Microsoft blasted over gay-rights stance
By Elizabeth M. Gillespie
Associated Press
SEATTLE — Microsoft Corp., one of the earliest companies to extend benefits to gay employees, now finds itself in the crosshairs of angry activists for rescinding support for gay rights legislation in its home state.
Critics say the world's No. 1 software maker caved to pressure from an NFL linebacker-turned-local pastor who had threatened to launch a nationwide boycott, and tried to tiptoe away from a bill it had previously supported.
The measure recently failed in Washington state's Senate by a single vote.
Bloggers branded Microsoft a corporate coward, and a prominent gay rights group asked the company to return a civil rights award it had bestowed on the tech giant four years ago.
It's an unusually sticky spot for a brainy company that has taken pride in its progressive employment policies. Sensitive to employees as well as image concerns, the company's top executives were forced to do some very public soul-searching.
"We are thinking hard about what is the right balance to strike — when should a public company take a position on a broader social issue, and when should it not?" CEO Steve Ballmer wrote in an e-mail to employees. "What message does the company taking a position send to its employees who have strongly held beliefs on the opposite side of the issue?"
A few days later, Chairman Bill Gates said he was surprised by the negative reaction and said the company may rethink its position.
"Well, we didn't expect that kind of visibility for it," Gates told The Seattle Times. "After all, Microsoft's position on a political bill — has that ever caused something to pass or not pass? Is it good, is it bad? I don't know."
Microsoft contends it decided before the just-ended legislative session to take a neutral stance on a gay rights bill it had once championed so it could focus efforts on a shorter list of issues, like computer privacy, education and transportation.
The Boeing Co., Nike Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., Molson Coors Brewing Co., and Levi Strauss & Co., are among businesses that supported the Washington state bill, which would have banned discrimination against homosexuals in housing, employment and insurance.
The local former Seattle Seahawk turned evangelical pastor, Ken Hutcherson, had threatened the boycott in a meeting with Microsoft a few months ago.
Hutcherson, who is black, said he never had a problem with Microsoft's own anti-discrimination policies. But, "when they stepped out and tried to make their policy my policy and other companies' policy and the state's policy, they stepped into a den of snakes and I was the main cobra," Hutcherson said.
