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However several posts in one day all spewing the same identical
information on the same identical subject with absolutely no change in
content from one multi posting day to the next is SPAM!!!
Tommy, we have had this discussion before. It will stop now or I will
stop it permanently.
Mark, the Costa Rican Moderator.
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If you're among the fair-minded Americans who believe that two men or
two women should be able to wed, there's an easy though slightly
caloric way to express that. Get a caramel macchiato. Maybe make it a
venti. Then get another tomorrow.
Starbucks, you see, is under fire for its public support of the
same-sex marriage legislation that recently passed the State Senate in
Washington, where the company has its headquarters. That legislation
is expected to clear the House as well and be signed by Gov. Christine
Gregoire in the next few weeks. Washington would become the seventh
state in which such marriages are legal.
The Christian conservatives who have been trying to stop that aren't
pleased. They're involved in an effort to gather enough signatures to
suspend the law's implementation until a voter referendum can be held.
In the meantime, Steven Andrew, the president of USA Christian
Ministries, has called for a national boycott of the coffee chain,
saying that while its executives "can follow Satan if they want to,"
God-fearing Americans shouldn't join them on that caffeinated road to
hell.
I mention Starbucks not so much to rally to its defense as to make a
point about same-sex marriage, enacted in New York last June and now
under serious consideration in Maryland, Maine and New Jersey. It's
the future. And the response of corporate behemoths based in the state
of Washington reflects that.
In addition to Starbucks, Microsoft and Amazon spoke up for same-sex
marriage. All have surely taken note of several polls over the last
year suggesting — for the first time — that a slight majority of
Americans supports it. All have no doubt taken even greater note of a
generational divide. In a Gallup poll, 70 percent of people in the
18-to-34 age range favored same-sex marriage, while only 39 percent of
people 55 and older did.
More so than politicians, corporations play the long game, trying to
engender loyalty for decades to come, and they're famously fixated on
consumers in their 20s and 30s.
They see support for same-sex marriage as a winner, something that
will help with employee recruitment as well. On Microsoft's in-house
blog last month, the company's general counsel, Brad Smith, explained
its backing of the Washington legislation in part by noting "an
unprecedented national and global competition for top talent."
Microsoft, he said, doesn't want to lose potential recruits to states
with fairer laws.
Corporate recognition of a rapidly changing world isn't limited to the
coasts or to companies widely considered progressive. While J.C.
Penney, based in Plano, Tex., hasn't waded into the same-sex marriage
debate, it recently hired as a pitchwoman Ellen DeGeneres, an
outspoken advocate of gay rights who is married to the actress Portia
de Rossi. On Friday, in the face of pushback from (you guessed it)
Christian conservatives, it reaffirmed its commitment to her.
DeGeneres is also a pitchwoman for CoverGirl makeup.
A growing number of politicians presumed to have sights on higher
offices and elections down the road seem to read the trend lines and
tea leaves the same way companies do.
Andrew M. Cuomo, the New York governor, didn't just assent to marriage
equality. He led the charge for it, guaranteeing that it would be a
cornerstone of his gubernatorial legacy. Gov. Martin O'Malley of
Maryland, the chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, is
following suit. He devoted parts of his State of the State address to
an appeal for marriage equality, and has tweeted about it repeatedly.
The issue plays out in quieter ways, too. In Washington, final-hours
support came from State Senator Brian Hatfield, a Democrat who
considers himself a devout Christian and who said in a statement that
he "went as far as to ask God for a sign." It came, he said, in an
e-mail he got from former State Representative Betty Sue Morris, a
fellow Democrat, who recounted how much she regretted a vote she cast
against same-sex marriage in 1996 — and why.
She shared her story with me on the phone on Monday. "In December of
1998," began Morris, 70, who then started crying. "Excuse me. I just
remember it so vividly. My beautiful daughter, Annie, was home for
Christmas, and she told us that she was gay."
In the days that followed, Morris said, she remembered her vote and
"felt like I had denied her something. A wholeness. A freedom."
"Here's this precious child that you love and you care for," she
added. "You don't want to be a part of making them grieve for
anything."
As it happens, she said, Annie didn't even remember the vote. Now 47,
she lives in California and married her longtime partner in 2008, just
before Proposition 8 overturned the state's short-lived same-sex
marriage law. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to rule
imminently on the proposition's constitutionality.
Morris told me: "Whenever someone opposes this, I always counsel: you
never know. You never know when it will be your child or your
grandchild. And you will eat your words."
•
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Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
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Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
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* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
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