Microsoft goes limp on gay rights
Sat, April 23, 2005 at 16:03 There has been some activity around news that Microsoft has gone soft on gay rights. A number of people have taken issue with Microsoft's failure to back important anti-discrimination legislation that was being considered by the Washington State Legislature recently. Microsoft was pressured by Ken Hutcherson of Antioch Bible Church to withdraw its support for the legislation or risk massive protests against the use of its software.
Michael has referenced a few news sources that have reported on this. Scoble also voiced his support for measures that, in turn, support gay rights and vowed to raise the issue with Microsoft's powers that be:
I don't know anything about it, or anything about how Microsoft decides
to support political issues, but human rights is very important to me
personally and I'm gonna take this up with the leadership of the
company and support this cause.
There is a comprehensive review of this development on AMERICAblog which concluded that "An Apple a day keeps the bigot away". According to Michael, the legislation was ultimately defeated by one vote!
If I were guiding Microsoft's strategy on this one, I would have pushed for the legislation. If you don't stand for something as fundamental as gay rights, what do you stand for, aside from bigotry?
Reader Comments (2)
All Hail The New Microsoft: A link list for the Gay Rights Reversal story
Scoble: "Steve Ballmer wrote us all a note this afternoon about the anti-discrimination bill. I wish he'd post this publicly. It helped clarify a whole raft of issues for me." [Factory Supervisor's Note: What could you possibly clarify Steve Ballmer? Y...
All Hail The New Microsoft: A link list for the Gay Rights Reversal story
Scoble: "Steve Ballmer wrote us all a note this afternoon about the anti-discrimination bill. I wish he'd post this publicly. It helped clarify a whole raft of issues for me." [Factory Supervisor's Note: What could you possibly clarify Steve Ballmer? Y...