Radical threatens Microsoft boycott over the company's support for gay rights bill

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LGBT groups in the state have been fighting for 30 years for an anti-discrimination law.

According to an article published by 365gay.com, a radical, Right evangelist is calling for a nationwide boycott of Microsoft, which has come out in support of legislation which would add sexual orientation to the Washington state human rights law and ban discrimination in such areas as housing, employment and insurance. The legislation is being introduced again in the Washington state legislature this year, after if failed by one vote in the Senate last year. The House approved the measure last year and it looks as though the one senator who did vote against the bill will be changing his vote. According to the article:

"We're tired of sitting around thinking that morals can be ignored in our country," the Reverend Ken Hutcherson told The Associated Press. "This is not a threat, this is a promise. Check out the past presidential election. We made the moral issue the No. 1 issue." Hutcherson's church meets a short distance from Microsoft's Redmond headquarters. He successfully got Microsoft to withdraw its support of a similar bill last year under the threat of a boycott. The gay rights bill failed by one vote in the Washington state Senate after having passed the House. A new bill will be introduced this session and the Republican Senator who cast the deciding vote last year now says he will support the legislation.

After Democrats announced that they would re-introduce the bill last week, Microsoft joioned in a letter urging the measures passage with Boeing, Helwett Packard and Nike. The evangelist says he will target all of the companies which signed the letter. ======= Boycott Microsoft? Huh? How can there be a national boycott of Microsoft when the overwhelming majority of computers and computer systems run off its software? Boycotting Microsoft would do more to hurt the small business than it would Microsoft. I think this "evangelist" is dumb for even suggesting such an outrageous thing. I think it is important to note something though. At the end of the article it is stated "LGBT groups in the state have been fighting for 30 years for an anti-discrimination law". That is a really long time in which to fight for something. It has taken thirty years for the LGBT community to even get to a place where some of the legislators will fight for them. Even at that, there is no absolute guarantee that the anti-discrimination measure will pass. I just think it is sad that our movement started over 35 years ago and, although we have come so far in so many ways, many LGBT citizens don't have the chance to see those advances for themselves. For far too many LGBT persons, especially in the South and Midwest, the advances are ones which have taken place in other cities, other states and other countries. By and large many LGBT persons in so-called "red states" continue to be treated as second-class citizens and many have given into to the myth that they really are undeserving of equality. Society needs to step up. It takes way too long for society to fix its mistakes. This time, ya'll need to hurry. Technorati Tags: gay, lgbt, gay rights, microsoft boycott, ken hutcherson, washington