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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: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday June 29 2015, @03:42PM

    by LoRdTAW (3755) on Monday June 29 2015, @03:42PM (#202848) Journal

    I do have a beef with LGBT, and it's this: stop shoving your sexuality in everyone's faces.

    If no one speaks up how can they be heard? They are a minority who face discrimination. Without speaking up and showing the world that they exist, they can easily be ignored by the majority.

    And lets be serious, no one is shoving anything in your face (unless you are up-front at a pride parade). That statement is used by people who are uncomfortable with a particular group of people. They prefer said group keep quiet and stay out of view. That is called oppression.

    I don't know why TFA brings Indiana into this, but Indiana gets it right. That classic example of the wedding cake: The gay couple has no right to demand another person's service (that would be called "slavery"). A tattoo artist can refuse to create a tattoo that the artist dislikes, a baker can refuse to create a cake that the baker dislikes, a programmer can refuse to write a program that the programmer dislikes.

    Slavery? Are you serious? Do me a favor and go look up slavery first. There was no need to make a religious freedom law. That was just pandering to secure christian votes. The bakery was within their right to refuse service. Not exactly a nice thing to do but neither are KKK rallies but they have the right to express themselves too. Even if every christian bakery refuses to sell cakes to gays then the gays can establish their own bakeries. I don't exactly like that idea but you see, not everyone is an asshole. So for every christian bakery who refuses to sell cakes to gays, there are probably a hundred or more who will happily sell to them. Hate is an ugly thing and thankfully as society progresses, hate is weeded out and everyone learns to live with everyone else. The idea that a bakery would refuse service to gays will become unpopular as the my other example, the KKK. Those are extreme fringe beliefs that society on a whole will eventually reject.

    This is a very tricky topic. How do you allow religious freedom without also allowing discrimination? And how do you align that with other anti-discrimination laws so they don't allow for loopholes or contradiction? If an idea such as religion is allowed to discriminate, why can't other ideas be allowed the same privilege? Why can't I refuse to sell cakes to ugly people? Fat people? Black people? It is a very slippery slope. How deep does the rabbit hole go before you need philosophy as rights are ideas themselves. What ideas are valid?

    My opinion? Treat others the way you would want to be treated. There is no simpler idea than that which guarantees equality.

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2015, @05:34PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2015, @05:34PM (#202907)

    All the 'christian' arguments against gay marriage were also made against interracial marriage [thinkprogress.org] before (and for years afterwards in corner cases like Bob Jones University) that was nationally legalized by the supreme court. While it is (currently) not illegal for a bakery to refuse service to a gay couple, it is illegal for a bakery to refuse service to a interracial couple. Has that law been much of a burden at all?