Microsoft has been a pioneer in workplace diversity. It was one of the first companies in the world to offer employee benefits to same-sex domestic partners and to include sexual orientation in its corporate nondiscrimination policy. Since 1989, Microsoft has supported and sponsored gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender issues at Microsoft. In 1993 an organized employee resource group-Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Employees at Microsoft (GLEAM)-was launched. GLEAM now has more than 700 members...Read More at Microsoft...So that sounds pretty good, there is nothing wrong with tolerance and acceptance..... So this brings us to today's story, Mega-church Pastor and former Dallas Cowboy Ken Hutcherson, who claims his church is "a church for all people, of all cultures, races, backgrounds," is so furious with Microsoft for not discriminating against gays that he wants to bring them down, by flooding the company with evangelical shareholders who will change the system.
An advocate of a "biblical stance" against divorce and homosexuality, Mr Hutcherson, 55, is asking millions of evangelical activists, as well as Orthodox Jewish and other allies, to buy up Microsoft shares and demand a return to traditional values.So there you have it, possibly the Internet's most mind blowing story today, I hope the Pastors flock have better ways to spend their money, but who am I to judge what rich people do with their disposable income. If this zany anti-gay pastor has it his way and gays working in the corporate world are forced back into the closets and/or out of jobs, will the world be a better place?Microsoft, he declares, will be just the first company targeted in an escalation of the culture wars between evangelicals and corporate America.
"There are 256 Fortune 500 companies alone pouring millions upon millions of dollars into pushing the homosexual agenda," he told The Daily Telegraph.
"I consider myself a warrior for Christ. Microsoft don't scare me. I got God with me..Read More Telegraph.co.uk....
For additional thoughts on this issue I give you a small segment of "The West Wing." And a link to what Desmond Tutu thinks about the homophobic God.
Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 2)
1. nobody said they should lose their jobs. Stop lying in your story. He just doesn't want corporations supporting their agenda and events. Believe it or not there are many straight people that work at Microsoft who don't want their company supporting this kind of stuff.
rwbowie42 at 9:29PM on Nov 18th 2007
2. These folks use that phrase over and over - "The homosexual agenda" - and I have always wondered what such an agenda would be, if indeed it existed?
Today's agenda:
1. Convert all straight people into gay
2. Have sex with them
???
The only people I see with a clear agenda are the pro-discrimination right-wing thugs who want to force their "morality" on the rest of society. And half of them are just screaming repression and latent homosexual tendendies.
Oh, speaking of repressed right-wing Christian types with a fascist agenda, Larry Craig's favorite recipe is...wait for it...a hot dog shoved into a small hole in a baked potato! I'm not making this up!
http://www.virtualcities.com/ons/id/gov/idgvlc10.htm
brandon at 9:32PM on Nov 18th 2007
3. @1
The Anti-discrimination law ensures that Gays can't be fired for simply being Gay... This is what Hutcheson is fighting against. Why else would he be doing this?
Jeff at 9:39PM on Nov 18th 2007
4. Tell that former Dallas Cowboy current God Nazi Ken Hutcherson that when he invents something that
A) Makes him as wealthy as Bill Gates and
B) Comes to even HALF of the Philantrhopy Gates perfoms
He can dictate his Facist Morals to folks. Until then, he needs to keeps his uneducated Jock-head stupid self on the Church of the Ignorant Monkey and OUT of other people's lives.
Of course, right now he may just be doing the Larry Craig Toe Dance. You never can tell about these Storm Troopers with the Biggest Mouths.
Tim at 9:49PM on Nov 18th 2007
5. Hate and bigotry is what conservatives bring to this world today.
Dancerpl2 at 10:00PM on Nov 18th 2007
6. Let me get this straight:
A wingnut christian wants to impose his will upon a private company?
So much for free enterprise. So much for capitalism. So much for private property (yes, even though there are shareholders, it's still a privately-owned company in the sense that it's not a governmental entity).
Knight_of_BAAWA at 10:17PM on Nov 18th 2007
7. maybe when next the exjock read his bible he could try keeping his eyes open
hawkeye at 10:19PM on Nov 18th 2007
8. It's folks like Ken Hutcherson who make me think Emperor Nero may have actually had the right idea feeding these stone-headed bastards to the lions.
Dan at 10:55PM on Nov 18th 2007
9. """Since 1989, Microsoft has supported and sponsored gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender issues at Microsoft"""
Sounds pretty good, but most large corporations have "diversity training" now days and all employees are required to attend. Funny thing, the first thing you notice when you go to diversity training is the lack of......diversity.
Willet at 10:57PM on Nov 18th 2007
10. I expect that Pastor Hutcherson's effort will be every bit as successful as the Baptist boycott of Disney World. Maybe even less so.
emelpe at 11:48PM on Nov 18th 2007
11.
I find it so amazing that the african american community can be so dense and ignorant when they're facing themselves directly in the mirror from 50 years ago, but then again they're only Human, and we see ignorance and justifications for ones beliefs and faith knows no racial, color, creed, social boundaries.
Of course Ken has stated that the Civil Rights movement is nothing like the Gay rights movement. Why? Because the Bible indicates homo-sexuality is a sin? It's a shame his Bible also indicates Servitude under ownership is God's will in the old Testament (Luke 12: 45-48). I'm sure he weasels his way out of that one during his services for the New Testament. Too bad the barbarsims of the Old Judain testament are a part of his good book as well.
So how about it Ken? Why not return to a "better" time when you were in shackles doing the Good Lords work for the rest of your life to benefit your master?
Chad at 12:27AM on Nov 19th 2007
12. PLEASE make a distinction when bashing Christians between the rules-based Western Christians and the Eastern (love based) Orthodox Church! The Orthodox Church does not go peeking in bedroom keyholes (or any other holes). We are much more concerned about the spiritual sins like SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS, and HATE. Jesus ate and drank with thieves, tax collectors (wait...I said "thieves, didn't I?) prostitutes, and so on. He condemned ONLY the "pillars of the community" and the clergy. When the woman at the well came to Him, living with a man not her husband, He didn't condemn her...He offered Himself as Living Water to her. Jesus would NOT condemn gays for loving someone. It is only the small minded rules-based "Christians" who do that.
Father John at 12:57AM on Nov 19th 2007
13. First Islamic-Fascism --
Now Christian-Fascism.
I am waiting for Buddhist-Fascism:
Love and peace to everyone or else! (LOL!)
That would be cool.
Traveler at 4:46AM on Nov 19th 2007
14. I think he is probably feeling guilty about thoughts he's had in the shower rooms during his past footballer days.
Someone once said that you hate most what you fear in yourself. Don't know who said it but it deserves to be repeated here.
RMWiersema at 8:09AM on Nov 19th 2007
15. re: #6
This is not an attack on Capitalism, private property etc. He's talking about working within the "system"! He's got the right idea - just the wrong target!
The only time that Jesus was moved to take action was to drive the corrupt Money-Changers from the Temple. Sexual matters didn't seem to top his personal concerns!
Robert E. Quillen at 10:06AM on Nov 19th 2007