Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Pushes For Gay Marriage In Washington State
New submitter plsenjy writes "An article in the Atlantic outlines how Microsoft Corp. has submitted its support for a Washington State provision allowing gay couples to marry. Citing the company's inability to compete for top talent in the face of discrimination, Microsoft joins other firms such as Nike and Vulcan to effectively change moral policy from the top-down."
It's accepted to show brutal violence on TV while natural things like sex is forbidden!
What is unnatural about brutal violence? (damn nature, you scary)
Quit copying Google, and get some original ideas, Microsoft.
(Seriously though, more companies should be fighting for their employees.)
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
This is another indication of how much power corporations have today.
It is a shame we need big companies to take the initiative in social reform - what happened to politicians working for the people?
-- Braden's law of data: All data spends some of its lifetime in an excel spreadsheet.
..for the same reasons some people like the opposite sex while others like the same sex? it's part of human nature. repress it and you only get more of it cropping up elsewhere, usually in unhealthy quantities.
It's not at all surprising that they're taking that positions. Same sex rights is one of the few areas in which corporate America has been by and large ahead of the curve. I'd wager that if you took a survey at MS and similar corporations that support would be pretty high.
Plus IIRC they've been on that side on the last few times this has popped up for vote.
Well, they are trying to entice apple fanbois to switch to Microsoft. This is a logical marketing move
Not all of us subscribe to your superstition or wish to be ruled by your witch doctors.
Marriage in a secular society is a civil union, not a superstitious rite. Gays want the benefit of civil union which is a CONTRACT they are sometimes restricted from entering.
I'm not gay, but I'm certainly anti-theist. You are all Taliban under the skin, and just as you would take over society and establish theocracy, I advocate resistance to superstition.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
@jmorris42,
50 years ago, I bet you would say that you only TOLERATE seeing people of different color, but you don't ACCEPT them as actual people with the same rights as white people.
Please get the fuck out of my country! I bet you're religious too, so I hope you just kill yourself and go to hell.
--from a hetro, 30yr, white, American male.
Why do people insist that we don't allow them to redefine perfectly good words that we are bigots.
...
And I will even go for tolerance, but only up to a point. However what is being demanded isn't tolerance but acceptance.
Because you're a bigot, you are unable to see why this is a problem. You're never going to understand it, so you might as well not bother trying. It would be like explaining color to a blind man.
What is being demanded is the same rights as anyone else has - the right to marry the consenting adult of your choice. You don't have to like it, and the only acceptance that is required is that they have the same rights as you do.
Marriot hotels I believe quietly supports banning it. They have some pretty deep ties to the LDS
I hope you die painfully and alone.
Equally as ridiculous: the state involved in the love affairs and relationships of anyone.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
The problem is that the government had no business getting into the marriage business in the first place. It used to be a religious institution, until some kings decided that they didn't like the church having all that power and decided to stick their noses into it. You see, not maintaining a good separation of church and state cuts TWO ways. Not only do you have the religions meddling in government matters which should be none of their concern, but you also have the government meddling in religious areas where *it* has no business being either.
If marriage hadn't become a secular state institution, we wouldn't *need* to have this debate.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Hell, I only TOLERATE progressives, I certainly don't ACCEPT em and since 99% of gays are also progs........ you guys made my shitlist long before my gaydar went off.
I guess it was really hard for you to justify automatically hating homosexuals right up until the point that you could say "99% of gays are also progs." Then I bet it was really easy for you to say you hate them not because they're gay but because of their political alignment (that you forced upon them).
Well done. Well done. Say, have you ever considered that they're also human beings with different needs than you? That they just want to be recognized the same way you are by your government that supposedly espouses equal rights?
Homosexuality is a mental defect, albeit a minor one in the bigger scheme of things.
A mental defect you say? Are you aware that the method by which we communicate right now could not have been possible without the progress of one man who had such a mental defect (in more than one way)?
Take all your political bullshit and leave. This is about the rights of human beings. Not "being progressive" or "saying 2+2=5" but about respecting your fellow citizens the same fucking way they respect you.
My work here is dung.
Microsoft has, for a very long time, been supportive of LGBT folks. Microsoft's benefits have, for a very long time, fully covered domestic partners at the same level as spouses. Microsoft supports GLEAM -- Gays and Lesbians At Microsoft -- and openly supports GLEAM marching in Seattle's gay pride parades.
And it isn't just some corporate PR sham. I've worked at Microsoft since 1997, and have worked with almost a dozen gay/lesbian folks, who were out and happy at work.
In short, you win the award for Biggest Piece Of Shit Of The Day.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
They want to legalize it so that in the Windows 8 EULA they can legally marry anyone, and if you install another OS it'll be considered cheating and they can divorce you and take half your stuff!
It's a new form of vendor lock-in.
Those clever bastards.
Just the other day I was thinking that New Gingrich could be the first candidate to get the endorsements of polyamarous and religious right. Strange bedfellows indeed!
Followed by the fact that the Mormon is the one with only one wife. I find that highly amusing.
We've got a guy who can hardly talk, a guy who has multiple wifes, a guy who wants to turn the country upside down; but we can't vote for the Romney guy becasue... Mormons are weird? I've been around these guys, they ain't weird. They aren't even intersting.
I would have modded this as I have mod points...but there is no "WRONG" mod. Get a little education: http://www.avert.org/can-you-get-hiv-aids.htm
I've been married for almost 14 years now. The interesting thing about marriage is this:
The entire ceremony -- all of it, the food, the tables, the dresses, the rings, the suits, the flowers, the guests, the vows -- means absolutely nothing at all. Nothing.
The actual marriage is when you sign the certificate and it gets countersigned and witnessed.
So the whole kerfuffle boils down to "we don't want gays to sign a piece of paper".
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
"After all, that's what married people do"
Apparently you're not very familiar with married couples. ; )
1. Homosexuals can still have heterosexual relations, and many homosexuals have biological children. So your attempt to co-opt science to confirm your bigotry fails.
2. The psychiatry and psychology communities stopped viewing homosexuality as any kind of mental or sexual defect decades ago. You can't justify your bigotry that way either.
3. The United States guarantees equal protection under the law. Your attempt to limit the definition of marriage to justify your bigotry fails.
I guess we're kind of left with you just being a bigot.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Equally as ridiculous: the state involved in the love affairs and relationships of anyone.
I think this is it. The state shouldn't recognize gay marriage because it shouldn't recognize straight marriage. It should recognize civil unions gay or straight and then let whatever religion you are decide to call it marriage.
While its hard to clearly separate religious and government institutions that existed before the adoption of the norm of church/state separation in the host society (which really begins in the modern era), marriage historically was largely governed principal by general, rather than any special ecclesiastic, law even in the Christian West through the early part of the Middle Ages, was performed under local customs that often predated the local adoption of Christianity, and didn't involve the clergy at all; during the Middle Ages, the Church became involved, first by having clergy present as witnesses (though still, for some time, prohibiting marriage inside the sanctuary of a church), and later -- as the Church acquired a role as a kind of "international government" in Europe, through prescribed rites and an active regulatory role.
It is more defensible to reverse this to say "if the Church hadn't become a quasi-governmental entity and expanded its area of regulation into marriage and other traditional areas of government control, we wouldn't need to have this debate."
The idea that marriage was an institution of the church before it was an institution of government governing the distribution of property is nearly as historically inaccurate as the idea that it is some kind of universal truth that marriage has (prior to recent years) historically always been between one genetic male and one genetic female.
Wrong. Once you legally redefine the word marriage all sorts of follow on side effects begin. Tolerance ends and acceptance on pain of government begins. Catholic Church doesn't believe it is right? Tough. Won't matter once the law changes, they will give em a full church wedding and place a child in their care through their adoption agency or the Justice Dept cornholes em.
No. No. No. No. How many times must this stupid argument be thrown around?
Look. Right now, the Catholic Church does not allow a marriage to occur if one of the partners is divorced. Similarly, Jewish synagogues will not marry a Jew to a non-Jew. However, both of these marriages are allowed by law. In your little world, where the legal requirement is forced upon the religious institutions, how is this possible? The DOJ should've forced these types of marriages on these institutions a long, long, long time ago.
But they didn't. Why? Because what the law allows is never, and has never been, forced upon religious institutions. If the law allows same-sex marriage, many churches will continue to disallow it, and the law will do nothing about that. Just like it always has.
Legalizing same sex marriage has absolutely zero impact on anyone other than adult homosexuals who choose to marry their same-sex partner. It will not impact you (assuming you're heterosexual), your church, your own marriage, or anything or anyone else. And for the record, I'm writing this from a country that already allows same-sex marriage, so I'm not just speculating here, I'm describing reality.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
Given that I can live with multiple women, have sex with them, have children with them, and in all ways other than legal, I can be married to them. Yes, why not poly-marriage?
The real problem is that we have a secular property partnership that has been mixed and confused with a religious ceremony. It has been suggested that gay couples should be offered an marriage equivalent. A 'civil union'. That is half the correct answer that would be all wrong if implemented alone. The real answer is to just declare ALL existing marriages to be civil unions, and remove any legal standing to "marriage". Let people make the fiduciary responsibilities of 'civil union' to whoever they want, and let the churches worry about what a 'marriage is. Each denomination can decide for themselves what a marriage is. Anyone outside of the group has no more need or requirement to acknowledge the marriage than they do a declaration of BFFs.
Pedophilia is natural too, the difference is not whether something is natural or not but whether there is a victim. Laws are meant to protect, who is being protected by preventing marriage between any two consenting adults?
That is exactly what they do, however instead of calling it a civil union they call it marriage. It's incredibly confusing for most people. Doubly so when the people who do the "state" marriage is performed at the same time as the "religion" marriage.
I agree though. If you want "tax/property benefits" you get "civil unioned". If you want God to sanction you, you get "married".
So the whole kerfuffle boils down to "we don't want gays to sign a piece of paper".
no, it's that some folks see marriage as a sacred (as in religious) vow between a man and a woman, and they think their holy doctrine tells them that homosexuality is wrong.
of course i don't agree, but you should at least understand the viewpoint. if you get into a discussion with someone and you immediately boil it down to signing a piece of paper, or not, you aren't going to change any minds or make anyone think.
Homosexuality is fashionable currently, polygamy is not. Microsoft doesn't care about rights, it cares about PR.
I see only two valid thresholds:
* 1 man 1 woman (rationale: the only 1-on-1 configuration capable of having children)
* any cohabiting group (rationale: the only non-discriminating one)
On one hand: what's the reason two guys want to be recognized as a "marriage"? Not children, as they can't have them, and they're just as capable of raising a kid one of them had with a third party as mere friends as a couple -- it can never be "their" kid, at most of one of them. The uncomfortable truth is that they're after lowered taxes and certain other benefits meant to encourage having kids. A solo person deserves such benefits more than them.
But, on the other hand, what about heterosexual marriages that don't want to have children? Should they be denied such benefits? And what about 80 years old newlyweds? Here the first variant falls apart.
Thus, I'd say that there is no other way than to allow any group. Promoting homosexualism is picking them over polygamy (which actually has biological reasons), Yet we can't have it the mormon/muslim way (1 man, 4 women) -- gender equality forces us to allow 4 women 1 man as well. But then, why not 2 men 2 women?
Thus, let's go for the complement: a whole household or nothing. This would allow simplifying all child/adoption/marriage/etc rules: anyone can join, if you were underage when joining you are not allowed to ever have relations with someone who was a part of the group (no matter if you were born into or adopted); only adults can ever leave (except as a court order in cases of abuse or neglect). No restrictions on gender, number or anything whatsoever.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
If a man has a sex-change operation and becomes a woman, can she then marry a man? Or is that still homosexual?
And if she can't marry a man because genetically she is still a man...does that mean she can marry a woman?
Or are post-ops only allowed to marry complementary post-ops?
And who can hermaphrodites marry? Anyone but other hermaphrodites?
Chick-fil-A has thrown a lot of support to anti-gay and "defense of marriage" groups.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick-fil-A#Religious_and_political_views
I'm sure I will open a philosophical can of whoop-ass on myself, but here goes... How did we, humans, end up dominating the earth over other creatures? Some argue our thumbs, our ability to reason, communication, and a whole mess of other things that other animals have. Simple fact of the matter is, a human being will cut up your mother, eat her intestines, while you sit, tied up, being forced to watch, just because THEY CAN. Even your raged-filled chimpanzee doesn't get that personal. And it isn't just us over the animal kingdom, it's humans over humans. When two sides of a war have a technical equality, the one willing to perform the most egregious atrocities will be the one to prevail.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
That is such utter horseshit. As if you had ANY way to read the mind of everyone in a poly relationship. Just like every other flavor of relationship, there are good poly arrangements and there are poor ones. It's not about partner count or gender; it's about being decent human beings and not a whole lot else. FYI, "decent" doesn't mean "heterosexual" or "monogamous."
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I am glad to see Microsoft taking this position
Gates has also done the same thing in Saudi Arabia.
Bill Gates recalls once being invited to speak in Saudi Arabia and finding himself facing a segregated audience. Four-fifths of the listeners were men, on the left. The remaining one-fifth were women, all covered in black cloaks and veils, on the right. A partition separated the two groups. Toward the end, in the question-and-answer session, a member of the audience noted that Saudi Arabia aimed to be one of the Top 10 countries in the world in technology by 2010 and asked if that was realistic. “Well, if you’re not fully utilizing half the talent in the country,” Gates said, “you’re not going to get too close to the Top 10.” The small group on the right erupted in wild cheering.
On one hand: what's the reason two guys want to be recognized as a "marriage"? Not children, as they can't have them, and they're just as capable of raising a kid one of them had with a third party as mere friends as a couple -- it can never be "their" kid, at most of one of them. The uncomfortable truth is that they're after lowered taxes and certain other benefits meant to encourage having kids. A solo person deserves such benefits more than them.
How about:
Being able to visit/make medical decisions for your spouse if they are hospitalized or incapacitated.
Being able to adopt a child together in a way that gives both parents legal parental rights in relation to their child (everything from school permission slips to keeping the child if the spouse dies)
Being considered a spouse in legal proceedings (spousal 5th amendment immunity, inheritance laws, etc.)
Being able to marry a foreigner without fear they will be deported
And since when is an adopted child not the parents' kid? That's not only reprehensible, it's missing the whole point of encouraging marriages as child-rearing units. It's established that gay couples adopt kids with disabilities at a higher rate than straight couples, for example.
Furthermore, we don't question the 80-year old newlyweds, and merely shake our heads and sigh (as opposed to foaming at the mouth about 'threats to traditional values') at celebrity marriages measurable in hours.
We also have huge amounts of legal and social framework set up to accommodate 2-adult family units; enabling the gender bits to be flipped any which way doesn't actually change any of how things work. Opening up the system to accomodate polygamy would open huge cans of worms (an organized crime ring could all get married to each other, and be fully protected from someone turning states' evidence, for example).
No, it's about equal-status.
In the UK, we have "gay marriage" in all but name; civil partnerships. It confers all the (very limited) financial benefits of marriage, but is only for "teh gayz".
Our tax-code is pretty non-involved when it comes to marriage. If you'e living with someone as a partner, that's the limit - doesn't matter if you're married, civil-unioned, or anything.
Yet, oddly (if you follow the "financial" argument), the gay community is still pushing for equal-marriage. Here in Scotland we're having a big fight over it, with the Catholic Church (amongst others) arguing it's wrong, and the equal-rights groups saying it's about damned time, and the normal, rational people being somewhere in the middle, but broadly in favour of it (since it's not about money, and just about equality, most people come down on the side of equality, not sky-wizrd voodoo).
It's all about being treated equally, as a fair and equal member of society. I actually think that the State should have no role in marriage at all - you can make a permanent union (and break them with due solemnity) but what you call it is entirely up to you and your own personal Sky Wizard. No state involvement at all in that side of things.
Of course, this would be painted as the deliberate destruction of marriage (even though, actually, we'd be going back to an age-old situation where marriage is a matter for the church, nothing to do with the state at all) to please the evil homosexual liberal satanists or whatever.
TL:DR summary: dont expect reason from irrational people like the religious right. It'll just make your head hurt.
The truth shall always be free: Boris Floricic is Tron.
Who is being protected by allowing two people to get a better tax return for being married?
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
Taxes is a small small part of it. Marriage confers a host of other rights, like automatic next of kin. You get to say what happens to your lover's body, you get to visit them in the hospital when it is "family only," you get to make decisions for them when they are incapable. A big deal for a community that still be thrown out of the hospital by the hate-filled "in-laws."
Space Shuttle was a program that strapped humans to an explosion and tried to stab through the sky with fire and math
Who is being protected by allowing two people to get a better tax return for being married?
Worse than that who is being better served by having corporations getting involved in debates such as this. If governments have no place in the bedrooms of their nation then corporations certainly have no business being there. Are we really getting to the point where every political debate is going to have corporations butting in, even if you actually agree with the argument they are making? Can't they at least leave us the illusion of having a meaningful public political debate without their interference and just stick to their usual tactic of lobbying/buying the legislative votes which is sadly all that counts in the end?
Microsoft has supported its LGBT employees since before Google even *existed*.
Nice attempt at trolling, though.
As a Christian, I'm against gay marriage from a religious point of view. However as an American, I believe in the freedom of religion and association. You may even choose to not associate with anything. The problem is that marriage is a religious institution sponsored by our federal government. It's a problem because there are all sorts of legal ties to something religious in nature. The implications are huge. It means that the Federal Goverment can dictate the meaning of religious values and not the other way around. I strongly believe the best option is to abstract this union one level apart. That is to say, everyone can have a civil union which grants all the legal benefits without bias. You can still choose to have a religious merriage ceremony after the fact if you wish. Some may want just to be married withough being legally recognized too. Either way should be fair for everyone.
Life is not for the lazy.
And since when is an adopted child not the parents' kid?
Indeed. After an adoption is finalized, there is no legal difference between biological and adopted children, except that in some cases parents of an adopted child may be eligible for some specific forms of welfare.
Fortunately, California forbids social workers from discriminating between potential adoptive parents on the basis of sexual orientation. What I just don't understand is why people view the ability to marry as more important than the ability to adopt. Californians never had an initiative ballot to amend the constitution against gay adoption.
.: Semper Absurda
Except that Microsoft has a long tradition of supporting gays and lesbians going back to 1989.
Otherwise, I might be suspect as well.
So infertile people don't deserve to get married? People who willingly choose not to have children don't deserve to get married? I'm hearing your religious excuse machine already spinning up from here.
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
Marriage is not a religious institution, it is a personal contract between two people, a life time commitment, recognised by religions. It actually has it's roots in war. In removing the whole village concept of shared responsibility for the children. When a King/Chief decide to launch an extended conflict he could hold a soldier's wife and children as hostage to the soldiers obedience. Also obviously some men could be denied access to women and the king could have access to many women, all based around patriarchal violence. As always religion changed and altered this relationship in many ways to suit, not belief but the requirements of the leadership of the day.
The only thing that needs to change is people should be bound by their word, a little bit of mature adult responsibility. Make a life time commitment, then suck it up, that should be the only one you are ever allowed to make.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
I am a gay man who wants to get married and have children.
On one hand: what's the reason two guys want to be recognized as a "marriage"? Not children, as they can't have them, and they're just as capable of raising a kid one of them had with a third party as mere friends as a couple -- it can never be "their" kid, at most of one of them. The uncomfortable truth is that they're after lowered taxes and certain other benefits meant to encourage having kids. A solo person deserves such benefits more than them.
1. Yes, I am after lowered taxes and certain other benefits meant to encourage having kids. Why do you say a solo person deserves such benefits more than me?
2. Such a truth (actually, a fact among many) isn't uncomfortable to me at all. Now, mind you, there's much more to it than such benefits. The rest of your comment is getting towards that goal - that the government (specifically, the vote of 50% + 1 of a population) shouldn't have the ability to promote single mothers raising children, married couples without children or that cannot have children, divorced couples married with children from previous marriages, some sects of Christianity, etc., over other beliefs/people - such others like homosexuals with children or Christian sects who believe God loves everyone.
3. One of the most devastating problems we gays have in this country have to do with problems of life and death at the hospital, family, inheritance, et al. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/washington-adventist-denied-same-sex-visitation-hospital-apologizes/2012/01/19/gIQAvngQCQ_story.html?tid=pm_national_pop I really do believe those problems will be solved soon in most places because rational humans find stories like that abhorrent. (That link isn't the most abhorrent story by any means, it's just recent) The basic cause inherit in all these problems is that the government (50%+1) has defined what can be a family and what can't. If the government (50%+1) didn't define it, these discrimination problems would go away (at least de jure, not necessarily de facto).
4. There are a whole lot of things in the government that discriminate homosexuals over heterosexuals. I won't list them all here, as you can just google it - a quick example is the right not testify against your spouse - but when you say "paying less taxes" you're quite missing the point - there shouldn't be any discrimination at all, period.
Thus, let's go for the complement: a whole household or nothing.
You're onto the answer. However, by doing that, you're still making the mistake that the government shouldn't make - making a decision of who can or can't be involved. I hate the fact that people dismiss that interracial marriage was illegal in this country until sometime in the 1970's - that wasn't long ago, and most Americans find it so ridiculous that the government would say it's illegal for a white person and black person to get married that they dismiss it. Well, the problem was mitigated by changing the definition of marriage at that point - instead of the government removing itself from the definition in the first place.
The answer is to not let the government discriminate at all, nor to "define marriage" at all. It's not a states rights vs. federal thing at all - there shouldn't be any government (50%+1) that can make that choice. If there should be laws helping society procreate, then so be it - base it on people having children and not religious beliefs about what a marriage is, or enlightened beliefs about who can join such unions. Simply put, merit-based laws. Don't write anything about what a marriage is.
I'd always think a similar pragmatic approach would help with these god awful debates about the rich and taxes and jo
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
As an atheist, I resent the fact that religious people are trying to appropriate the term "marriage". It has been a term to describe precisely such a contract as you talk about, irrespective of religion, for millenia before Christ.
(for those curious, the etymology of the English goes all the way back to Proto-Indo-European "man", which had the same meaning it does in English today; there are no religious connotations there whatsoever).
I am a gay man who wants to get married and have children.
A solo person deserves such benefits more than them.
1. Yes, I am after lowered taxes and certain other benefits meant to encourage having kids. Why do you say a solo person deserves such benefits more than me?
Ok, I probably misphrased it: s/deserve/need/.
A kid that has a parent and a step-parent is likely to require government handouts less than a kid who has but a solo parent. This is not a hard rule, of course.
When it comes to deserving, you are exactly equal -- raising a kid is raising a kid.
Thus, let's go for the complement: a whole household or nothing.
You're onto the answer. However, by doing that, you're still making the mistake that the government shouldn't make - making a decision of who can or can't be involved.
I kind of fail to understand what you disagree with -- I claim that the only non-discriminating way is to allow anyone to bond with anyone else, no matter the gender, race or number of people in such a bond. You claim the government shouldn't get to choose, leaving that decision to the individuals who want to enter the union.
Unless I get something wrong, these are equivalent.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.