If a homophobe was working for HR (in 2022) they would hide it, even to the extent of making sure to hire some percentage gays no matter what they thought personally.

> If your friend told you "man, my last customer was a jerk" you would distrust that?

My personal friend? That's the standard we're expecting from a giant corporation's bureaucracy? It just has its personal friends that it trusts.

That kind of thing is just gross, is my point. Maybe it's how everything works, welcome to the real world, etc. But it's nothing to be praised or admired.

The corporation should vet its "personal friends" at least as closely as its official HR personnel. Otherwise they're an unaccountable source of bias in the hiring process.

> what do you mean when you say "Maybe the powerless person is a homophobe" ?

The taxi driver may cause conflict with gay passengers. Or female passengers, or whatever else. Then they would blame their own victim for their reaction. The taxi driver's personal biases and animosities would become a vector for corporate discrimination.

There is a reason that corporate bureaucracies take such care to look out for this kind of thing. If you let ordinary people just go with their gut on things, you end up excluding a lot of people based on stereotypes and bias. It's not some theoretical possibility, but empirical fact.