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jbaileyHey - 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.
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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no subject
Date: 2008-09-27 04:23 pm (UTC)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...)