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Google Launches International Campaign For Recognition of Same-Sex Marriage
Apple and many other tech companies have offered benefits to same-sex couples (and sometimes made them a sticking point) for quite some time now, but Google is taking its position of inclusion for sexual minorities outside the company itself; the company has announced an international campaign to promote legal marriage equality for same-sex couples, called "Legalize Love." According to CNN's version of the story, while this represents Google's policies overall, the campaign will at first "focus on countries like Singapore, where certain homosexual activities are illegal, and Poland, which has no legal recognition of same-sex couples." dot429 quotes
Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe of Google, speaking in London Saturday at a summit where the initiative was announced: "We want our employees who are gay or lesbian or transgender to have the same experience outside the office as they do in the office. It is obviously a very ambitious piece of work."
Also at CNET.
See corporations are people without gender. They want to be able to marry each other.
Then they can file a joint tax return and have children.
The US still has a long way to go for full LGBT equality. I can understand stuff like trying to stop stoning of homosexuals in countries where it is illegal, but as for the same-sex marriage fight, it hasn't even been won on the home front yet. I hate to call it a war... but why expand the territory of a war when you're still losing battles in disputed territory you're trying to occupy?
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Corporations should stick to their core mandate, and not get into 'social engineering'.
Be it a 'worthy' cause or not, its not their place to stick their noses into it and 'pick sides'.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
As far as the government is concerned marriage should be treated like any other contract. They should have no say in the contents. If there is a breech take it to court and let a jury decide. Then purge out of law any benefits or tax considerations based on material status and just people as individuals.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
OK, I am not promoting the original commenter view, but then how about 3 or more mature adults who love each other?
Why do corporations and governments have any say in who we love, live with, and raise together?
The whole gay marriage issue seems like such a tiny specific issue to have a problem with.
And the how they always bring love into it, always bugs me. Love has nothing to do with legal marriage or what homosexuals want. Homosexuals, in general, want one thing to legalise marriage and gay sex. They do not want to legalise pedo-love, bestiality, or polygamy.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
I generally support gay rights, but I've always been a little meh on the idea of gay marriage. What I'd really like to hear is for a gay marriage advocate to explain to me why polygamy should be illegal yet gay marriage should be legal. If we should let two guys or two girls get married because they really love each other and want to be together forever and all of that, then why shouldn't we let a guy marry two or three or more girls (or whatever other combination you can think of) if they all really love each other and want to be together in that way? It isn't something completely absurd like marrying dogs or cars or something - there have been and still are many societies where polygamy is normal and accepted and widely practiced. So why not?
I don't reply to ACs
Marriage is a religious rite [...]
This is not true for instance in Germany and many other european countries. There marriage is a legal procedure, performed by a municipal clerk. You can only go to your church, synagoge, mosque or whatever the sacred place is called in your religion to celebrate your marriage if you can show the official document sealing your marriage. Also the legal implications coming with marriage require the official procedure and the accompagnying paperwork.
They do not want to legalise pedo-love, bestiality, or polygamy.
Marriage confers rights that the state blocks from others. The issue isn't who can get married, but why the right to be "next of kin" is banned from private contracts, and only allowed in contracts "blessed" but the state. beastiality isn't marriage. That's like saying you should be able to marry your hand. Or poligimatically marry both hands. You hand can't consent, and can't own land, so the right of "next of kin" is denied to it already. Same as animals. You can form a trust to hold land on behalf of your favorite cat, but the cat can't own land. It's not about marying whoever you want. It's a rights issue about why some people can't enter into a legal contract with others on the same framework as other people.
That, and Congress has written a law explicitly contradicting the Constitution. The Defense of Marriage Act contradicts the "full faith and credit" clause. State A marries two gays, then they are married in all 50 states, as per the Constitution. Why Congress would pass an unconstitutional law explicitly against gay marriage, then take it upon themselves to champion the cause is beyond me. Just go back to Constitutional law. Let one state recognize it (say, New Hampshire) and then the gays can go there to get married, and then that "contract" will be recognized in the other 49. Problem solved. You can live in a place that doesn't recognize gay marriage, but still follows the Constitution, right?
Learn to love Alaska
No problem with that.. but only if would stop recognizing marriage at all.
Scrap it from law all together. That way we would still end up with equallity for all.
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Google should not be meddling with this. What happened to 'not be evil' This reeks of evil.
i don't think this is "evil", but i agree, google doesn't really need to be advertising one way or the other. Offering it to employees in same sex relationships is up to them, but to advertise? That's pushing it too far. What's next, abortion? I don't like seeing companies get political
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
where the gender field is a variable-length string instead of a one-bit value
640K of gender bits ought to be enough for anybody.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Here in Norway you can go to a municipal clerk, but churches, mosques and other organizations like humanitarians can get a "license to marry" if they do their paperwork. So the priest is the one actually marrying you both in the legal and religious sense, but the paperwork will be exactly the same. Unlike the municipal clerk they are not required to marry anyone though, so they can have their own rules on who they'll marry and not. I think those two varieties cover pretty much all of Europe, it's a legal procedure in some way not just a marriage contract.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
You'd have to ask a gay person, but in this context, I interpret "Pride" as "not being ashamed".
No sig for the moment.
I'm a proponent for civil unions as a replacement for the legal institute of marriage. It is as simple as changing the name, but returns the term "marriage" to organized religion.
After all, the term "gay civil union" is much easier for the public to digest than "gay marriage". It would be functionally the same, but would be written into law much faster.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
The concept of marriage is not strictly religious. Many cultures have had marriage but not necessarily tied to any religion. Buddhism for example considers marriage a matter for the state and not the religion. Those who are opposing gay marriage want to thrust their religious beliefs into the definition. Predominantly the religion they want to define marriage is a Protestant Christian one. Marriage existed in some form long before Christianity. As an legal institution, marriage has been used to convey inheritance and transfer of property. Women were the property being transferred and children born in wedlock were considered true heirs to any wealth whereas other children were not.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
In our language, 'equal rights' means 'the same rights'. 'Equal but different' was deemed 'not equal rights'. Banning same sex marriage is like the old segregated water fountains. Saying, "Anyone can drink from a water fountain that is listed for use by their race is equal rights.", and "Blacks wanting to drink from white water fountains is asking for extra rights." is absurd. The same applies to marriage. Even if Joe is willing, Mike cannot marry Joe. Sharron can marry Joe. That is not equal.
As a somewhat liberal-minded person, I can't think of a reason why you or I would have any reason whatsoever to demand that other people explain to us why they want to enter into a mutual agreement. I know that the government marries some people. I know that some people want to marry some other people who happen to be same sex. That's all I need to know to be for gay marriage.
But since you bring it up. Gay people need marriage in order to get the same rights and benefits as straight people get when they marry. You could write a law that would allow gay people to have civil unions that would give them the same rights, but AFAIK there's no way to ensure that it stays that way over time as the laws change. Also, if one minority should have to settle for civil unions, why not another minority? For example why should Scientologists be allowed to marry? Can you prove that Scientologists are as good as non-Scientologists at parenting?
When you say that marriage is for a man and a woman you're merely making a fact claim, one that is true in some places and not true in other places. Don't confuse what is with what you think ought to be!