Blizzard Techs Talk Login Times, Not Gay Rights

Shane Dabiri and John Lagrave took an interview with Eurogamer, and used the opportunity to talk about the login problems that have been plaguing World of Warcraft since Christmas. As techs, they're not there to talk about the ongoing discussion involving Gay rights in their game world. Kotaku, however, is not under any kind of restriction, and reports on legal movement against the company by Lambda Legal. The group is organized around procuring civil rights for people in the GLBT community, and sent a strongly worded letter to Blizzard's legal team. From that letter: "We are very concerned that Blizzard's policy, as expressed in the foregoing statement, discriminates against LGBT gamers. Although preventing harassment is an admirable goal, a requirement that LGBT people remain invisible and silent is not an acceptable means of reaching that goal." Blizzard has already removed the warning from the player in question, saying that it was an 'unfortunate interpretation' of their EULA.

Comments

Re:Rights?

[PFI_Optix]

One could easily argue that they aren't denying a service. GLBT users can still login, play, join a guild, enjoy the game, whatever. As I understand it, all they are (were?) being prevented from doing is broadcasting that a particular guild is GLBT-friendly and from engaging in same-sex marriage in the game world.

For the former, one could even argue that a GLBT guild is discriminatory against straight users. Assuming a "straights only" guild is against the rules, I have no complaint here.

For the latter, it's a medeival game world. Translating real-world modern social issues to be compatible with a game world like that just doesn't work...Blizzard created that world, they could simply state that the society does not permit homosexual marriage and let that be the end of it.

Re:G/L/B Rights

[Fireball394]

That's pretty much what Kinsey found in his study.

The "T" in LGBT Stands for

[dmatos]

Tolerant. It was a guild for people who were tolerant of gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. No requirement to be a member of one of those three groups. You just had to stop using OMG F4G!!!!11!!one when someone ganked you.

Re:G/L/B Rights

[Gulthek]

Yes.

The Experience of Homosexuality in the Middle Ages by Paul Halsall, 1988.

Homosexual sex was widespread in the Middle Ages and there is abundant information on what church writers and secular legislators thought about it. Shoddy or partisan scholarship and a distinctly modern disdain of homosexuals by scholars until recently marked much of the discussion of the history of this medieval homosexuality. Since 1955, and especially since 1975, much work has been done that is of reasonable quality [1]. The concentration has tended to be on the Church's, or society's, attitude to homosexuality. This paper takes a different tack and looks at the personal experience in the Middle Ages of those we would now call homosexuals and the structures in which they were able to experience their sexuality. Their experience fits in with the wider experience of sexuality in Middle Ages and this also will be considered. Naturally, we can say little about what sexuality felt like for individuals, but a possible framework for their experience can be reconstructed from existing sources. This will be, necessarily, a framework for the experience of homosexual males for significant information exists only about men and boys [2].

The main focus of the present paper will be on the experience of homosexuality for individuals and on what can be gleaned about the subcultures or other kinds of social networks homosexuals belonged to in diverse medieval periods. There are theoretical issues to face in this inquiry, about the concept of homosexual and homosexuality, and the overall place of homosexuality in the study of medieval sexuality. Only after looking at these will we move to a consideration of sources and the uses that can be made of them. A examination of the often ignored issue of why people engaged in homosexual activities will help us to focus better on the core of this paper which will be to consider those medieval societies in which we have knowledge of homosexuality and to see if they fit into any typology. The typologies looked at are of the types of homosexuality we can see present and at the social contexts in which this sexuality was expressed. ...

Very clearly there were distinct types of sexual activity in different periods and areas, but these activities do not seem to accord with any particular social organization of homosexuals: there was a pederastic emphasis in the Spain, with a developed subculture, and there were relationships conducted on a more equal basis in areas where there is little evidence of homosexual social organization. What has become clear is that homosexuality existed in immensely varied forms in the Middle Ages. A global approach to the whole period is of some use and interest, but to try to understand the lives of homosexual individuals it is necessary to consider their local circumstances and the structures in which they lived.

Homosexuality.

With the decline of the Roman Empire, and its replacement by various barbarian kingdoms, a general tolerance (with the sole exception of Visigothic Spain) of homosexual acts prevailed. As one prominent scholar puts it, "European secular law contained few measures against homosexuality until the middle of the thirteenth century." (Greenberg, 1988, 260) Even while some Christian theologians continued to denounce nonprocreative sexuality, including same-sex acts, a genre of homophilic literature, especially among the clergy, developed in the eleventh and twelfth centuries (Boswell, 1980, chapters 8 and 9).

The latter part of the twelfth through the fourteenth centuries, however, saw a sharp rise in intolerance towards homosexual sex, alongside persecution of Jews, Muslims, heretics, and others. While the causes of this are somewhat unclear, it is likely that increased class conflict alongside the Gregorian reform movement in the

Re:G/L/B Rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that it is very binary:

"Would you like to have sex with a member of the same gender, ever, under any circumstances?"

"Yes, please." == gay
"No, thank you." == not gay

Really, is it that hard to figure out?

Within the first group, you do get quite a spectrum: Men who are gay in prison, girls who "experiment" with being gay in college, guys who like hermaphrodite porn, Ford F-150 owners, etc., however, even in these marginal cases that you might say just barely are gay, you either are in that first group or you're not.

Now, if you want to say that this rigid definition implies that there are a lot more gay people out there than those who are identifying themselves as gay, I'd say you're probably right. The F-150 is America's best-selling truck after all.

Re:G/L/B Rights

[nickname225]

I'm a lawyer - although civil rights is not my area of specialization - and it's not that simple. The world of "I own it & I can damn well do as I please" is long gone. A court would most likely find the WoW is a "public accommodation" and since it engages in Interstate commerce and uses the modalities of Interstate commerce it is subject to non-discrimination laws. However - Gay is not a protected class of people so Blizzard can do as they want with regard to gays - but just because you own something doesn't mean you can set ALL the rules.

Re:I think you misunderstand the case a bit

[kalirion]

What they've said is you can't make a blatantly homosexual guild, as in the name, and you can't recruit on the general board based on that. They impose similar restrictions on religions, politics, straight sex, etc. Except that from what I've read, there are several blatantly Christian guilds who recruit on the general board based on that, and they haven't been told "you can't do that."

Re:I think you misunderstand the case a bit

[c_forq]

I've read of the same happening to this group happening to many of the fundamentalist christian groups.

Re:Rights?

[Minwee]

"one could even argue that a GLBT guild is discriminatory against straight users"

One could, but that would have nothing to do with the subject at hand.

The guild in question is GLBT friendly, not GLBT only.

If you still want to have a problem with their membership policies then you will also have to have a problem with _every_ guild which doesn't have a completely open door to everyone who wants in.

Blizzard's Rights

[Anonymous Coward]

As a Non-government entity, Blizzard has the absolute right to restrict any and all speech in the forum they create. Neither you nor any group have any legal standing in this matter.

Blizzard is not saying "G/L/B/T's cant play WoW". They are saying "we don't like/approve of the discussion of this topic on our privately owned server."

If Blizzard wishes, they may ban political speech, commercial speech, or all words with the letter 'c' in them. If you don't like it, take your business elsewhere.

As has been said many times before, the First Amendment protects you from Government action, not private action.

The lawyers 'taking action' in this matter know this, they are just trying to get attention. They know they will not win any legal action; they are just pushing a political agenda.

If they really want to achieve something, they should organize a boycott, not threaten legal action (which no lawyer will take seriously).