Black Friday came, and I stayed away from the stores.

I’m not anti-consumerism or anti-gifts or anti-Christmas, just anti-crowds — 134 million shoppers is 134 million too many for me. So I’m letting the commotion die down before I begin my holiday shopping.

I’ll be shopping with a list this year — a list of who’s been naughty and who’s been nice. It’s not the list of names that Santa uses — though I wish he would borrow some leads from mine. My list does not contain the names of those I plan to spend money on, but rather the names of businesses I will or will not patronize.

Don’t worry, I’ve checked it twice, after doing the research — an examination of corporate donors to anti-gay ballot campaigns, a review of the Human Rights Campaign’s extensive Corporate Equality Index and Buying for Equality Guide, which rank companies based on LGBT-friendly employment practices; a survey of the year’s past news articles about corporate flare-ups and a look at Ave Maria Mutual Funds — trust me, you don’t want to put your money where they put their money.

LGBT buying power in the United States this year is estimated at $712 billion, according to the research and marketing company Witeck-Combs Communications. That’s a lot of dollars to pump into the marketplace, especially in an ailing economy. And that’s a lot of leverage for change. I like to think I’m among the 78 percent of LGBT consumers who put my money where my heart and cause lie — equality and acceptance.

When I lived in Chicago, patronizing LGBT-friendly businesses was as simple as walking out my front door on Clark Street in Andersonville, affectionately known as Girlstown.

Now, I need to do some homework to come up with a naughty and nice list. Fortunately HRC’s Buying for Equality 2010 Guide — which can be downloaded at the organization’s Web site — offers a comprehensive examination of the larger businesses with pro-LGBT policies, specifically workplace policies. The guide breaks businesses into three categories — top-ranked “green” companies, middle-ranked “yellow” companies and bottom-ranked “red” companies that have a lot of work to do.

So, what is noted under “nice” on my list?

Well, someone in my two-person household is going to get a new 8GB Apple iPod Nano for Christmas, maybe even two people in my two-person household. Apple tops the nice list, along with Best Buy and Dell, while Acer/Gateway and Radio Shack come at 50 percent or below on HRC’s scorecard.

What others rank at the top of the nice list? Barnes & Noble and Borders, Costco and eBay, GameStop and Hallmark Cards, Target and Walgreens, Sears and Macy’s.

Amazon, Limited, Staples, Bath and Body Works, Staples, CVS, OfficeMax, Harry & David and Whole Foods also make the list.

Top-ranked brands include Herman Miller and Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams, Craftsman and Kenmore, KitchenAid and Magic Chef, Abercrombie and Fitch and Gap, Levi Strauss and Liz Claiborne, Nike and Converse, Land’s end and Kenneth Cole, Microsoft and Mattel, Estee Lauder and Walt Disney and Kodak and Motorola.

My naughty list includes retailers at the bottom of HRC’s scorecard. About these companies, HRC kindly suggests, “Make the choice to support a fairer company.” The retailers include Radio Shack, Meijer, Office Depot, Big Lots, Children’s Place, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Dillard’s, Dollar General, Dollar Tree and, surprise, Wal-Mart.

Lower-scoring brands include La-Z-Boy and Lennar, Sealy and Sherwin-Williams, Anne Klein and Evan-Picone, Gloria Vanderbilt and Joan & David, Nine West and Bandolino, ClosetMaid and John Deer — fortunately a tractor or a lawn mower isn’t on any relative’s wish list this year.

Though I always pay off my credit cards from week to week, I likely will shop with my Visa, which earned a 100 percent from HRC, and not my Discover, which has a 58 percent rating. I like Discover’s miles program, but…

To get from store to store, mall to mall, I’ll be filling up my car at the island BP or Shell rather than the stations affiliated with the naughty Exxon Mobil.

And, for that pick-me up during the holiday shopping expedition, Starbucks and Seattle’s Best fall under nice on my list.

To LGBT consumers: If you braved Black Friday and perhaps now have some buyer’s remorse about patronizing the naughty over the nice, well, we’re consumers year ’round. Make a list, check it twice.

And to the companies who want our LGBT dollars: Be good for goodness sake.