Georgia, 1991. Attorney General Michael Bowers withdrew a job offer from attorney Robin Joy Shahar when he learned of her same-sex marriage. In 1992, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld his decision, saying her termination was legal under Georgia sodomy law.

Utah, 1997. Wendy Weaver was fired as a volleyball coach in Nebo after she told students she is a lesbian.

New York, 2004. Lambda Legal brings suit against athletic shoe giant Foot Locker alleging that a male employee had “suffered anti-gay harassment and discrimination at the hands of his co-workers, supervisors and customers.” The suit also said that the discrimination grew worse when he complained about the harassment.

One would think that in this day and age, decades after the civil rights movement began, the corporate world would have introduced similar antidiscrimination policies aimed toward GLBT employees and that companies would be required to treat GLBT employees with the same level of professionalism that they’re required to extend to women, employees of color, etc. In this country, it’s illegal to terminate an employee based on their gender. It’s illegal to fire someone due to their age. Yet there are no federal laws in place to protect the GLBT community.

Although things have gotten better for the GLBT community throughout the years in terms of nondiscrimination in the workplace, nondiscrimination policies for our community are not yet commonplace throughout the multitude of industries in the U.S.

While smaller businesses are more able to “get away” with not having policies in place to protect members of our community, many of the larger corporations (“larger” being defined as a company with more than 500 employees) are starting to come around.

So why is this important to think about? With the holiday season here, we’re all scrambling for those perfect gifts for the multitude of people on our holiday shopping lists. Nowadays, we tend to “point, click and purchase” without giving much forethought as to where our money is going – and, ultimately, the businesses we’re supporting.

It would almost be an act of common sense, then, to redirect the gay dollar from company A to company B based on the programs (if any) they have in place to ensure the GLBT community is afforded the same rights as other employees. Far too few of us are aware of these types of issues, and with the hustle and bustle of the holiday season and all the commitments that come with it, finding the time to do the research as to what businesses support our community is a near impossibility.

Thus, we’ve decided to do the homework for you, which will allow you to make a more informed decision about which companies to patronize for that last-minute holiday shopping and in the new year. This information is not only interesting, it also serves as an awakening as to the policies, procedures and practices of the many places we spend money at on a regular basis.

With the rapidly growing power of the gay dollar, making small changes in our day-to-day purchases will help induce positive changes in how the commercial business world operates.

In 2002, the Human Rights Campaign began sending out surveys to 1,520 of the nation’s largest companies to learn more about corporate policies. This year, they received responses from 446. The survey includes questions regarding the extension of domestic partner benefits, diversity training, nondiscrimination policies, advertising practices and support for transgender employees. Companies are scored on a 0-100 scale based on the policies, if any, they have in place that support our community.

This year, a total of 138 of the responding business received “perfect scores” in the HRC’s Corporate Equality Index, which is a marked increase from the 101 companies that received a perfect score last year, and a dramatic increase from the 13 receiving a perfect score in the first report in 2002.

While there has been a trend to improve GLBT employee retention and support, there are still many companies out there that have yet to follow suit. This year, three companies received a 0 score, and one of them is the gas and oil giant Exxon Mobil. One would think that an industry icon that holds such a large portion of the market share would, out of sheer common sense alone, do all it can to share toys and play nice with all their employees.

Sadly, this is not the case. Exxon Mobile Corp. has corporate-sponsored groups for female, African-American, Hispanic and Asian employees, but the company’s GLBT employees do not have any explicit support.

The two other companies with a 0 score are probably a little less known to us here in Southern California than in other areas of the nation. They are Meijer Inc., a grocery chain that operates mostly in the Midwest, and the Waco, Texas-based technology company Perot Systems.

Yet all is not lost in the gas, grocery and technology sector. The next time you fill up your tank, you might be interested to know that BP, Amoco, Arco, Chevron, Texaco and Shell all received a score of 100 on the Corporate Equality Index. If you need to run to the store for household staples, Whole Foods, Costco and Albertsons all received high scores as well. Do you have computer or software needs? No problem. Adobe, Apple, Cisco, Dell, Google, Eastman Kodak, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems and Xerox all sit at the very top of the list of GLBT-friendly tech companies.

As you’re ready to wrap up your holiday shopping, you may want to keep the following information in mind. Perhaps you’re on your way to the mall and as you reach for your car keys you remember that your car insurance policy is due. If you write your check to Humana, AIG, Progressive or AEGON Insurance Group, you may want to consider taking your business elsewhere. According to the statistics, they fall at the very bottom of the rankings. However, Wells Fargo, Lincoln National, Allstate, State Farm and Safeco all received high scores on the HRC’s index.

And while we’re on the subject of car insurance, why not go one step further and think about the automobile companies themselves? Nissan North America (which also owns Infiniti) falls at the bottom of the ranking list with a score of just 35, while Volkswagen of America, Ford, DaimlerChrysler, GM and Toyota all hold scores of 90 and above. So for those of you who are driving a Mercedes, Jaguar, Volvo, Audi or Lexus, pat yourselves on the back. They’re all brands owned by one of these top-ranking auto manufactures.

Let’s say you decide to grab a quick bite prior to your retail adventure. Something you may want to keep in mind when making the decision as to which parking lot to pull into is that Chili’s, On the Border, Macaroni Grill and T.G.I. Friday’s all have perfect scores on HRC’s list, while the restaurant chain Cracker Barrel received only a 35.

When you arrive at the mall, you can feel good about the purchases you make at the stores owned by Gap, Levi Strauss, Liz Claiborne, Nike, Nordstrom and Sears. They too received perfect scores on the Equality List.

Surprisingly, Abercrombie didn’t score as high as we thought it would.

“For all of their ambiguously gay and highly provocative ads,” the report reads, “Abercrombie and Fitch, Hollister and RUEHL brands score only 50 points each.”

DNKY and Men’s Warehouse fall at the bottom of the list with scores of 45 and 35, respectively.

If you’re shopping cell phone companies, it might be useful to know that AT&T, Sprint Nextel, Cingular and Verizon top the list of HRC-approved carriers. Alltel, however, is not. Information was not available for T-Mobile.

The gay dollar spans well beyond retail purchases. Recent reports project that in 2007, our community will spend more than $65 billion in travel expenses.

It’s no surprise, then, that this industry was the first to really “jump on board” in terms of implementing gay-friendly policies for their employees – and it was a very smart move. Travel is an ever-increasing trend among us, and voicing our dollars as to the types of trips we like to take is something that’s being heard loud and clear by the major travel companies.

According to the 2005 “Gay & Lesbian Community Survey” done by San Francisco based Community Marketing, Inc., gay and lesbian travelers took an average of six overnight trips in the past 12 months, 87 percent took at least one long leisure trip, 25 percent had traveled for a Pride festival and a whopping 84 percent of respondents hold a valid passport (which is a very high number; the national average is only 23 percent). Fifty-three percent of us spent $5,000 or more per person on vacations in the past year.

With numbers like that, it’s not surprising that 98 percent of those surveyed indicated that a destination’s gay-friendly reputation influenced their decision as to whether or not to travel there.

“We recognize this market, and there is a lot of interest in it,” notes Tom Russell, vice president of brand marketing for Orbitz in Chicago.

As you may remember, Orbitz was the first major travel company to roll out an advertising campaign specifically targeting the GLBT community; the first being a game show-style commercial featuring a gay male couple competing with a straight couple to book a trip. The gay couple was portrayed as young, fun, hip and technology-savvy, while the heterosexual couple was cast as more rigid and uptight. The result of the challenge? The gay couple prevails. Earlier this year, Orbitz rolled out a similar commercial, only this time with a lesbian couple. The end of the spot mirrored the ending seen in the first. To date, these are the only gay-specific commercials to have aired on the major television networks.

Yet it’s not just about the occasional flight or hotel stay. Many companies are now offering vacation packages tailored to the gay community. The town of Whistler is one of many that hosts an annual gay ski week. And then there’s Olivia, which caters specifically to the wants and needs of lesbian travelers.

But what if you’re not planning a full vacation? What if you’re just going to fly home to see the family, or realize that you’ll need to stay overnight at a hotel while en route from one city to another? You’ll be happy to learn that American Airlines, U.S. Airways, Delta and Southwest are all ranked at the top of the HRC Equality Index, and just about all of the hotel respondents got high scores as well, with the exception of Host Hotels & Resorts. They only received a 45.

Every year, our community continues to make strides toward equality, and every year our country continues to make progress in terms of GLBT acceptance. Whether you’re shopping for gifts or planning a trip this holiday season and beyond, you may want to think twice prior to making that purchase or booking your travel.

Keep in mind that our voices span beyond the media outlets and legal battles. Every day we have a choice as to where we shop, where we go and how we get there. With every dollar we spend we are casting a vote. Money does, in fact, talk.

In casting our monetary vote together as a community, sooner or later people are going to have to listen. They’ve already started to.

Happy holidays.