digital Queers, told participants at the third annual Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Workplace Issues Conference at Stanford University over the weekend.

Indeed, many tech companies have been national leaders in developing non-discrimination policies that mention sexual orientation and the granting of benefits to same-sex domestic partners.

Apple Computer Inc., Borland International Inc. and Lotus Development Corp., for example, were among companies honored at the three-day event organized by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. The conference was sponsored by more than 40 companies--a big leap for an effort begun in 1991 with no corporate backing as a five-hour gathering in a college hall in San Francisco.

The meeting drew more than 600 participants, including such top executives as Philippe Kahn, chief executive of Borland International Inc., a software company; human resources professionals from 94 companies, and hundreds of gay and lesbian employees eager to share experiences and gain insights.

Among topics discussed in dozens of workshops and seminars were “coming out” at the office, dealing with “closeted” bosses, combatting homophobia, coping with being HIV-positive and forming caucuses.

At a buffet dinner Friday evening--held under a huge, white tent on the lawn of Apple Computer’s gleaming new research and development complex in Cupertino--the mood among several hundred guests was buoyant. They celebrated both recent progress in the fight for equal treatment for gay and lesbian employees and the conference’s new high profile.

“Never before . . . has corporate America reached out in this way,” said Elizabeth Birch, co-chair of the task force and senior litigation counsel for Apple.

However, conference organizers noted that they still have far to go. As evidence, they released the preliminary results of a survey of the employment policies and practices of the Fortune 1,000, the nation’s biggest service and industrial companies.

Protections and benefits for gay and lesbian employees, the report indicated, are still relatively rare among the nation’s biggest companies. “The majority of the Fortune 1,000 are flunking,” said Chris Collins, a member of the task force’s national board.

That strikes Tim Gill--a gay activist who founded Quark Inc., a Denver maker of page layout software--as thick-headed management. “High-tech companies have realized a fundamental truth,” he said, contrasting them against corporate America in general. “The only thing that matters is intelligence, creativity and dedication.”

Notably absent from Friday’s festivities was John Sculley, the former Apple chief executive who resigned as chairman that day, severing his decade-long tie with the company that he helped build into a computer powerhouse. Sculley won praise, nonetheless, as a pioneer in providing a hospitable office atmosphere for gays and for being the sole corporate CEO to attend the gay and lesbian march on Washington in April.

But the conference also discussed ongoing opposition to gay rights.

In Oregon, activist Donna Red Wing noted, the Oregon Citizens Alliance has successfully campaigned for the passage of anti-gay-rights measures in several communities.

Another speaker noted that voters and legislators in nearly one-third of the states have amendments or initiatives before them this year to limit or reverse housing and employment protections for gays and lesbians.

Gay Rights in the Workplace

To establish a benchmark for measuring the quality of life in corporate America for gay men and lesbians, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force sent a survey to the Fortune 1,000--the nation’s biggest industrial and service companies. These are preliminary results of the survey, which the task force intends to conduct annually.

* Of 1,000 companies sampled, 243 responded (about 25%).

* Of the 243 companies, 98 completed surveys and 145 declined to complete them.

Of the companies participating:

* Nearly three-quarters have a non-discrimination policy that includes sexual orientation.

* Three others indicated they are considering such a policy.

* Five companies have domestic-partner benefits for the same-sex partners of their employees.

* More than half include issues related to sexual orientation in their diversity training programs.

* Slightly more than one-fifth recognize gay and lesbian employee groups.

* About 71% provide some form of support for individuals with AIDS or who are HIV-positive.

Companies with significant domestic-partner benefits for same-sex partners:

* Apple Computer

* Levi Strauss