{"id":1176,"date":"2005-04-22T10:52:11","date_gmt":"2005-04-22T14:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/nateptest\/2005\/04\/22\/somehow-i-doubt-it\/"},"modified":"2005-04-22T10:52:11","modified_gmt":"2005-04-22T14:52:11","slug":"somehow-i-doubt-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/2005\/04\/22\/somehow-i-doubt-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Somehow I doubt it"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

That Microsoft is afraid, I mean<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\nThe Microsoft Corporation, at the forefront of corporate gay rights for
\ndecades, is coming under fire from gay rights groups, politicians and
\nits own employees for withdrawing its support for a state bill that
\nwould have barred discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation….<\/p>\n

State Representative Ed Murray, an openly gay Democrat and a sponsor of
\nthe bill, said that in a conversation last month with Bradford L.
\nSmith, Microsoft’s senior vice president and general counsel, Mr. Smith
\nmade it clear to him that the company was under pressure from the
\nchurch and the pastor and that he was also concerned about the reaction
\nto company support of the bill among its Christian employees, the
\nlawmaker said.<\/p>\n

Mr. Smith would not comment for this article.<\/p>\n

Representative
\nMurray said that in a recent conversation with Mr. Smith, Mr. Smith
\nsaid that the minister had demanded the company fire Microsoft
\nemployees who testified this year on behalf of the bill, but that Mr.
\nSmith had refused. According to Representative Murray, Mr. Smith said
\n“that while he did not do the many things that the minister had
\nrequested, including firing employees who had testified for the bill,
\nhe believed that Microsoft could not just respond to one group of
\nemployees, when there were other groups of employees who felt much
\ndifferent.\n <\/p>\n

Dr. Hutcherson, who has become a leading national critic of same-sex
\nmarriage, said he believed he could have organized a widespread boycott
\nof Microsoft. He said he told the Microsoft executives, “If you don’t
\nthink the moral issue is not a big issue, just count the amount of
\nvotes that were cast on moral issues in the last election.”<\/p>\n

“A lot of Christians would have joined me,” he said, “But it would have been a lot more people, too.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Um, no.<\/p>\n

First off, this Christianist is a bully.  Like all bullies, he
\nhas an overinflated sense of his own power, and he’s going around
\nmaking demands and issuing threats.  Let us repeat: only one in
\nfive voters said that “moral issues” were important in the last
\nelection.  Eighty percent said they were not.  And the poll that everyone’s making claims upon was significantly flawed, and so its results should not be trusted<\/a>. 
\nSo he also asked for those who testified in favor of the bill to be
\nfired.  Granted, that would capture a lot of the LGBT employees,
\nbut it’s a request to fire someone from their job because of the opinions that they hold and the thoughts that they think<\/span>.  Such seems the essence of theocracy and of totalitarianism<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

Second, who does he think he’s threatening?  This is MICROSOFT,
\nthe most powerful company in the world.  He probably wrote
\neverything pertaining to this case on Word in a Windows
\nenvironment.  They have 95 percent of the home market.  And
\nApple tends to be similarly liberal, too, so defection is not an
\noption.  And few people want to deal with Linux, especially with
\nits anti-hierarchical structure (which probably concerns the
\nChristianist bully).  Even if people threaten Microsoft with
\naction, when it comes time to buy a computer, or a palm device, or a
\nhome media center, and so forth, will the resolve really hold up? 
\nIf the choice is consume or not to consume, people in our society
\ngenerally consume.  Sure, some won’t, but most will.\n<\/p>\n

Something else is going on here.  Microsoft may have backed away a
\nbit because of this guy and his supporters, but even a bunch of
\nchurches spread throughout the country won’t break Microsoft’s hold on
\nyour (and my) desktop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That Microsoft is afraid, I mean. The Microsoft Corporation, at the forefront of corporate gay rights for decades, is coming under fire from gay rights groups, politicians and its own employees for withdrawing its support for a state bill that would have barred discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation…. State Representative Ed Murray, an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":709,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politicks"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5G3PH-iY","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/709"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}