Corporations tend to stay clear of taking sides on hot button social issues because of its potential to alienate customers thus impacting the bottom line. Obviously, Pacific Gas and Electric Co., California's largest investor-owned utility, did not receive that particular memo.

PG&E announced this week it has contributed $250,000 to defeat Proposition 8 in November, which would ban same-gender marriage in the state.  The contribution was taken from shareholder dollars and not revenue from ratepayers.

PG&E in partnering with Equality California (EQCA) and the NO on 8 campaign to defeat the ballot initiative has made the largest corporate donation received by the NO campaign.

“We are thrilled to partner with PG&E to ensure that the laws of our state are not used to treat people unfairly,” said EQCA Executive Director Geoff Kors and member of the NO on 8 Executive Committee.

“Across California, individuals and businesses like PG&E are pledging to vote no on Proposition 8 because they know it's wrong to single out one group of people to be treated differently,” he said.

In addition to the $250,000 shareholder contribution, PG&E also announced it will become a founding member of the Equality Business Advisory Council, an organization that will challenge other businesses to join NO on 8 in supporting fairness and equality for all people.

While PG&E should be commended for its courage, that fact that it operates in territories where it’s the only game in town reduces the downside risk that most corporations would face by taking a similar stand. Anyone who has received a PG&E bill has at some point wished for a less expensive alternative.

As Republican strategist Allan Hoffenblum noted about PG&E’s monopolistic arrangement in most areas that it serves,  “I can't in outrage call PG&E and say, ‘Cut off my gas.”  So it remains to be scene if other corporations, which are not as insular from economic reprisal, will follow PG&E’s lead.

But this decision in support of same-gender marriage is not the first time PG&E has made such a bold public statement. In 1996, PG&E took considerably political heat in its opposition to the controversial, Prop. 209.

Prop. 209, the anti affirmative action initiative, amended the state constitution to prohibit public institutions from considering race, sex, or ethnicity as qualifiers.  It won with 54 percent of the vote.

I also recall when I worked in PG&E’s government affairs department, from 1998-2001; the company was committed to supporting projects in the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities.

Ultimately PG&E’s support reflects the changing attitude about same-gender marriage in California.  In 2000, the last time this issues was on the ballot, it would have been inconceivable that PG&E, or any large corporation would have taken this stand. In 2,000, 61 percent of voters supported Prop. 22, that limited marriage in the state constitution to a man and a woman.

The latest Field Poll indicates 51 percent oppose Prop. 8. Californians age 18-29 favor the idea of allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry — 68 percent to 25 percent. Ages 30-39 also approve of such marriages by 24 percentage points. Voters age 65 or older disapprove by a wide margin — 55 percent to 36 percent.

These numbers, though only a snap shot, reveal a strong shift in attitudes toward same-gender marriage in what has been relative short time period.

But PG&E’s unique business arrangement also makes it the perfect corporation to blaze the trail for marriage equality.  Who better to take such a risk than a business whose financial downside minimal?

Each example that places marriage equality into the mainstream is a subtle counter to those who feel it necessary to be the citadel of inequality by zealously galvanizing around an issue they subjectively deem more important than the economy, public safety, quality education, or universal health care.