Most companies generally have a press release and a mission statement ready when it comes to a political issue. It’s full of nice thoughts and a contribution to some highly visible charity and that’s pretty much it.
Google, apparently, has gotten big enough that it’s decided to start weighing in on the culture wars. In a move sure to trigger a thousand email forwards about the gay agenda from your crazy aunt, Google has stated they’re going to start lobbying against laws on the books that ban or severely restrict homosexuality:
The program, called “Legalize Love,” began in Singapore and Poland, and will eventually expand to all countries where Google has an office. Google is specifically targeting countries where homosexuality is illegal.
Yeah, there are still a bunch of those around, believe it or not.
Google is doing this for practical reasons — it essentially just flat out states that it can get better employees in places that aren’t potentially committing civil rights abuses. And nobody thinks Google is going to magically change the government of Singapore or Poland, their first two countries, tomorrow.
On the other hand, Google has three very important advantages. One, it’s enormous with a huge war chest it can throw at this. Two, people would very, very much like to make Google happy. And three, they can get a message out to millions of voters through ways politicians can only dream of.
We fully expect this initiative to be treated intelligently and tastefully by the kinds of people who make TV commercials about gay people summoning storms because they’re wizards or something.
(Image courtesy qwrrty on Flickr)