As if you needed any more excuses to buy a Mac

by Feòrag

United States: Microsoft has withdrawn support for a Washington State bill which would protect gays and lesbians from discrimination in employment, housing, banking, insurance, and other matters by adding sexual orientation to a state law which already bars discrimination on the basis of race, religion, national origin, gender, marital status, and mental or physical handicap after a single loony fundie threatened the company. Microsoft has previously supported equal rights legislation. As John Aravosis of AMERICAblog notes:

The radical right activist reportedly told Microsoft it had better pull its support for the gays or anti-gay bigots would launch a nationwide boycott of Microsoft, and guess what - Microsoft caved. A single anti-gay jerk, and Microsoft chose to reverse over ten years of policy and bash gays.

This is outrageous. It's also incredibly dangerous. For over a decade Microsoft, along with hundreds of other corporate leaders, has endorsed gay rights legislation in the states and nationally. And now, suddenly, because ONE ANTI-GAY ACTIVIST COMPLAINED, they've suddenly changed their minds ON A CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUE. A rather big oops after ten years of being in favor of civil rights, don't you think?

Microsoft clearly isn't proud of caving into threats from lunatics, and seems to have tried to keep it a secret.

Meanwhile, it has been drawn to my attention that the reason many Prattle commenters are unable to tell the difference between copy written by Prattle contributors and quoted material from elsewhere is because Microsoft Internet Explorer does not support current web standards. There is no evidence that this lack of functionality will ever be fixed, and affected readers are advised to get a proper standards-compliant browser (preferably running on a computer and OS which not only works, but comes from a company with a much better record on equality).

TAKE ACTION: Microsoft abandons gays - AMERICAblog, 20th April 2005.

Update: 22nd April 2005: The original article referred to in AMERICAblog is MICROSOFT CAVES ON GAY RIGHTS - Sandeep Kaushik in The Stranger, 21st - 27th April 2005.