Friday, May 06, 2005

Microsoft has internal systems error on gay rights

The blogosphere is buzzing about Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's email to the company explaining its decision to publically back away from supporting a gay rights bill in Washington State, where the corporate behemoth is headquartered--which then failed to become law by one solitary vote (24-25) on April 21. Needless to say, gay rights activists were not amused.

Steve Ballmer now says (after gay rights advocates have been bombarding Microsoft with angry emails and boycott talk has been swirling) that Microsoft will support gay rights legislation in the future.

Now comes more information that Microsoft had been asked and after proceeding through its systems of extensive internal reviews come to a position to support filing an amicus brief in favor of legalization of same-sex marriage in Washington State. Then General Counsel Brad Smith vetoed the idea. Brad Smith is apparently not the only far right conservative that supposedly liberal Microsoft has on its payroll. Apparently the software giant is paying the odious Ralph Reed twenty thousand dollars per month!

I'm headed to Seattle tomorrow for a few days--probably some light blogging until then--but when I return I hope to have some firsthand accounts of how the LGBT community in Washington State is reacting to the exposure of Microsoft's perfidy.

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