Glorious

Microsoft decides to back gay-rights bill

Capping a two-week brouhaha over Microsoft’s fluid position on a state gay-rights bill, Chief Executive Steve Ballmer yesterday reversed course and said the company will support the legislation in the future. Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire, U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee and other supporters of the bill cheered the move.

Kudos to The Stranger, which consistently out-reported the two dailies on this issue.

UPDATE: I don’t think that corporate entities ought to be forced or even harassed to take a particular position on any given legislation. I’m content to keep some of their activity outside of the political sphere, for their own sake less than for the sake of politics. But that isn’t what happened here. Microsoft had a stated policy in support of this bill, then succumbed to harassment from the leader of a small evangelical organization with minimal local support. Their neutrality was a political act, one which they should have understood would enrage Microsoft’s employees and Microsoft’s local community. It’s really unclear how anyone at Microsoft thought this would be a good idea.

Then again, I have heard that shares of Explorer use and Windows use are higher on the right side of the blogosphere. Perhaps they were afraid of losing a share of this market? Who knows?