jbailey | My employer is SO FUCKING COOL: "No on Prop 8"

My employer is SO FUCKING COOL: "No on Prop 8"

Hey - I usually have a personal policy of not talking about my current employer on my blog. It's why I didn't join Planet Ubuntu until after I'd left Canonical, for instance. This blog isn't theirs. I can promise you that no PR department I've ever worked for has approved the gratuitous overuse of the word "fuck".

But FUCK, this is cool: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/our-position-on-californias-no-on-8.html

My readers might remember that Angie and I spent a bunch of time writing letters to my Member of Parliament back in Canada in support of gay marriage, donated to egale, attended a church that got intervener status in support of gay marriage, and ultimately attended the senate debates where equal marriage became the law of the land.

And then, a year ago, we moved to this place. A place where this is still considered an issue. A place where people are willing to do what would never be considered back at home: They're willing to take away the rights that people have and are exercising to marry their partner of choice. And I don't have a voice. As a non-citizen, I can't sign a petition, I can't donate money to political campaigns, and I have no representative to contact and inform how important this is to me.

I was pleased to learn this afternoon that Google has decided to publicly make a stand for the rights of people in California. It's just one more thing that makes this the coolest job I've ever had.

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Dude! That rocks!

I know. My work here is clearly done, and it's time to move back home ;)

It's pretty awesome that they've come out and done that.

As another non-citizen California resident I've been frustrated. I got married last summer and as far as I'm concerned prop-8 threatens to devalue my marriage. So I've signed up to volunteer to help out the no on 8 campaign.

Tangentially, I was talking to a friend who works for Microsoft (our company got bought after I'd left). She says that MS not only match cash donations, but they match employees' donations of time. If Google have a similar policy they might donate cash to match your donation of time. They might not though - for all their many flaws MS does have pretty much the best benefits in the world.

I know we have all sorts of matching things. But, are we allowed to donate cash? There were a couple things I went to go look at (although they were mostly around the presidential election) and I was told that there was a citizenship requirement. So I figured that just telling people as loudly as I could that this is important was about what I could do.

I'm pretty sure you can donate to No on 8 campaigns, though you can't donate to candidates or parties.

m

Ah, that's worth knowing, thanks. I'd gotten 'no' enough times, that I stopped asking.

I might be wrong, but when I donated to the National Center for Lesbian Rights No on 8 campaign, they didn't ask about my citizenship (which they do when I donate to Obama for President).

m

If you have a green card, you can donate to candidates or parties.

The Obama website has a nice summary of the rules on any donation page. (I'm sure the McCain website does, too, but I haven't seen it.)

I don't, though. Just here on a J1, and returning home at the end of the month.

Useful to know for harassing my friends who *do* have Green Cards, though.. =)

I think the No on 8 stuff specifically says you have to be a US permanent resident or citizen. My green card interview is on Friday though, so perhaps I'll be able to :)

\o/

Well, yay to the contributions. I decided I'd rather go home than stay, so I have a bias on that front. ;)

That's what I thought till I got married :)

This is sad. It's the modern version of "church and state", now its multinational companies and politics mixing where they shouldn't.
"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." (Google blog)
This argument with exactly this same words could be used to support marriage between an adult and a minor, and polygamy, and even forced marriages. Something is very wrong here.
I am getting quite frustrated with the amount of people thinking that issue is about equality. It's not. Equality has already been achieved. All adults have the right to marry an adult of the opposite biological sex, regardless of sexual orientation. There is no discrimination. What most people in the gay/lesbian/transgendaral/etc camp want is to redefine marriage, and to give, not just themselves, but everyone extra rights, ie, the right to marry an adult of the same biological sex. They want extra rights for everyone, not a right that everyone but them already has.
So it's not about equality at all. It's about the definition of marriage, something I don't think Google as a multinational company should have an official policy on.

Apparently LJ has length limits. Splitting this into two comments:

You're conflating a few points here. I'd like to address them separately:

1) Multinational companies and politics mixing where they shouldn't.

I'd be mostly inclined to agree with you here, but the problem is that multinational companies /already/ meddle in politics all over the place. US Law (and to slightly more limited extent, Canadian law) grants corporation equivalent to people status and allows lobbyists access to government officials. How much oil money, pharmaceutical money, manufacturing money, union money, etc., winds influencing politicians both directly and indirectly already? We cannot say that corporations should not exert influence on politics without acknowledging that this is already extremely common practice. I would love to see the power to make decisions pushed straight back into the hands of the people, and corporate influence reduced to where its opinions were considered less than the opinion of a single citizen talking to their representative. Campaign donation limits is something we've seen in Canada specifically to avoid "US-Style Elections". I do think that the structure of the US government lends itself to unequal access to its citizens: If my MP back home became Prime Minister, I would still have access to him as a citizen in his riding. He remains accountable to me through that time. To whom is the president of the US accountable? As an individual with a concern, do you have any hope of getting a response from your local representatives? What I've observed is that short of a wealthy conglomerate of people (and what else is a company?) the voices of individuals gets lost in the noise.

2) The redefinition of marriage.

There are a few split thoughts here.

* To consider whether this as a redefinition, we need to take a look at the actual previous definitions. Where do you want to pull these from? The human-made laws that often haven't defined marriage but merely reflected the customs of the times? The Bible, which had polygamy from the beginning (Genesis 4:19)? Or do we accept it as a construct of language, and therefore always fluid? Unitarian Universalist churches have been marrying same-sex couples for about 40 years now. The Metropolitan Community Church around Toronto (A Christian Church) has been performing same-sex marriages since its inception. Popular media has shown us stories of same-sex marriages now for well over a decade, despite these ceremonies not being legal ones. Language isn't a static construct, but reflects social customs of the times.

* If we look at global custom, the United States isn't exactly trailblazing here. There are 6 countries in which same-sex marriage is the law of the land. So who's definition are we considering? Given that the US is made up pretty much entirely of immigrants, we have cultural herritages to consider.

(cont'd...)

(Second half...)

3) The Rights for everyone.

I want to direct you, initially, to a quote from former Prime Minister Paul Martin in his support for bill C-38:

The Charter was enshrined to ensure that the rights of minorities are not subjected, are never subjected, to the will of the majority. The rights of Canadians who belong to a minority group must always be protected by virtue of their status as citizens, regardless of their numbers. These rights must never be left vulnerable to the impulses of the majority.

If, at the moment, marriage is considered to be about love, about a commitment to another person, about the joy of forming a family together and all the ups and downs that that entails, how do we consider it to be equal that some marriages and unions are granted legal rights to which others do not have access? This is about the right to see your loved one in the hospital, about having access to health care, about having the relationship recognised and blessed by all around you without any stray adjectives attached. This is why I try to refer to this as "equal marriage". I am not in a same-sex marriage. I *am* in an "equal marriage". Others around me should be permitted to have the same "equal marriage", with all rights and responsibilities therein.

Let's consider that at the moment in California, equal marriage is *already* the law of the land. So to your phrase, "Equality has already been achieved": In California, I hearily agree. Why is it that we're willing to see that broken and have rights taken away?

4) The argument could be used to support various other unions.

While interesting, this isn't the conversation we're actually having. Lawyers will draft up the language that specifies it. Courts will make the interpretations of the law. Our job as reasoned people is to have the conversations around feelings and beliefs. You know what's meant by the argument, don't change the subject.

Thanks for taking the time to reply, it was a good response, although I don't agree with everything said.
"Our job as reasoned people is to have the conversations around feelings and beliefs" if that's case than my I state that I feel uncomfortable about changing the definition of marriage from the traditional American one, and that I believe it will prove counter productive in society?

Yup, absolutely. =) Respectful disagreements on principal are always okay, since those can't be meaningfully debated.

I suspect we both wish the maximum happiness on the maximum number of people, and may the voters have the collective wisdom to find that solution.

I believe US green-card holders can donate. If you've got a green card, look into it!

I don't, but I have several friends who will get phone calls shortly. =)

I'm SUPER jealous!!!

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