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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. "
surprising coming from the guy who had been charged with diversity and sensitivity training during his ten-year Microsoft stint
It's surprising only if you assume that anybody who believes the term marriage should remain gender heterogenous must also think the murder of Matthew Shephard was a really good idea.
I didn't vote yes on 8, but I know a lot of people who did, and their decision had little to do with any lack of sensitivity or exposure to diversity.
Tweet, tweet.
The law will last a lot longer than this current recession.
The cake is a pie
Put aside whatever your thoughts on whether same-sex marriage should be legal or not. Try to look at this from a systems standpoint.
First, we have a court decision allowing gay marriage. Then, we get a proposition that the voters decide that it should be illegal. Here, we have a very classic case of the voters' wishes versus the concept of legal rights which should not be subject to democratic vote. One side claims that marriage is an inalienable right regardless of gender, and the other side which says this isn't the case. Very deep stuff.
Now, stirring up the issue are corporations. Where in the hell do corporations belong in this? I am of the classical view that corporations are there to make and distribute money. I've never been comfortable with corporations lobbying lawmakers. I have never been comfortable with corporations donating to causes. Let them make and distribute wealth and let individuals make those choices.
When corporations get involved with government, it gets ugly. Same with church and state. So regardless of my feelings on Google's position, my thought is they should shut up. If individuals in Google want to take a stand, fine. But when it becomes Google versus the voters, I become uneasy.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Well just because they laid off people it doesn't mean they are not hiring. In a changing economy you need people with different skill sets. And most people can't or are not willing to adjust to the different jobs.
For example are you willing to quit your tech job, and do a marketing job for less money. or would you rather loose your job in hopes of finding an other one.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
simple, where would you rather work? Company A where your marriage is legal, you get benefits and tax breaks for that... or Company B where you and your husband/wife are legally "just good friends".
the preceding post was not spell checked... suck it.
In my opinion, churches that take stances on political issues like that should lose their tax-exempt status, as the clause under which they are tax exempt clearly prohibits political activism.
The problem is, this isn't really a political issue, it is a social issue. I'm certainly not saying I agree with them, I was very dissapointed when my home state passed a law similar to prop 8 a few years ago.
IMHO, marriage is a personal (and sometimes religious) choice, and as such the government should just stay out of it. I don't know where religios people get off trying to tell gay people that they don't have the right to share insurance, file taxes together, and visit each other in the hospital; which are about the only rights being legally married entitles you to anyway.
Just change the wording in all the laws from marriage to civil union and be done with it. If you want to get married, go to a church that will marry you, but don't expect the government to recognize it, and that goes for both straight and gay couples. If you want the rights legally married people currently have, go fill out the paperwork for a civil union at the courthouse, and that also goes for both straight and gay couples.
...do something about the oppressive cost of housing in the bay area.
...do something about the oppressive taxes in California.
...do something about the oppressive traffic.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
As a supporter of Proposition 8, I would be a lot more interested in moving to a state that does not allow for same-sex marriage.
Many of us normal folks would be willing to throw in a few bucks for your one-way ticket to Iran.
Was it really necessary to put an attack on one specific Microsoft employee who supported Prop 8? Microsoft has excellent benefits that are extended to same sex domestic partners. It seems kind of churlish to smear Microsoft by juxtaposing Google's corporate stance on the issue against one Microsoft employee's.
Come on, there's plenty of other things to attack Microsoft over.
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.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
That's the problem - marriage is a religious term for many people. And yet, recognizing marriages for some people and civil unions for others is never going to be truly equal.
The solution is easy! Don't recognize marriages at all. Recognize all pairings between two people as civil unions, regardless of the genders involved. People can call them marriages and debate the meaning of that all they like, but the government stays out of the debate. The only reason the government is involved at all is because of the legal and economic implications of these unions.
And frankly same sex marriage is a religious issue that has proded its way into politics because of the way government deals with marriage.
Exactly. That's why the government should have nothing to do with marriage and churches should have nothing to do with legal rights associated with what we'll call a civil union. Any church of any creed, catholic, wiccan, psychodelic cyberparish of the new voudon, whatever, can perform or not perform marriages for whomever and excluding whomever they wish. But the partnership with all the legal ramifications would be the civil union, and being a secular, government thing, it would not be allowed to discriminate. If a couple wanted both then they would have to see both the priest (or priestess) and the appropriate representative of secular authority for two different ceremonies.
Loose lips lose spit.
The real issue here is why the government is involved in the business of marriage to begin with. Government shouldn't be involved at all in the current fashion.
What bothers me personally is this artificial dichotomy that people have created surrounding this issue on both sides. This isn't just about gays and lesbians. What about spinster sisters that simply live together and want their civil rights? Boyfriend and girlfriend forever? Polyamorists? Where are their rights? And what about states that automatically deem a couple to be in common-law marriage without them consciously having entered into that contract? None of these issues have been covered by the proponents or opponents of Prop 8.
Marriage should be replaced by a comprehensive standard (but modifiable) civil contract between two or more consenting adults like any other business contract. Whether one goes to a church to get married, or to a lawyer's office, they can choose to call it what they will and associate as they want to, but that's separate from the contract. In effect, every "civil union" will be bound by a prenuptial agreement that must be consciously entered into by all parties that defines all of the criteria for what is currently deemed marriage. Assets coming into the marriage shouldn't be deemed automatic community property unless the parties choose this consciously. Child custody will always be split equally amongst the individuals unless otherwise specified in the contract or unless it can be clearly proven that harm is coming to the children from one or more of the parties; joint custody is implied even when they live together (since that's effectively the same thing, just that they're under the same roof). In addition, this will also function as a living and non-living will so that probate judges don't erode an inheritance for the state's benefit as opposed to the individual's benefit, and also to avoid conflicts with the families of the individuals involved. Also, just like a standard contract, individuals will not be entitled to things like lifetime alimony and must mitigate their "damages" by being obligated to find work and/or getting educated to find better work. The contract may be modified at any time with the consent of the parties. During a "divorce", the parties will be bound by the separation provisions of the agreement, thereby reducing the amount of time that lawyers and judges are involved, the amount of tax money spent on courts, and the amount of personal money spent on lawyers in protracted litigation. For those in current marriages, their marriages would be subject to the same standard civil contract rules with modifications from any pre-existing prenuptial agreements.
Neither of the candidates in this presidential election nor any of the state or local candidates made any mention of the damage that the process of divorce has on families, and on individuals' wealth. Divorce is one of the biggest destroyers of wealth in society today and contributes to other societal problems such as childhood delinquency. Why not take on both the issue of civil rights and of divorce, and redefine fundamentally how society organizes itself? If people were forced to think carefully on what a marriage really is - a business transaction - then they might treat it as such. Wrap whatever other window dressing you like around it, but it all boils down to business at the end of the day.
I'd say that if any corporations were truly progressive, they would push for this too. At the end of the day, this would be to their benefit when an employee "divorces" since there would be less time spent off of work. Too bad Google doesn't get this, and even more humorously undermines its own argument by laying off people. Mixing business and politics isn't smart business anyway, as being neutral on issues pisses off the least number of potential customers as I'm sure Google will lose a few of its customers. Unfortunately, everyone loses when we force these dichotomies down people's throats, and business money like Google's simply aggravates this.
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.
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
We don't subsidize kids to encourage having kids, you idiot. We subsidize kids because kids are expensive, and it's beneficial to society at large that the kids grow up educated (guess what? people without kids subsidize public schools too) and well taken care of rather than illiterate and malnourished.
We subsidize marriage (and make it somewhat difficult to dissolve) because it is (in theory) a stable relationship, and stable relationships are good for society as a whole, just ask a sociologist. It is particularly good for children to have parents who are in a stable relationship (just ask any kid whose parents are divorced), and encouraging marriage is the easiest way to ensure that.
By the way, (just at the general audience) this isn't a valid argument against gay marriage. Gays can adopt, and many do - it's still beneficial for adopted kids to be in a stable family, regardless of the gender of their adopted parents.
There's an old saying that says pretty much whatever you want it to.
"tolerance" : an intolerant, and dangerous contradiction
Can someone please explain to me how there can be tolerance against gays, muslims and mexicans ?
Mexicans are massively (and I mean massively) against gay marriage. That's a fact, treat it as you will.
If you are publicly against the massacring of gays in a muslim state, you run yourself the risk of getting killed for it. Worse than that fact in and of itself, is that most moslims support that (and no "only in muslim-majority countries" is no serious objection : that's like saying you only kill when you're sure the other guy ends up dead).
These tolerance ideas are nice and all, but how do they work ? They are self-inconsistent. Are you tolerant to christianity and islam ? Are you tolerant to their intolerance towards gays ? Are you aware of the different treatment of gays in various cultures (e.g. massacring them islam-style, ignoring and generally having nothing to do with them jesus-style, and let's not start claiming these 2 are the worst, just, for example, look up how imperial japan (the party that's really the only political party in japan is a big fan of imperial days)
And this is keeping it politely. After all, there are many ideologies, including some truly horrendous monstrosities like islam. How about the variant of protestantism that fought a civil war for slavery ? How about muslim slave trade, an essential part of the islamic religion for over 1400 years ? How about nazi's ? Should you be tolerant to them ?
And if the answer is "you shouldn't be tolerant to intolerance" ... where do you go with that. It's beyond obvious that large amounts of the muslim world are horribly intolerant, and so are the large majority of it's inhabitants. How do you plan to change their mind (note that most of them would respond violently to any attempt to change their mind), and most of their governments and police forces won't let you try in the first place ...
So what do you do if you "do not tolerate the intolerant" ? Do you attack muslims in the US ? (Neo-)nazi's in the US ? Elsewhere ? Do you enforce what basically amounts to US law with an army world-wide ?