LONDON, Sept 29 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Respecting
gay and lesbian rights is good for business and helps drive
economic growth, a group of 14 leading Western companies
including Google GOOGL.O , American Express (NYSE:AXP) AXP.N and
McKinsey&Company said on Tuesday.
The companies said supporting lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender rights around the world helped drive economic
development and allowed such companies to attract and retain the
smartest employees.
"If countries and cities want to have economic development,
they have to rise to a level of tolerance that enables them to
have the kind of diverse dialogue that creates innovation,"
Claudia Brind-Woody, managing director for Global Intellectual
Property Licensing at IBM (NYSE:IBM), said in a statement.
The other companies which supported the report were AT&T (NYSE:T)
T.N , Brunswick, EY, IBM IBM.N , LinkedIn LNKD.N , law firm
Linklaters, MasterCard MA.N , Royal Bank of Scotland RBS.L ,
Standard Chartered STAN.L , Thomson Reuters TRI.N and Virgin
Group.
For a link to the report, http://open-for-business.org/