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San Francisco -- and the tech industry -- are beaming with Pride this weekend.
The United States Supreme Court on Friday ruled same-sex marriage a constitutional right, one day before San Francisco begins its famous Pride festivities, one of the largest celebrations of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender -- aka LGBT -- culture in the country. The tech industry is practically euphoric, especially after high-profile executives this year, from Apple CEO Tim Cook to Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff, publicly advocated advancing gay rights. But that advancement works both ways, said Gary Virginia, board president of SF Pride, which organizes the celebration. Speaking out is not just a personal decision for tech execs; it makes good business sense too, he said.
"They attract a younger population for their workforce, and it's been proven that social attitudes are changing," said Virginia. "So it behooves them to have progressive policies to attract LGBT employees. I think they see the benefit of it."
The celebration caps off a landmark year for the gay rights movement. In September, Apple's Cook wrote an essay saying he's gay, making him the first openly gay CEO of a Fortune 500 company. A month later, he allowed for his name to be attached to an LGBT anti-discrimination bill in his home state of Alabama. In March, Benioff said he had cancelled all Salesforce events in Indiana after its governor signed a law that would allow businesses to refuse service to anyone in the LGBT community on religious grounds. Less than a week later, dozens of executives from Airbnb, Ebay, Jawbone, Lyft, PayPal, Twitter and other companies signed a joint statement in The Washington Post against the religious freedom laws either passed or being considered in several states.
The tech industry is a relatively recent ally. LGBT leaders point out it's taken decades to achieve Friday's Supreme Court decision. New York City, for example, is commemorating the anniversary of the 1969 riots at the Stonewall Inn, which many consider the jump start of the movement. The 1978 assassination of Harvey Milk, an openly gay San Francisco board supervisor, galvanized the national LGBT community.
Original Submission
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2015, @09:51AM
There are human rights. Gays are 100% as human as any other human, and therefore they should have precisely the same right. The world will only be truly civilised when the concept of "gay rights" is as meaningless as the concept of "straight rights".
FP
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday June 29 2015, @09:58AM
Technically, there aren't any rights. Just because they are written in a book they don't become real, no? Anyway your point is really valid.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Monday June 29 2015, @11:24AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2015, @12:42PM
Indeed. As intelligent[citation needed] mammals
Really, "[citation needed]"...? Do also say "hashtag me" whenever you refer to yourself in the third person?
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Monday June 29 2015, @05:04PM
Those who involve the concept of what other people do with their own genitalia in their choice process probably aren't making the right choices.
Are you sure about that? It seems to be one of the oldest inclusions of "organizing" that human mammals have, back to the very oldest written language. And, it always and everywhere has a significant impact on all of society. Circumcision, arranged marriages, and gender norms have been enforced in civilizations nearly back to the dawn of man. Most are still in place, and others have been added, such as one-child-per-couple, education programs about contraception and prevention of STD's, and on and on. It's pretty pervasive.
I am a crackpot
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2015, @06:15PM
Are you sure about that? It seems to be one of the oldest inclusions of "organizing" that human mammals have, back to the very oldest written language.
Ah, an appeal to tradition. Slavery is pretty old as well. But so what?
And, it always and everywhere has a significant impact on all of society.
What? No, it doesn't.
Circumcision, arranged marriages, and gender norms have been enforced in civilizations nearly back to the dawn of man.
Again, so what? Who cares how old something is?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2015, @12:25AM
Yes, there is many a society that has a giant stick up its butt about one fetish or another.
...then, to get back onto the LGBT topic, there is the culture of the indigenous peoples of the western hemisphere who saw those folks [google.com] as a resource to be utilized. [wikipedia.org]
You didn't really think that all that feathered stuff they wore ceremonially was dreamed up by someone straight did you?
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday June 30 2015, @09:00AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2015, @01:37PM
Lets not wax philosophic shall we?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday June 29 2015, @01:50PM
Rights only exist as a PR concept invented by the aristocracy because with industrialization and mass media it became cheaper to feed the masses a line of BS than to shoot them down in the street. Temporarily this worked pretty well. Like the scam of democracy where the one party selects two candidates and tells us we have a choice over who lies to us and does the opposite of their PR campaign. Anyone outside the aristocracy who tries to actually use "rights" will be destroyed of course. But the times they are a changin... and the relationship between the masses and "the system" seem more strained than ever in recent history. Gonna be fun to watch. Hope my family and I don't get guillotined.
A historical concept worth thinking about WRT "human rights" is there are professional agitator/victim organizations that are extremely butthurt that Irish and southern euros got rolled into "white" and they can't do their agit prop and divide and conqueror the Italians vs the stereotypical new england WASPs for example, at least not anymore, although it worked quite profitably a century ago. IF gay rights ever do go away and get rolled into human rights, theres going to be amazing butthurt by the community organizer crowd. Don't mess with someone's salary and expect them not to get pissed off about it. Even now, there's lots of people who's salary depended upon gay marriage agit prop who are very anxious and pissed off today... whos going to hire them to promote what?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2015, @02:15PM
Hopefully all the feminists will be killed.
Even the pleasure of marrying a young girl has been stolen from us.
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Monday June 29 2015, @04:17PM
Your eloquent argument has me convinced, mikeeusa! We need to get back to traditional marriage! None of this interracial crap or even waiting for sexual maturity! Consent?! Bah! Traditional marriage all the way!
/ducks
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2015, @07:12PM
Yes. Real traditional marraige: that of a young girl (or girls) to a man, all the way.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2015, @11:46PM
"Traditional marriage" is a contract for an exchange of property. Lets not go back to that.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday June 30 2015, @01:38AM
"Traditional marriage" is a contract for an exchange of property. Lets not go back to that.
I quite agree, just find a woman who hates you and give her your house. It saves a lot of time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2015, @08:32AM
I prefer viewing them as abstract ideals, of which our mortal and fallible minds can only make more or less educated guesses about what they are. Under this model, whether a deed is right or wrong, doesn't depend on whom you are asking about it nor what are the current ideals of the society judging it.
In fact, it is pretty much the only model which allows rights as such immutable entities to exist at all. It is simply an unfortunate consequence of those axioms that you cannot ever know for sure whether your morality is correct.
This doesn't mean they wouldn't exist or are irrelevant, mind you. You cannot compute busy beaver function either, but it is there, just outside our reach.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2015, @10:09AM
Human rights are made up too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2015, @10:39AM
Made up concepts can be useful.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2015, @01:49PM
Given that these general rights are being specifically denied to homosexuals, I think it's perfectly reasonable to refer to this issue as "Gay Rights" and your pathetic excuse to shoehorn the phrase fuck gay rights on to a website shows what a sad little human being you must be.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2015, @06:48PM
So which bit of my argument do you think is false? (assuming I'm the same AC as before) Do you think gays aren't fully human? Do you consider these rights not human rights? Go ahead, shoot down my logic with actual logic, rather than spittle.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2015, @02:08PM
Why can't we marry little girls like we could prior to feminism?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2015, @02:30PM
The big problem is that people are assuming things are right's that simply are not rights. Where the SCOTUS got this wrong, was in upholding marriage laws in general that give any kind of benefit from a federal or state level. Remove marriage status as something the government deals with (except in cases where special protections may need to come into play such as protecting kids from being married off).
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2015, @04:41PM
Yea the one place the govt needs to step in is where progressive ideals need to be enforced at gun point. Marrying young girls is most traditional form of marriage and it is the one you demand be suppressed. It's also the only form that benifits men.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2015, @11:49PM
Since when does government not deal with contract? Contracts are useful specifically because the government enforces them, otherwise there's no point to them. Unless you're trying to say that marriage isn't a contract, but the facts show otherwise.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday June 30 2015, @02:26PM
The government certainly enforces most contracts, but in marriage the government is not only the enforcer, it is also an actual party to the contract, and sets the terms of the contract.
If it was simply a contract between you and the spouse, gay marriage would never be an issue. Contract with whoever you want.
If it was simply a contract between you and your spouse and your church, gay marriage would never be an issue. If your church won't marry you, find a new church that will. No problem.
But it's primarily a contract between you, your spouse, and the government. Which is why the government gets to set the rules. And they refuse to renegotiate the contract. And they refuse to allow independent contracts. They're abusing their monopoly to engage in discriminatory practices and it needs to stop. Ideally by eliminating the monopoly entirely.
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Tuesday June 30 2015, @07:56AM
You don't seem to understand what "gay rights" are. They are the same basic rights that straight people have, but which were previously denied to gay people. They are not asking for anything extra, just equality.
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