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posted by takyon on Monday June 29 2015, @09:30AM   Printer-friendly
from the corporatizing-the-gay-bouquet dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by kaszz on Monday June 29 2015, @01:12PM

    by kaszz (4211) on Monday June 29 2015, @01:12PM (#202766) Journal

    LGBT rights or tolerance might not be that central in itself. But when LGBT people are tolerated either on a social convention level or by law. It's an indicator that the society has matured enough to accept people with different ways of living and different values. I once watched a documentary of a girl in a small town in the USA being treated like shit once it came out she was lesbian. That town will not be on the top list of establishing any advanced business, the town just screams close minded people.

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Monday June 29 2015, @01:38PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 29 2015, @01:38PM (#202782)

    society has matured enough to accept people with different ways of living and different values

    Yeah like evang christians or (pre-neo) republicans or white ethnic groups or ... oh wait this only applies to lefty groups. I'm not even on the right, and from what I see the hypocrisy of the lefties is pretty bad. Tolerance would be nice if it wasn't implemented by being solely provided to one political group.

    That town will not be on the top list of establishing any advanced business, the town just screams close minded people.

    Oh spare me, that explains one small town, whats the excuse for the other 74999 towns that also didn't get the Apple world headquarters building?

    As a wealthy white oppressor I can assure you the world has far too many assholes, its just they supposedly only matter when they annoy special groups of special people other than myself, like that lesbian girl. Something tells me that small town girl isn't the first girl in the history of the planet to have shitty neighbors. I'm not saying her neighbors aren't shitty or it wouldn't be nice to have non-shitty neighbors, just saying her experience is totally irrelevant WRT social policy. Some sort of redneck hunting season where assholes can be shot would obviously benefit her, but it would also benefit me equally.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2015, @04:47PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2015, @04:47PM (#202882)

      As a wealthy white oppressor I can assure you the world has far too many assholes
      ...
      Some sort of redneck hunting season where assholes can be shot would obviously benefit her, but it would also benefit me equally.

      So true... it's quite exhausting to fuck so many arseholes; would be less taxing if someone lowered their numbers, thanks.

      Your friendly wealthy white oppressor

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by mojo chan on Tuesday June 30 2015, @08:01AM

      by mojo chan (266) on Tuesday June 30 2015, @08:01AM (#203232)

      Tolerance only applies to things you can't change, like your sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender etc. It doesn't apply to stupid ideas and beliefs, which are fair targets for criticism and a certain degree of intolerance. Evangelical Christians, Republicans and what I presume you mean to be "white rights" groups are just expressing their opinions, and thus are open to criticism and don't have to be tolerated by anyone.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)