Microsoft Abandons Gay Rights Bill

andrewagill writes "Microsoft has withdrawn support from a bill that would "protect gays and lesbians from discrimination in employment, housing, banking, insurance, and other matters by adding sexual orientation to a state law which already bars discrimination" of the other usual suspects. Odd, given their previous accolades from the GLBT community, and their prior public support for the bill."

Comments

What does he have on you, Bill?

[TripMaster Monkey]

From the article in The Stranger:

The Stranger has learned that last month the $37-billion Redmond-based software behemoth quietly withdrew its support for House bill 1515, the anti-gay-discrimination bill currently under consideration by the Washington State legislature, after being pressured by the Evangelical Christian pastor of a suburban megachurch.

You mean it's that easy? I got an idea...Let's all march on Redmond and threaten to boycott Microsoft...unless they fix all of these unnecessary security holes in their products. :P

Seriously, though, this is a MAJOR issue...Microsoft withdraws its support on a subject it's been championing for years, becuse of threats from one rabidly evangelistic, gay-hating preacher??? Just what exactly does Ken Hutcherson have on Bill anyway? For the life of me, I don't understand why Bill didn't just tell him to fuck off. He should have ordered that Ken be dragged out back and shot (fun fact: it's legal for him to do that in Redmond). But no...he just caves, despite the fact that Microsoft owns the consumer market, and Ken's followers could no longer 'boycott' the use of Microsoft's products than they could 'boycott' the use of oxygen.

I almost feel sorry for Microsoft. Almost.

It's going to be interesting to see how Microsoft wriggles out of this one...although I would have much rather they called Ken's bluff...the 'boycott' would have been even more interesting to watch.

Re:What does he have on you, Bill?

[Rei]

I don't support redefinining marriage

Oh, really? Ok, then, lets make it so that interracial marriages are banned again. Sound good?

Heck, lets go further: blacks can't marry, period. Sound better?

Heck, lets go even further: women are chattel. Sound even better?

If these don't sound better, than you *do* support redefining marriage - you just don't support redefining it from its current state. And you do this because of *your* viewpoint, which conflicts with *my* viewpoint. Seing as my stance doesn't harm *you*, and makes me a "separate but equal" category, what grounds do you have to hold your view? Is it your church? *My* church disagrees. Is it your personal tastes? *My* personal tastes disagree. Etc.

I don't ask that you like me. I don't ask that you like my partner. I don't *want* you in my private life. All I ask is that you accept that we have a right to be treated like everyone else, that *our* view on marriage is different than yours (but that this is a country of individual freedoms and not a doctrinal state), and that "separate but equal" is inherently unequal.

Re:What does he have on you, Bill?

[glaucopis]

...part of faith is the idea that there are some things whose correctness is established by God, and not subject to my review or approval. When my conscience interferes with my faith (as it does here), I believe that my conscience is malformed.

I'm a Catholic too, and, for what it's worth, I have a completely different response when my conscience differs with what you refer to as "faith," but what I would just call the Church's teachings. Personally I find faith to be a lot bigger than either the Bible or the Church and not nearly so dependent on humans with human prejudices. I'm not trying to write off the importance of the Church's collected wisdom -- I love the Church's age and ritual and commitment to its beliefs (even when I disagree with them) and efforts to make the world a better place. I simply acknowledge that humans are fallible, even those who devote themselves to a lifetime of service to God, and I feel strongly that the oft repeated statement that homosexuality is a sin is one of these mistakes.

I started reading the Bible this Lent. Admittedly I'm only up to 1 Chronicles (I'm a slow reader; so kill me), but so far I have only read one explicitly antigay verse (and one calling the wearing of women's clothing by men to be an abomination, if you want to count anti-transgendered verses, too) and a couple of hundred forbidding the worship of idols. Even if God inspired every single word in the Bible, clearly he's more interested in preventing idol worship than in condemning gays. I realize that there aren't millions of idol worshipers running around today for the Church to vent its righteous fury on, but I fail to understand why this one lonely little verse, and the one other I know of in Paul's letters, makes gays the enemy of God. If we were to go by a simple count of words devoted to each abomination, eating pork is far worse in God's eyes than sleeping with someone of the same sex -- so why does the Church act like those in favor of gay marriage are seeking to destroy all morality?

I don't know. Maybe I'm just upset that if I were to fall in love with a woman and want to marry her in my church, it would be forbidden, whereas I could marry any unmarried non-blood-related man there for any frivolous reason I chose without a word of objection from anyone. Your commitment to your faith and the Church leads you to oppose any change to its current marriage rules; my commitment to my faith and the Church envelopes me in a constant struggle, because I know the Church only values me so long as I toe its silly homophobic line. So I do agree with you that civil and religious marriages should be established as separate institutions, but I hope that someday the Church will take a good look at its teachings and decide to extend the sacrament of marriage to gay partitioners, too. Civil marriage is obviously a more pressing issue for the majority of gays, but having part of yourself perpetually denied by your religion can be as bad as lacking all of the rights granted by civil marriage.

Back scratching politics

[metoc]

Odds are dropping support for this bill was necessary to get support for a bill they really want passed (anti-open source, take over the world, etc.).

People can be right arseholes about this.

[Anonymous Coward]

People can be right assholes about this. Having been told to my face by my manager "look, we'd really love to keep you on but I'm afraid there's no legal protection to you if we fire you over your homosexuality, so we're forced to let you go. Please don't hesitate to contact me if there's ANYTHING we can do for you."

And you thought Microsoft were the kings of doublespeak & twisted convoluted logic.

Unfortunately, legal protections can only go so far. If someone wants to fire an employee because they don't like the employee's partner, then they'll find a reason quickly enough.

Huh

[JeffSh]

I'm not sure I understand how a corporations support, or lack there of, for social political issues is relevant..

I suppose this is analogous to Henry Ford's philosophy for why he paid his workers well, in some respects, but Henry Ford didn't throw his weight behind legislation and bills for workers, did he?

i think seperation of corporation from government is more important than the seperation of church and state in some respects. Who cares what bills or legislation they do or don't support. I think a company's best influence on society can be made through their own internal HR and resource practices..

i don't know, seems a bit silly to me.

Amazing.

[RatBastard]

The truley amazing thing about this is that MS is scared of someone. Just think about that for a second. The biggest software company in the world, with a monopoly on the desktop and office suite markets scared of someone. Anyone.

It makes one wonder if there is something rotten in Redmond.

Re:Could it be that business interests...

[theodicey]

Actually, aside from the basic human rights issue of anti-discrimination, being gay-friendly is in microsoft's business interests.

Gay customers buy a lot of computers, and they tend to be cultural trend-setters or bellweathers, i.e. the people who Microsoft is trying to attract from Apple.

Also, large companies have a real interest in ensuring that their homebase becomes a culturally vibrant area which attracts professionals and creative types. Gay-friendly laws encourage cultural vibrancy and improve the hiring pool, since people won't live in cities with a reputation for intolerance. Just look at Procter & Gamble's opposition to the Ohio anti-gay constitutional amendment.

(Although, being based in Cleveland, P&G had a little more incentive than MS...)

Re:Gay bashing has been legitizimized in Bush's US

[middlemen]

Atleast people are allowed to be gay in USA. In India a court in New Delhi declared being gay a crime punishable by law.

Missed economic opportunities here?

[Dark Paladin]

True story:

I was talking with my brother in law, who works in a car shop. Somehow the topic of VW came up, and he made an interesting comment:

Him: Man, I can always tell a gay guy when he walks in the door. If He's using an Apple computer while he's waiting, and is driving a VW Beetle or Golf - especially the Beetles! - or has one of those Apple Computer logos on their car - they are a flaming homo. Not that there's anything wrong with it.

Me (while looking up something on my Powerbook): Hm. Interesting. By the way, that's my Beetle parked outside. I'd better call my wife and tell her my secret's out.

We had a bit of a laugh over that - finding that one big honking exception to a stereotype can usually blow someone's bubble pretty quick.

Makes you wonder if MS doesn't realize that there's an untap market in the Gay and Lesbian community by continuing to show their support.

I guess what strikes me odd about the whole story is that for 12 years, MS has supported the Gay and Lesbian community, even winning awards for their support. They gave their support to a bill that basically says "Just like you can't discriminate against people for their gender, religion, ethnic background, or favorite M&M, you can't discriminate if they are a guy who likes to get it on with another guy, or a girl who thinks other girls are 'teh sexy'".

Then, one guy pops up, says "You know, God hates fags, and if you support this bill then we're going to tell the other Christian groups not to buy Microsoft."

As a Christian myself (yeah, not a terribly deeply practicing one - you won't see me making a birthday cake to Jesus and waiting for Him to blow out the candles on Christmas), I find the actions of Mr. Ken Hutcherson of Antioch Bible Church in Redmond to be incredibly offensive, bigoted, and against everything that Christ stood for. (You know, the whole thing of "Judge not unrighteously lest ye be judged", or "I am not come to treat the well, but the sick", or "Get the hell out of my face, you damned dirty ape" - no, wait, wrong religious figure - my bad).

MS can't have it both ways. Either they support the Gay and Lesbian community, and show that there are some things more important than money - and to be honest, how many ministers are going to rise up and start buying Apple's just because MS states publicly they don't give a damn if two guys are getting hot and heavy in the bedroom? 1% of all ministers? 10%?

The loss of good faith, and a reputation of aligning themselves with people of bigoted views will probably do far more damage in the long run than "holding the course" and continuing their support of House Bill 1515.

Of course, that's just my opinion, and I could be wrong. If nothing else, if MS doesn't stand up and do the right thing, then I guess I'll be looking for that copy of iWork instead of MS Office for my next office suite upgrade.

Re:Quote from Pastor Ken Hutcherson

[WhiplashII]

I do realize that you were joking, but...

Over the years I have come to realize that we really needs the weirdos on the far right fighting the weirdos on the far left - the constant turmoil prevents complacency, and lets us adapt to new situations more quickly.

It is a real pain sometimes, agreed. (Although of course you and I would differ on which group does more damage...)

Good.

[pyth]

I thought we were supposed to be against companies lobbying the government to have their way? Then this is good!

Gah

[CTachyon]

One of the perks of being a programmer is that, normally, coding is a refuge from thinking about this kind of crap. GCC doesn't give a fliegende kinderscheisse that I'm gay.

For a while I couldn't read the newspaper without getting a knot in my stomach, and just looking at the Opinion section can give me a headache these days without even reading it. Between what my own state is up to and the creepy backlash building up at the national level, I've decided that sticking it out in the U.S. just isn't worth it and I'm currently saving up to move to Vancouver.

Now, though, the insanity is even making its way onto the Slashdot front page. Tech companies being gay-friendly has always just been a given in the back of my mind. The fact that the biggest of them all is backing off due to outside pressure has me worried even more. I can't shake the feeling that there's something big and scary happening here in the U.S. right now, and the backlash against gay rights is only the tip of it.

So would youinclude Justice Scalia?

[A nonymous Coward]

When the rest of the court decided to condemn the Texas anti-sodomy law as an invasion of privacy, he voted to keep it because he just plain didn't like letting queers sodomize each other.

Would that be activism, bunky?

Not the only one

[MsWillow]

Where I used to work, there were laws that protected against being fired because you're gay ... but no such laws over being TS. I tried to skate, and just let everybody think I must have been gay, but eventually caved and came out as a tryke (transsexual dyke, the proverbial lesbian woman trapped in a male body). That's when heads of *other* departments started fabricating complaints, trying to fake a "reason" to fire me.

Eventually, after being given nothing to do in months, yet being written up for not doing anything, I was graciously "asked" to resign. That was so transparent that I was even allowed to collect unemployment.

Laws won't change people.

Re:Think of lawsuit prevention

[Billly Gates]

I am not anti gay but let me tell you a story?

My brother works for a fortune 500 company which will remain nameless. This company opened a call center in Orlando for customer ordering and customer service calls.

The call center manager found a new job and gave the 2 week notice that he was quiting. The director chose his secretary to replace him?? Not only was she not qualified to be a secretary but she got the position from banging the director on the side.

Eventually the VP of HR found out about this and written up the call center director and threatened to fire him and he also fired the secretary who was promoted to manager.

The secretary then sued because she was hispanic and discriminated agaisnt. She won 1.3 million dollars!

Now tell me how frivilious lawsuits agaisnt wrongfull termination are not out of control?

I am not saying gays and lesbians should not have equal rights. I am only saying the more laws try to help the more lawyers will use them to hurt the people they are supposed to help.

For example I have aspergers which is a mild form of autism. Many employers wont hire me because I could sue the company for wrongfull termination. In other words the Americans with dissabilities act helps me in alot of ways but hurts me in the liability obbsessed corporate world.

I could see a lesbian or gay employee rightfully terminated but using a bs case like the one stated above to try to sue Microsoft. If you have a good lawyer more than likely you will win.

Just because they have a policy to protect gay and lesbian workers does not mean they can not be sued friviously.

I'm proud of my fellow geeks

[spludge]

I read through this thread, and although I see many flames and trolls I also see a lot of geeks reasoning this issue in a logical way and not accepting the standard anti-gay marriage arguments. In general this is one of the huge strengths of geeks. We think for ourselves and we are not willing to accept what the majority might think.

Myself, I think that gay marriage rights make a lot of sense. I think that if you sit down and think about this issue and put aside your prejudices then it is difficult to come to any other conclusion. I leave it to the rest of this thread and to the sites out there to help you convince yourself of this.

I am proud of my fellow geeks.