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From this week’s The Stranger:

In a move that angered many of the company’s gay employees, the Microsoft Corporation, publicly perceived as the vanguard institution of the new economy, has taken a major political stand in favor of age-old discrimination.

The Stranger has learned that last month the $37-billion Redmond-based software behemoth quietly withdrew its support for House bill 1515, the anti-gay-discrimination bill currently under consideration by the Washington State legislature, after being pressured by the Evangelical Christian pastor of a suburban megachurch. The pastor, Ken Hutcherson of Antioch Bible Church in Redmond, met with a senior Microsoft executive in February and threatened to organize a national boycott of the company’s products if it did not change its stance on the legislation, according to gay rights activists and a Microsoft employee who attended a subsequent April 4 meeting where Bradford L. Smith, Microsoft’s senior vice president, general counsel, and corporate secretary, told a group of gay staffers about Hutcherson’s threat.

AMERICAblog comments:

Microsoft Corporation pulled its support for a gay rights bill in Washington state last month after complaints from a single radical right anti-gay leader, according to an article just published in the Seattle paper, The Stranger (the article is on the news stands already, online Thursday).

My sources in Washington state tell me that the vote on the bill, expected in two days (Friday), is SO CLOSE that Microsoft’s actions may be pivotal in KILLING THE PRO-GAY LEGISLATION.

The radical right activist reportedly told Microsoft it had better pull its support for the gays or anti-gay bigots would launch a nationwide boycott of Microsoft, and guess what – Microsoft caved. A single anti-gay jerk, and Microsoft chose to reverse over ten years of policy and bash gays.

This is outrageous. It’s also incredibly dangerous. For over a decade Microsoft, along with hundreds of other corporate leaders, has endorsed gay rights legislation in the states and nationally. And now, suddenly, because ONE ANTI-GAY ACTIVIST COMPLAINED, they’ve suddenly changed their minds ON A CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUE. A rather big “oops” after ten years of being in favor of civil rights, don’t you think?

Robert Scoble comments:

I don’t know anything about it, or anything about how Microsoft decides to support political issues, but human rights is very important to me personally and I’m gonna take this up with the leadership of the company and support this cause.

Update: The anti-discrimination bill, which had been passed 61-37 by the House in February, was defeated this afternoon by one vote (via Salon)

More news from Ohio regarding their ridiculous approach towards domestic violence. The law is being updated to close the loophole that limits domestic violence charges to married couples, which sounds good — but all’s not well yet.

A state lawmaker from northeast Ohio says he’ll introduce a bill this week to close a perceived loophole in the domestic-violence law created by the constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Democratic state Representative William Healy of Canton says his bill would define domestic violence as an act committed when individuals reside together, regardless of marital status.

[…]

However, the change in the law will only affect heterosexuals in non married relationships. The domestic abuse law will not apply to same-sex couples because of the constitutional amendment.

Admittedly, better than last week — if you’re straight, of course — but still a long way from where it should be.

Regardless of your stance on gay marriage, a person’s sexuality should have absolutely no bearing on domestic violence cases. Whether you’re straight or gay, married or unmarried, or just roommates, the potential for abuse at the hands of someone you live with is something that everyone should have equal protection from under the eyes of the law.

Grrrr.

(via Terrance)

“Madskillz/Mic Chekka” by BT from the album Movement in Still Life (2000, 4:52).

Here’s a jaw-dropping, “holy shit” item: in Ohio, beating someone you live with is only domestic violence if you’re married, and the justification used for this is Ohio’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriages.

A judge has ruled that Ohio’s new constitutional ban on same-sex marriage prohibits unmarried people from being able to file domestic violence charges, a decision that has prompted an immediate appeal by prosecutors.

Judges and others across the country have been waiting for a ruling on how Ohio’s ban on same-sex marriage, among the nation’s broadest, would affect the state’s 25-year-old domestic violence law, which previously wasn’t limited to married people.

Wednesday’s ruling by Cuyahoga County common pleas judge Stuart Friedman changed a felony domestic violence charge against Frederick Burk to a misdemeanor assault charge.

Burk, 42, is accused of slapping and pushing his live-in girlfriend during a January argument over a pack of cigarettes.

His public defender, David Magee, had asked the judge to throw out the charge because of the new wording in Ohio’s constitution that prohibits any state or local government from enforcing a law that would “create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals.”

Prior to the amendment’s approval, courts applied the domestic violence law by defining a family as including an unmarried couple living together as would a husband and wife, the judge said. The new amendment banning same-sex marriage no longer allows that.

This disgusts me on all sorts of levels. The discrimination against same-sex partners is bad enough, but using that to reduce the possible penalties for abusing someone you live with purely because you’re unmarried is reprehensible — in this case, the assault was reduced from felony domestic violence, with a possible 18-month jail term, to a misdemeanor assault, with only a possible six month jail term.

Here’s hoping the appeals process goes a long way towards turning this mess around.

“Children of the Light” by Eva O Halo Experience from the album Gothik (1994, 4:22).

Today is International Women’s Day (Updated link):

International Women’s Day (8 March) is an occasion marked by women’s groups around the world. This date is also commemorated at the United Nations and is designated in many countries as a national holiday. When women on all continents, often divided by national boundaries and by ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic and political differences, come together to celebrate their Day, they can look back to a tradition that represents at least nine decades of struggle for equality, justice, peace and development.

International Women’s Day is the story of ordinary women as makers of history; it is rooted in the centuries-old struggle of women to participate in society on an equal footing with men. In ancient Greece, Lysistrata initiated a sexual strike against men in order to end war; during the French Revolution, Parisian women calling for “liberty, equality, fraternity” marched on Versailles to demand women’s suffrage.

Few causes promoted by the United Nations have generated more intense and widespread support than the campaign to promote and protect the equal rights of women. The Charter of the United Nations, signed in San Francisco in 1945, was the first international agreement to proclaim gender equality as a fundamental human right. Since then, the Organization has helped create a historic legacy of internationally agreed strategies, standards, programmes and goals to advance the status of women worldwide.

Over the years, United Nations action for the advancement of women has taken four clear directions: promotion of legal measures; mobilization of public opinion and international action; training and research, including the compilation of gender desegregated statistics; and direct assistance to disadvantaged groups. Today a central organizing principle of the work of the United Nations is that no enduring solution to society’s most threatening social, economic and political problems can be found without the full participation, and the full empowerment, of the world’s women.

So, happy Day to all of you International Women out there. :)

(And, incidentally, this might be a good time to mention that here in the United States, the Equal Rights Amendment still hasn’t been passed. Isn’t it long past time that something was done about this? If we’re going to go amending the constitution, shouldn’t it be for something positive like banning discrimination, rather than institutionalizing it?)

(via Blankbaby)