Microsoft Reverses Stand on Discrimination Bill

sriram_2001 writes "Bowing to intense pressure both from outside as well as its employees, Microsoft has reversed its stand on the anti-discrimination bill. In a company wide email, Steve Ballmer says that though the Washington legislative session is over for the year, they'll support any such legislation in the future. However, he adds that they'll be supporting it in the US only as they don't want to involve the company in debates in countries with different cultures and value systems. He also says that he doesn't think Microsoft should be involved in most public policy issues." Announcement about the email's release on the Scobleizer main site.

Comments

Re:Before it gets Slashdotted...

[thuh Freak]

wow. you've managed to take a very old, stale and tired joke, made it worse, and still got +5funny. how do you do it?

As a Discordian,

[TripMaster Monkey]

I take exception to that.

Or mabye I don't.

Re:Uh... y'know

[hastings14]

Yes, I'm responding to what might be flamebait, but I think its important to note that, actually, Hitler held Gays in pretty much the same regard as he held Jews. 12 Million "defectives" were killed in the Holocaust, and "only" around half of them were Jews (although Jews suffered an additional loss due to the cultural/genocidal implications in addition to the absolute numbers killed).

From the Southern Poverty Law Center:

"In fact, while the number of homosexuals who died in the Holocaust does not approach the number of Jewish or Gypsy victims, the historical record shows that between 50,000 and 100,000 men were arrested for homosexuality (or suspicion of it) under the Nazi regime. They were routinely sent to concentration camps and marked with a pink triangle on their prison garb.

They were not systematically exterminated. But huge numbers are believed to have died in the work camps, along with an untold number of homosexual Jews, Gypsies and other "defectives" who were sent to extermination camps."

2) It is not really appropriate to compare our friends on the far right to Hitler any more than it is to compare our friends on the far left to Stalin, who (if not as dramatically) killed millions for his own warped vision and paranoia. I am not a fan of "W" (and judging by the election returns, few Jews or Gays are, either), but he's really not even in the same category as Hitler. Comparing things to Hitler is a waste of time, almost always inaccurate, and just waters down notions of evil in an unhealthy way - which was probably Godwin's point.