| Mattison ( @ 2008-09-30 11:29:00 |
Google Supports Marriage Equality
I think I'll keep using gmail.
I think I'll keep using gmail.
As an Internet company, Google is an active participant in policy debates surrounding information access, technology and energy. Because our company has a great diversity of people and opinions -- Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, all religions and no religion, straight and gay -- we do not generally take a position on issues outside of our field, especially not social issues. So when Proposition 8 [the gay marriage ban] appeared on the California ballot, it was an unlikely question for Google to take an official company position on.I wonder if the coming conservative boycott of Google will be as effective as the one they had against Disney? (When Disney granted "benefits to same-sex employees in domestic partnerships" the AFA ran a 9 year boycott. Disney held it's ground continued to be very profitable and eventually the AFA gave up.)
However, while there are many objections to this proposition -- further government encroachment on personal lives, ambiguously written text -- it is the chilling and discriminatory effect of the proposition on many of our employees that brings Google to publicly oppose Proposition 8. 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.