Google, a company that loves to collude with the Chinese regime, shows its softer side (via Think Progress):
Proposition 8, a California constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage, has attracted an unlikely assortment of foes, including Vice President Cheney’s daughter Mary, Brad Pitt, and Steven Spielberg. Yesterday, Google also took the unusual step of jumping in, noting that because it has a “great diversity of people and opinions” at the company, it rarely takes “a position on issues outside of our field, especially not social issues”:
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.
I’m curious as to the proposition 8 debate…
If the gay activist lost a right to marry, when did they have it?
Is it really about love or is it more a backdoor approach for same sex couples to recieve entitlement to social security benefits? They already have every benefit that every married couple in california has, all they have to do is file as a domestic partnership.
Is Jerry Brown gay? If not why did he create such a misleading label for proposition 8. Isn’t it about a definition? It’s not really about gay people, right?
Are the activist judges gay or have family members who are gay?
Will I be arrested for hate speech or made to make a public apologies if I say that homosexuality is wrong?
What is ambiguous about “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California?” If you want ambiguous, read about the fear-based ads opposing prop 8.
Under California law, “domestic partners shall have the same rights, protections, and benefits” as married spouses. (Family Code § 297.5.) There are NO exceptions. Proposition 8 WILL NOT change this.
Something is not “discriminatory” for two different people unless the circumstances for the two people are the same and one of the persons is being treated differently. As an example: assume that Person A is heterosexual and Person B is homosexual. Person A has always had the right to marry someone of that person’s choice of the opposite sex (within certain limitations of the laws). Person B has always had the exact same right to marry someone of that person’s choice of the opposite sex. It is not discriminatory to say that Person B does not have the right to marry a person of the same sex when Person A does not have that right, either.
The fact of the matter is that people are not simply free to marry “the person they love”. There are important guidelines in place that if removed could have grave consequences. For instance, what if the “person they love” is a child (willing or not)?
This is not about “equality”, it is about pushing an agenda.
Hello Marsh,
Without meaning to be unkind, your example violates this premise immediately by explicitly specifying that persons A and B are not in the same circumstances. Person A is heterosexual, and thus his ideal marital partner is of the opposite sex. Person B is homosexual, and thus his ideal marital partner is of the same sex.
Furthermore, your premise itself is flawed. One could argue from it that refusing to permit mixed-race marriages is not discriminatory, because anyone can marry an individual of the same race. This argument would not even fall foul of the flaw in your particular example, since it cannot be argued that either African-American person A or white Askenazim B is constitutionally unsuited to marrying someone of their own race. (Although a limited argument could be made that, in the latter case, exogenous marriage would be beneficial; genetic counselling is often recommended for Askenazi Jewish couples, since there is a significant probability of certain heritable disorders.)
For a more tangible demonstration of the flaw in your example, it might be instructive to consider the ruinous relationships of many gay men and women who tried (and failed) to make a success out of a constitutionally incompatible relationship. Their broken homes, damaged partners and confused children are a testament to the inadvisability of partnering gay individuals with opposite-sex partners.
Hi. Jordan.
Without taking your comments to be unkind, and without intending to be unkind in return, I would say that your last paragraph doesn’t really relate to my example. Whether certain relationships are “inadvisable” does not influence whether they are discriminatory or not.
Your mixed-race scenario certainly brings sympathy to a discrimination that recently existed and is no longer the case; but examples can also be stated in which “discrimination” is not “prejudiced” (which is an implied characterization of the discussion about discrimination). Such examples could be: not allowing marriages of an adult with a child, or a human with an animal. Such restrictions, while certainly “discriminatory”, would not be considered “prejudiced” (at least to a large majority of people at this time) because there is a consideration (or perception, if you prefer) that such examples of marriage could damage society and diminish the role that traditional marriage has for good. Please do not infer that I mean to say that my two examples are equivalent to same-sex marriages, because they are not even close. However, I think it is fair to say that a similar “effect on society” consideration can be such that a restriction is not “discrimination” (with its implied “prejudice”) but rather “discrimination” with (perceived) cause.
Regarding “confused children”, it is indeed unfortunate, but I suspect that the number of such confused children is far outnumbered by the number of confused children that are being taught (directly and indirectly) that marriage is not between a man and a woman.