LGBTQ rights organization The Human Rights Campaign has suspended Google from its latest Corporate Equality Index after the tech giant refused to pull an app promoting gay conversion therapy.
The HRC said it removed Google after a review alerted it to the Living Hope Ministries app, which supports the controversial practice, was being distributed on the Google Play Store. Conversion therapy “includes a range of dangerous and discredited practices that falsely claim to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity,” the group said in its footnotes to the 2019 CEI.
“Such practices have been rejected by every mainstream medical and mental health organization for decades,” the HRC continued. “Minors are especially vulnerable, and conversion therapy can lead to depression, anxiety, drug use, homelessness, and suicide. Pending remedial steps by the company to address this app that can cause harm to the LGBTQ community, the CEI rating is suspended.”
Living Hope Ministries, based out of Arlington, Texas, holds a “Christ-centered, Biblical world-view of sexual expression,” according to its website, rooted in one man and one woman in a committed, monogamous, heterosexual relationship for life.” Anything less than this “ideal,” according to LHM, “falls short of God’s best for humanity.”
While the app remains on Google’s store, it has been pulled from Apple, Amazon and Microsoft, according to Axios.
Google did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
The HRC said it determines its CEI rankings, now in its 17th year, based on three key factors: Non-discrimination policies across business entities; Equitable benefits for LGBTQ workers and their families; and supporting an inclusive culture and corporate social responsibility. Several top American companies received a 100 percent rating from HRC this year, including Apple, Amazon, General Motors and Walmart.