According to today’s New York Times, Microsoft withdrew its support for a bill in the Washington state legislature that would ban discrimination against gay people. The bill was defeated yesterday by one vote. From the article:
Microsoft has for years been a leading supporter of gay rights in the workplace, so it’s both disappointing and disturbing that a major company that has been a Goliath in the IT realm could cravenly submit to the hateful demands of the Christofascist Right. If Microsoft, a company whose products are the business standard for browsers and operating systems and which commands a major share of the business and home software market, can bend to the will of Jesus Nazis like Ken Hutcherson, can any company stand up to them?
And, YES, I know there are nice, pro-gay Christians, but the Religious Right is running rings around them right now. Yeats said it best,“The best lack all convictions, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” Tell your pastors to speak up, e-mail companies that are being threatened to tell them that they have your support and the support of your church leaders if they stay pro-freedom and resist the RR hatemongers.
That’s a logical fallacy and you know it. The fact that MS made the decision sometime after the meeting does not necessarily mean that it caused the decision.
You think that the preacherman is an amoral scumbag who will stop at nothing to further his agenda (and I might not disagree) yet you choose to believe him on this one point?
But threatened him with what? I can imagine some naive pastor going to Microsoft and saying “Screw your gay employees or we’ll put you out of business”, but I can also see him being laughed clear out of Redmond.
So the Christian Right boycotts Microsoft. What would that entail, exactly? Every Christian conservative PC user in the country runs out and buys a Mac? Or maybe they all become Linux geeks? Yeah, right! Or thousands of Christian-owned small businesses across the country completely reengineer their processes, at a cost of millions upon millions of dollars, just so Microsoft should lose, like, a millionth of their market share?
Could Microsoft have any other reason for doing this? Or am I underestimating the effect a boycott might have?
I don’t understand - why does Microsoft (and several other large corporations) need to support or not support a piece of legislation? Are there people on the fence somewhere waiting to hear what Nike thinks before making up their minds?
That sounds sarcastic, but I’m really asking. I can understand caring about their internal policies, but I don’t get this. Why do they support stuff like this bill, and why should we care whether they do or not?
As unlikely as the genuine threat of a boycott sounds, I’m still inclined to believe it unless I hear a compelling reason for Microsoft to remove its support. Was there fine print on the bill they objected to, or some provision or rider attached? Because if not, then maybe they did get scared–not by anything immediately tangible, but by the general wrath of a group whose cultural power is growing and who has the ear of POTUS. :sigh:
If anyone would like to read the story without registering to the NYT site, first go to BugMeNot by clicking the link right here. Then paste in the URL gobear gave. Here it is again:
Then click the little box that says “Show Logins”. I’d give you the one it gave me, but I’m concerned that it’s skating a bit close to the whole “handing out passwords” line, and I’d prefer to get a rules clarification from an admin before I go there.
Anyway, from there you can click on gobear’s link, and get to the story. A thorough reading will have answers to quite a few of your questions. Microsoft says that their decision to remain neutral on the bill was based primarily on two factors: the fact that the company already is more fully compliant with the terms of the bill than the bill would have required, and the fact that King County (where MS is based) already has a more far-reaching ordinance in place than the one which was defeated in Olympia. On the basis of these facts, it is claimed, Microsoft decided to devote its legislative capital to other issues.
What the story does not reveal is whether Microsoft has provided any insight to the following question: Why was Microsoft in meetings with Dr. Hutcherson, if not to discuss the company’s stance on this bill? Were they simply there to pledge five hundred pounds of potato salad to the church picnic? Discuss donating some used keyboards to the rummage sale? Ask the church to return the folding chairs the company had loaned them for the ice cream social last August?
Perhaps gobear’s posting that this was in repsonse to was a logical fallacy. In my view, the worst he’s guilty of is skipping steps in explaining how he’s connecting the dots on the way to the conclusion he draws from those dots. I, personally, find his inferences to be sound. Microsoft’s actions here are mighty fishy.
There is some additional background in The Stranger article (no registration needed). Based on reports from MS meeting with employees, as discussed in the article, it certainly looks like they caved.
(The Stranger is a weekly out of Seattle, so they’re pretty close to the action.)
One can argue that M$ does it because it’s the morally right thing to do, to support legislation granting equal rights to people, others might point out that there’s a couple of stereotypes which come into play here as well. Gay people are perceived by many as being more creative than straight folks, and a good number of creative type people prefer Macs over PCs (and let’s not get into an OS war, here folks, m’kay?). So, M$ could be thinking that if they show support for this kind of stuff, loyal, creative Mac users might be inclined to come over to the M$ product line as a way of supporting a company, thus eroding Apple’s market share. You can believe what you want as to why M$ was supporting the legislation.
Now, as to why M$ would pull their support from the legislation, well, that’s pretty simple. Given who’s in power in the White House, and his stance on gays, you can clearly see that this conflicts with what M$ has been pushing. So why pull out? Well, M$ has a lot of juicy contracts with various state, local, and federal branches of the government. Not to mention that M$ is probably still under investigation by one or more branches ofthe federal government for one reason or another. No doubt that douchebag presented M$ with a list of government bodies who’d switch to Linux if M$ pursued this. M$, didn’t like the thought of losing all that juicy income, so they folded. Pure and simple.
I doubt that the issue is anyone in the government switching to Linux. But remember, M$ got a big pass when Bush got elected, so that despite being convicted of antitrust violations they got hardly a slap on the wrist. I would not be surprised if they were scared of someone in the DoJ deciding that it was worth looking at antitrust actions of a gay loving anti-Christian company. I bet it wouldn’t take much for a boycott of a company led by an evil atheist to spread. It’s not like liberals love them all that much, after all. What’s the downside of backing off? Not much.
I hope there is an internal rebellion about this. But they won’t get much grief from outside.
I agree with Microsoft’s decision. Although I personally fully support equal gay rights including marriage, I don’t think that it’s a corporation’s place to lobby for changes in society like this. Microsoft continues to be a strongly pro-gay employer and extends same-sex benefits to its employees. Additionally, Bill Gates and Steve Balmer are both continuing to publically support gay rights.
I’m sure that the vast majority of corporate boards and CEO’s have political views that disagree with your own. Do you really want GE or Shell Oil’s CEO’s deciding to spend millions of dollars of corporate money on getting Bush elected or having “family values” advanced? It’s better to keep a clear separation of personal and corporate political views.
I really don’t believe the Antioch Bible Church has influence over anyone. Its not very big, or as far as I know, influential outside of Redmond.
We’re pretty live and let live up here. The religious right doesn’t have a big presence. ( we make them stand on the mossy rocks.) They do exist, and are at times vocal, but hardly anyone listens.
My take on it is the Rev is conveniently taking “credit” – hoping his followers will fall for the post-hoc fallacy – for decisions that were more likely taken by mere considerations of practical politics, as Tuckerfan and Voyager mention; essentially a “what’s in it for us?” calculation. Even the decision to meet with him and hear him out in the first place was likely done in the spirit of not being just dismissive of the Fundies.
Now, I would hold M$ to censure if they failed to oppose legislation or political movements that sought to make them cut back on the extant rights and benefits of their gay employees and their families.
“Bradley Googins with his goo-goo-googly eyes!
Bradley Googins has a wife three times his size!
She sued Bradley for divorce, now he’s living with his horse—
Bradley Googins with his goo-goo-googly eyes!”
“Dr. Hutcherson, … said he threatened in those meetings to organize a national boycott of Microsoft products.”
I’m sorry, I fell off my chair laughing at this point and didn’t get back to reading the rest. Thousands of Linux geeks have already tried this, and they are the real religious fanatics.
Actually, this makes perfect, mercenary sense on Microsoft’s behalf. MS already offers its gay employees all the benefits that are included in this bill, correct? If MS is the only business in Washington state that offers those benefits, the vast majority of gays looking for work there are going to go with MS. This gives MS a pool of educated workers they can pick and choose from at their leisure. If all businesses in Washington are required to provide the same benefits, MS loses this hiring edge over its competitors. It’s got nothing to do with pressure from some pissant church nobody has ever heard of or listened to, despite what its gloryhound of a pastor might claim. It’s just good business, if not entirely moral. But this is Microsoft we talking about here, so that shouldn’t come as much of a shock to anybody.
Interesting thing to note, specifically regarding whether it was Antioch who gave MS the three-finger salute on this issue, or if it was another party:
