Shopping for Equal Rights? There's an App for That

by Michael Jones · 2010-01-05 09:50:00 UTC
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If there can be iPhone apps for things like popping pimples or flicking statues of cattle through space, then surely there can be apps for finding the best places to shop that promote equal rights. Cue the Human Rights Campaign, which spent the holiday season developing an iPhone app that takes their Buying for Equality Guide and makes it a mobile weapon in the game of shopping for equal rights.

Using traffic light symbols, the new app lets you know if a business is bad by flashing a giant red sign (like, for instance, Exxon Mobil, which scores a big goose egg on the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index). Businesses that are showing progress on LGBT rights, but still lack some corporate policies that make them truly inclusive, get a yellow sign. And businesses that love them some gay folks in all capacities get a green card.

It's like Gay Rights NASCAR for your iPhone. Or maybe it's just a really cool way to shop your conscience no matter where you travel.

And if you're curious, both Apple (the manufacturer of the iPhone) and AT&T, the service provider for all iPhones, score a 100% from the Human Rights Campaign on LGBT issues. Nothing like putting your apps where you corporate policies are.

(Photo courtesy of techburst's photostream on Flickr)

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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