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Friday October 24, 2008
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Apple is getting political.
The Cupertino-based company announced Friday that it will donate $100,000 to the "No on 8" campaign, which is working to defeat a California ballot initiative that would ban gay marriage in the state.
"Apple was among the first California companies to offer equal rights and benefits to our employees' same-sex partners, and we strongly believe that a person's fundamental rights--including the right to marry--should not be affected by their sexual orientation," Apple wrote on its Website. "Apple views this as a civil rights issue, rather than just a political issue, and is therefore speaking out publicly against Proposition 8."
In May, the California Supreme Court struck down a state ban on gay marriage. Proposition 8 would reverse that decision.
Proposition 8 "eliminates the right of same-sex couples to marry," according to the statute. It "changes [the] California Constitution to eliminate right of same-sex couples to marry, [and] provides that only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."
Google last month also urged California residents to vote against Prop 8.
"While there are many objections to this proposition ... it is the chilling and discriminatory effect of the proposition on many of our employees that brings Google to publicly oppose Proposition 8," Sergey Brin, Google co-founder, wrote in a blog post. "While we respect the strongly-held beliefs that people have on both sides of this argument, we see this fundamentally as an issue of equality. We hope that California voters will vote no on Proposition 8--we should not eliminate anyone's fundamental rights, whatever their sexuality, to marry the person they love."
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October 24, 2008 4:06 PM
Good job, Apple! Marriage is a fundamental human right, and same-sex couples deserve to get married by virtue of being human. It's as simple as that. Please watch this video on YouTube for an intelligent, logical explanation of how important it is for for us as a society to defeat Proposition 8:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbvShJSd3EM
October 24, 2008 4:12 PM
I have to hand it to Apple and Google for their public statements here.
They didn't have to be public about it, but they were, and that's more than commendable.
October 26, 2008 12:08 AM
Bravo, Apple!
Bravo, Google!
Hello, Yahoo?
October 26, 2008 1:19 AM
What crap. Its social theft. The social value of the word exists because of heterosexual unions. If the gay community wants a greater social legitimacy for their unions then let them use their own word, and not try to rob the social legitimacy of mine. After they have earned their legitimacy - it will be unarguable. Until then they are just trying to use theft in social engineering to falsely feel legitimate. Having the word is not the same as having the legitimacy.
October 26, 2008 2:04 AM
@Mike: The difference is that it's not about legitimacy, it's about civil and human rights, and writing discrimination into the law of the land.
Regardless of one's opinion towards any other person or their lifestyle, I think it's fair to think that codifying discrimination is a bad thing, and very different from legalizing semantics. You can't steal something intangible that doesn't belong to any one person or group in the first place. Just my thoughts.
October 26, 2008 5:15 PM
Let's not stop there... Let's push to make it illegal for a church to deny marrying those couples. If a church refuses, there tax exempt status will be removed and the church will be required to pay a heavy fine to the state.
October 30, 2008 7:37 PM
@Radioguy: That's interfering with freedom of religion. Militant left-wingers and right-wingers always want to force their way of thinking on everyone else. Stay in the middle..it's the only sane place to be. Some believe homosexuality is immoral. Others do not. I am one who does not believe it immoral, but I would defend a fellow American's right to think and say that it is. I see nothing hateful in voicing one's beliefs. I'm all for gay marriage as long as there's no tax breaks because of it. For that matter, heteros shouldn't get a tax break either.