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Google Challenging Proposition 8
theodp writes "Coming the day after it announced layoffs and office closures, Google's California Supreme Court filing arguing for the overturn of Proposition 8, which asks the Court not to harm its ability to recruit and retain employees, certainly could have been better timed. Google's support of same-sex marriage puts it on the same page with Dan'l Lewin, Microsoft's man in Silicon-Valley, who joined other tech leaders last October to denounce Prop 8 in a full-page newspaper ad. But oddly, Microsoft HR Chief Mike Murray cited religious beliefs for his decision to contribute $100,000 to 'Yes On 8', surprising coming from the guy who had been charged with diversity and sensitivity training during his ten-year Microsoft stint. "
Focus on your own damn family.
You are totally right. Corporations should be neutral in culture wars. Individuals like the religious HR guy from Microsoft can make their individual choices, but if Google is going to discriminate against those who actually have faith, they are going to lose me as a customer.
Many companies in states without same sex marriage provide same sex benefits. And Google is more than welcome to recognize any marriage it pleases, it can even have anniversary parties..
This is just a cooperation pushing its personal politics and just because many agree with it does not make that any more acceptable.
"Ahh! Arrogance and stupidity in the same package, how efficient of you!" --Londo Molari
So much of this is bunk.. (other than the 'tax breaks')
Visitation rights: before I was married to my wife I was not only granted visitation I was her medical proxy! Marriage is not required for that
Inheritance: Do you need to be married to write a will?
Do you know what hurts employment in California? insanely high taxes, wasteful spending and over regulation but if a company sued about that they would be 'evil'
"Ahh! Arrogance and stupidity in the same package, how efficient of you!" --Londo Molari
States don't marry people, churches do. When a couple goes before a justice of the peace and get married, they're really just entering a civil-union.
No, they're getting married; states have a concept of marriage and churches do too - they're called the same thing, they're just separate because the institutions are.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
There's also a subset of people who are straight, but would not feel comfortable moving to a state/country that tramples on the civil rights of a minority. Can't forget about them.
Nor can you forget the subset of people who would not feel comfortable moving to a state/country that permits same-sex marriage. It hasn't been legal in most societies throughout thousands of years of history, and a lot of people don't think abruptly reversing this policy is a good idea. Enough people, in fact, that they managed to get Prop8 passed in the first place.
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Gays of course have the right to marry. The opposite sex.
Of course, that does not match their personal preference, but then again having your preferences catered to by the state isn't something you can count on when you are a distinct minority.
Seriously? Jesus, try not to be completely dense. Imagine for a second that you have polka-dot skin, and place you'd like to work for happens to be in Plaidlandia, where people with polka-dot skin are reviled and discriminatory laws are written into the books against them. Would you take the job in Plaidlandia?
You can fill in other involuntary attributes, places, and such above as needed until a light dawns in your head. (The part of me that thinks that subtly is lost on the clueless really wants to mutter something about being a Jewish, German-speaking chemist in 1933 and immigrating to Germany here, but that seems over the top. :P)
Hell, I'm as straight as an arrow and Prop 8 gives me pause regards moving to silicon valley. I left Texas partially because I was tired of my work and income supporting an economy full of bigots with a government happy to cater to them, and moving to where a pile of assholes just wrote discrimination (of any sort, regardless of whether I would be affected by it) into their state constitution isn't high on my list of Good Moves.
What I don't understand is how this comes up at all. I'm straight, too, but I don't discuss my sex life with coworkers. It's just not their business. So, how are they being discriminated against unless they are bringing very personal and non-work-related matters to the office? Do homosexual people want to be able to discuss their intimate sex lives at work without repercussions? Because straight people cannot do that without fear of a sexual harassment lawsuit. Seems to me that equal, non-discriminatory treatment would mean that everyone leaves sexual, non-business matters at the door when they walk into the office. I suppose you can't have political movements and protests and large organizations and campaigns and controversy if it were done this way, and we act like we need those things for their own sake sometimes, so perhaps that's too simple?
The only thing I can think of would be if there is a civil union or some other marriage analog that affects taxes or benefits like health insurance. In that case, however, the matter is between the individual employee and the company HR department. If anyone at the HR department cannot respect the privacy of employees, they need to be fired. Otherwise, I'm at a loss as to how this even comes up at all. To me this is very simple and seems to be much ado about nothing, perhaps just because the subject itself tends to be controversial.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Hmmm...actually I'm pretty sure that the proponents of Prop 8 worked with in the purview of the constitutional legal system to pass such a law. Maybe we should talk about the rather unconstitutional actions of the opponents and their terrorism against groups who supported Prop 8. Also, what is missing in this entire issue, so far as I can see, is any rational deliberative discourse about rights in general. This word, right, is by far one of the least understood and yet widely used. What is a right, what is the source of it, and how do you reconcile instances where the exercise of YOUR rights infringe on another's ability to exercise THEIR rights (this is clearly that type of issue)?
This is what we call cognitive dissonance... or disingenuity.
The guy's delusional in any case, first for thinking there's some supernatural omnipotent creature that would actually give a crap about the sexual habits of mere ants, and second for thinking that some shards of literature from over 2000 years ago could actually be at all descriptive of the motives of this alleged supernatural omnipotent creature.
While homosexuals are a very vocal minority out there...you can't kid yourself in thinking they are anything but a minority, and a fairly small one at that with regards to humans in general.
At 10-13% of US society, they are a bigger minority than the African-American population, all Asian minorities, Native Americans, and just about any other ethnic minority in this country.
The only one that is larger is the Hispanic and Latino block, which taken together, is 15%.
What exactly do you consider to be anything but a "fairly small" minority? There are more gays than Catholics. This is a single, blatant, discriminatory issue with a simple fix. Google doesn't actually care about their hiring. This is a social issue in which anyone with the means and desire will participate--and 51% majority or not, you don't get to deny others rights because you find them personally uncomfortable. It really is that simple, and it doesn't matter how many propositions or court cases it takes. The answer is clear.