Public opinion on the issue has shifted dramatically since that law passed, and now more than 200 of the country’s biggest brands are teaming up to let the Supreme Court know that this isn’t just a cultural or political matter–DoMA is making it harder for businesses to operate.

Brands ranging from techies like Facebook and Apple to consumer biggies like Nike and even financial titans like Citigroup and Goldman Sachs signed on to file what’s called a “supporting brief” or “friend of the court brief”. Their major point: DoMA effectively forces us to discriminate against our employees and makes the process of finding, courting and rewarding the talent we need that much more challenging.

How so, you ask?

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And then there are those financial industry executives and their astronomical multimillion dollar salaries and bonuses. (There’s an app for that, by the way. It claims to compare bonuses for execs at the world’s biggest banks, and it can be yours for the appropriately inflated price of $11.99.)

The public doesn’t have a problem with people acquiring wealth through diligence, intelligence and sweat equity, but we loathe watching the economy sink into a financial abyss while those in charge shop for their own private islands.

Ever since the early days of the recession, the public never fully understood how people doing such a terrible job could be paid so handsomely. There appeared to be rules at play that don’t apply to the rest of us. Finally, however, the situation is changing. That’s right. Jamie Dimon, chief executive for JP Morgan Chase, had his salary cut in half, to a mere $11.5 million. Good to know he avoided that potential PR disaster.

How will this “pay cut” campaign go over?

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The New York Times reported on the rationale behind Paulson’s philanthropy: at Tuesday’s press conference announcing the donation, Paulson said, “Central Park is among the most deserving of all of New York’s cultural institutions. And I wanted the gift to make a difference”. The funds will be evenly divided between the park’s endowment and capital improvements.

Paulson joined the Central Park Conservancy board in June, and he has supported the group for 20 years. According to Forbes, this gift far exceeds Paulson’s earlier philanthropic commitments, placing him “in a league with several of his most charitable peers atop New York City’s alternative asset management universe.”

Conservancy officials expressed delight at the bequest–president and CEO Doug Blonsky hailed the gift as “transformational,” saying it will enable the park to break its cycle of restoration and decline.

Paulson’s financial career has also experienced several ups and downs. He founded his hedge fund management company, Paulson & Co, in 1994 and became a billionaire in 2007, making most of his money by shorting subprime loans and effectively rooting for the collapse of the real estate market.

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A veteran of the Clinton administration and former adviser to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Siewert signed with Sachs earlier this year to help the firm’s principals “put the mistakes of the financial crisis behind them” and improve their company’s public image.

Mere days after Siewert’s hiring announcement, The New York Times published Greg Smith’s defamatory op-ed decrying the Goldman Sachs culture of greed as “toxic and destructive”—so you might say he hit the ground running.

Most of Siewert’s damage control efforts over the past six months have amounted to “off the record” conversations defending the firm’s reputation, but yesterday he sat down with New York Magazine’s Kevin Roose to discuss the politics and challenges of reputation management.

We won’t reprint the entire interview, but here’s an interesting tidbit on why Goldman chose to shoot the messenger:

“Why not just issue a generic statement saying, ‘Goldman Sachs is committed to serving its clients’ needs’ and leave it at that?

That hasn’t worked out so well in the past. And frankly, we didn’t know what was in the book.”

Siewert is predictably guarded, but it’s still worth a read.

PR pros: How big is the challenge facing Siewert? Was Goldman right to attack Smith?

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Smith’s book expands upon an op-ed he wrote for The New York Times back in March in which he decried his former employer’s once-noble culture as “toxic and destructive” while claiming to be shocked at “how callously people talk about ripping their clients off”. The article’s best-known revelation was the fact that managers referred to their clients as “muppets”—and not in an endearing Fozzie Bear kind of way.

First the obvious: Most Americans don’t think too highly of Goldman Sachs right now, no matter what Mr. Smith says. When Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone referred to the company as a “great vampire squid”, he wasn’t just engaging in colorful hyperbole: According to the widely cited YouGov Brand Index, GS remains engaged in a bad-PR battle with JPMorgan Chase to determine which financial organization Americans hate most.

Politicians may have plenty of love for Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein, but the average “man on the street” feels differently. So how will the biggest name in investment banking deal with its most visible enemy? Until now, the organization has largely ignored Mr. Smith, but a curious internal memo reveals that this is no longer the case.

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Goldman Sachs

The other four tweets have focused on the company’s CSR efforts — investments in clean tech and renewable energy — and its work with small businesses. The company has nearly 12,000 followers.

The account is part of a new PR campaign launched by the financial firm’s communications head, Richard Siewert Jr., who started just as Greg Smith blew our minds with his New York Times resignation letter to the world. Siewert has been holding internal meetings explaining the new strategy, which is based on increased transparency. We’ll need a little more than these first few tweets.

*Make that seven times, as of 5/29 a.m.

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Some tried to show a little sympathy for Richard Siewert Jr., who only just started his job as the head of comms at Goldman and is already up to his eyeballs. A lengthy memo went out from Goldman execs Lloyd Blankfein and Gary Cohen (we wouldn’t be surprised if Siewert had a look at it), that gets credit from Dukas PR CEO Richard Dukas for being a measure better than the initial statement.

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The Barometer found that 46 percent of respondents don’t trust financial services. And 41 percent don’t trust banks. This is up from 2011 when trust was only at 25 percent. This Goldman article might drive that number back down the toilet.

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“To put the problem in the simplest terms, the interests of the client continue to be sidelined in the way the firm operates and thinks about making money,” writes Greg Smith in the New York Times opinion piece that has got Goldman Sachs trending on Twitter. After 12 years with the company, Smith, an executive with the financial powerhouse, tendered his resignation with the op-ed, saying that the company is so “toxic” he can’t identify with it anymore.

“The culture was the secret sauce that made this place great and allowed us to earn our clients’ trust for 143 years,” Smith goes on to say, describing a company that once worked with integrity, humility, and care for its clients. But no more. Now, it’s all about making money, no matter what.

“It astounds me how little senior management gets a basic truth: If clients don’t trust you they will eventually stop doing business with you. It doesn’t matter how smart you are,” he says. Preach!

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Lucas van Praag

Whispers about the pending departure of Goldman Sachs’ global head of corporate communications turned out to be true.

New York magazine confirmed late yesterday that the company had replaced Lucas van Praag, a 12-year veteran of the company and its voice post-economic meltdown, with Richard “Jake” Siewert Jr.

Siewert was previously a counselor to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. According to Bloomberg, “Hiring Siewert may help bolster Goldman Sachs’s links with the Democratic Party in the U.S., which controls the Senate and the White House under President Barack Obama.” Employees have already given hundreds of thousands to the Romney campaign, though donations to Obama topped $1 million during the last election.

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Goldman chief exec Lloyd Blankfein

Goldman Sachs‘ $450 million investment in Facebook may be just what both companies need. Goldman didn’t exactly emerge popular from the financial crisis, and for all its fans, Facebook “ranked last among e-business in customer satisfaction last year,” a Wall Street Journal MarketWatch story says.

Business Insider says “Goldman’s reputation is enhanced as it’s seen as Facebook’s banker.” That’s a nice switch for the firm from the Reuters blog headline that called its reputation “in tatters” back in April.

And the move both bodes well for Facebook as a growth company and pushes chatter about the company as an IPO candidate to the forefront, the article suggests.

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While we wouldn’t quite call it PR, it does seem to be an attempt to spruce up the firm’s image. The article sees it as an effort to show Goldman’s positive contributions to various communities.

Goldman, in short, is trying to show how it is playing a role at improving the lives of Americans rather than simply increasing its bottom line.

Other ads will allegedly highlight how Goldman helps women and small business owners via business education.

Almost a year ago, we asked you if Goldman Sachs’ initiative to invest $500 million into 10,000 U.S. small businesses changed your perception of the company.

Maybe it’s time to ask again. Do you think the new ads will help?

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It was only a matter of time before a Lucas Van Praag feature story popped up, and we have one today, by CNBC’s Charlie Gasparino in The Daily Beast. Van Praag runs PR for Goldman Sachs, and is facing quite the challenge of managing the brand’s reputation through perhaps its most trying times.

Sources told Gasparino Van Praag is well respected at Goldman, and his job is safe, for now. However, a “shift in public-relations strategy is in the works,” including bringing on more online and broadcast media consultants. Of course, this is one reason why every agency CEO has been offering free advice to the firm via blog posts and other public statements. They are all salivating at what could be the largest financial services account in the country.

Gasparino also reports what many have assumed. Van Praag is the “highest paid flack on Wall Street and one of the top-earning mouthpieces in all of corporate America, with an annual compensation that has (particularly during the good years) well exceeded $1 million.”

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Bank holding company Goldman Sachs made several PR moves last month, announcing a $500 million investment in 10,000 U.S. small businesses and issuing a public apology from CEO Lloyd Blankfein [pictured] for the firm’s role in last year’s financial meltdown. It seems in the court of public opinion, Goldman still has their work cut out for them.

A Vanity Fair feature story, available online now, will hit newsstands nationally next week. In the story, one hedge-fund trader says of the firm, “It’s like the Mob who picks up the garbage…You pay their fees, because you need your garbage picked up.”

In a recent PRNewser poll, 62% of respondents said that the Goldman’s recent actions have not changed their perception of the company.

UPDATE: We’ve added the above chart from YouGov’s BrandIndex. The survey interviews 5,000 people each weekday from a representative US population sample. A score can range from 100 to -100 and is compiled by subtracting negative feedback from positive. A zero score means equal positive and negative feedback. Margin of error is +/- 2%.

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