Apple is one of over 200 big firms to call on the Supreme Court to recognize LBGTQ rights, reports Ina Fried for Axios.
Companies signing the “friend of the court” brief include Adobe, Amazon, Apple, Comcast NBCUniversal, Dropbox, eBay, Facebook, Google, IBM, Intuit, Lyft, Microsoft, Mozilla, Pintrest, Salesforce and Uber.
In all, the companies represent more than 7 million employees and generate $5 trillion in annual revenue.
The companies argue that LGBTQ non-discrimination policies benefit businesses and the broader economy.
“The 206 businesses that join this brief as amicicollectively employ over 7 million employees and comprise over $5 trillion in revenue. These businesses — which range across a wide variety of industries (and some of which are even competitors) — share a common interest in equality because they know that ending discrimination in the workplace is good for business, employees, and the U.S. economy as a whole.”
“When workplaces are free from discrimination against LGBT employees, everyone can do their best work, with substantial benefits for both employers and employees.”
Apple has consistently supported rights for LGBTQ people.
Speaking at LoveLoud festival in 2018, CEO Tim Cook called festival-goers a ‘gift to the world,’ and should not feel that they need to try and be, ‘what someone else thinks is normal.’
Just last weekend a large number of Apple employees including CEO Tim Cook participated in the Pride celebration in San Francisco.
MacDailyNews Take: Tim Cook posted the following Tweet after Pride, San Francisco.
Happy Pride to everyone celebrating around the world! Great to see so many Apple employees marching today in San Francisco! 🌈 pic.twitter.com/lVKrF90HWa
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) June 30, 2019
Apple has pursued this policy aggressively since it was founded, so it is demonstrably good for their business.
No, not always, but…
https://www.networkworld.com/article/2224198/apple-and-steve-jobs-have-long-been-champions-for-gay-rights.html
They are person ergo they have rights, apple, go back to make computers and stop all that SJW nonsense.
I dare anyone who says they don’t have already right to come forward and denounce the crime they were victims of to any police authority and say they did not get full attention to their case.
Apple, Steve Jobs is gone, Scott is gone, now Jonny is gone, what’s left for apple, just a bunch is SJWs? Apple is doomed.
Thank you.
Well stated!!
LOL. sure missy.
In many states you can be fired from a job or refused housing just because you are gay so don’t say rights aren’t being violated.
Apple inc. does not design and build products. Apple employees do that. Like it or not, most of those employees have values more typical of San Francisco, Austin, and Seattle than of Neshoba County MS or Harlan County KY. If they are not members of the LGBTQ+ community, they have relatives or friends who are. Fighting legal discrimination against members of that community is something they expect of their employer. If Apple does not deliver on that expectation, they will move to a company that does share their values. No employees, no products, and no Apple. That isn’t “politics” for Apple and Cook. It is an essential part of the brand.
No. That’s simply not true.
You know you have a choice to not buy their products, not buy their stock, not visit MDN…….
Cook should keep Apple the F out of politics
as should ailes, the cock brothers, breittbart… oh never mind. I don’t expect your mind to be able to process complex things.
CitizenX, I give you a great deal of credit for your constant devotion to complete stupidity.
I see what you did there…. Freudian slip?
No. On porpoise.
Did you hear about the Walrus who got busted for violating the Mann Act?
He was caught transporting underage seals across state lines for immoral porpoises….
What does that mean to the straight common majority? That means they’re gonna put their hands in your pocket. Again.
Whether you believe in the equality of it or not…
Whether you believe in the religious reasons against the equality of it or not…
In the U.S. marriage has been considered a contractual thing — legally not a religious thing. It all started back well over 200 years ago when one of the Carolinas (don’t remember which one) declared in law that marriage in that state was a contractual matter and not a religious or personal belief matter. For about last 100 years or so every state in the U.S. has declared that marriage is a contractual thing.
If you want to get a marriage license you go to a local government office. If you want to get a divorce you go to a judge. Yes, religious figures can perform the ceremony (and in some states even a registered witch can perform the ceremony) or a government official can perform the ceremony. However, in every case that person must get authorization from the government to do it.
So, since marriage is a contractual thing sanctioned by the government, why should religion or personal beliefs enter into whether you can get married or not? Any two legally competent people of legal age can enter into a contract, literally ANY two. Since marriage has already been defined in every U.S. state as a contract, every person who is legally competent and of legal age must be able to enter into a marriage contract.
Nothing else makes any sense.
Polite applause.
Many people don’t understand that concept.
Marriage is a religious practice adopted by government to perpetuate family values. If the government wants to hand out tax benefits to certain groups be my guest… just don’t call it marriage. words matter. We won’t bother you humping your man, woman, plant or dolphin agendas as long as you don’t get involved in taking over religious terms. I think that’s fair.
Actually it is a cultural institution and no one cares about your magic underwear.
Your first sentence is backward. Your last sentence is a straw man argument which is logical fallacy, hence irrational.
Marriage is a religious practice when conducted in a religious institution. In a civil context, it is a legal agreement, nothing more, and it’s primary purpose is assignment of property rights and custody rights over children. Always has been mainly about property.
Particularly when you come to the question of who’s religion should be the arbiter. This is exactly why gov’t has no business considering religious concerns in making policy.
Men can’t be women, and women can’t be men…end of sentence.
It is estimated from official medical records that there are around 6700 births in the US each year where the baby is neither XX nor XY.
What that does for your absolutist denial is anyone’s guess.
Yeah? How many are aborted?
Not as many as are subjected to gender-assignment surgery without their consent, thanks largely to parents and doctors who could not tolerate any ambiguity.
The approximately 0.17% of births where the child has an abnormal chromosomal configuration does not affect the truth of jason’s statement above. Those born genetically intersex usually present as pretty-much-male or pretty-much-female; a truly androgynous person is extremely rare. However, none of these are, by chromosomal definition, “men” or “women,” so the whole thing is moot in any case.
Simple platitudes for simple minds.
Marriage is a civil engagement right created by man (of mankind), not by a higher existence etc (hence nothing religious although Bible etc says a marriage is between a man and a woman). Any set of 2 people can live under one roof and call it a marriage, and nobdy cares or bothers. But in many places in our world, a marriage comes with certain rights and benefits (and some obligations too) mostly financial. This is what gay marrige is going after, and I agree that they have every right to be entitled to it by registering a formal marriage.
But then, what “exactly” is a “marriage” to make people entitled to these rights and benefits?….
Living under one roof, merely a loving relationship, or………
Perhpas have to stay away from complicated thoughts, as coffee is brewing….
Marriage was created by God as being symbolic of His relationship to the church. (The church is God’s bride). The Bible says that marriage is meant for one man and one woman. The state realized that marriage was good for society as it promotes reproduction or healthy families. Because of that, the government sought to promote that with tax benefits. I think the government should get out of the marriage business entirely. Leave that solely up to the church and let the state give tax benefits to whomever it pleases.
I disagree that gay people are simply after the tax benefits. Getting the marriage label demands public acceptance of their lifestyle. Most of use that disagree with the homosexual lifestyle do so for religious reasons and not homophobia and yet are religious principals are labeled with the latter term simply because we don’t give the lifestyle the acceptance the gay community want.
I would only suggest that any and all people be consistent. State exactly what your motivations are. I think the LGBTQ community have been disingenuous about their motivations. The religious community warned in the 80s of all the problems as slippery slope concerns that would lead to what we now see today. Gays then said we just want our tax benefits but they wanted social acceptance. Today their demands of social acceptance are a slippery slope for tomorrow that dissent will be against the law.
If marriage is, in essence and without exception, the Christian sacrament signifying the union between Christ and His Church, what of the great majority of the world’s population who would not describe themselves as Christian? What about persons who call themselves Christians but who disagree with the assertion that same-sex unions can never be regarded as marriages? Are all those billions of people properly denied the legal rights and responsibilities associated with marriage? If so, why should a legal system that forbids the establishment of religion treat Christians who share your theological views more favorably than it treats everyone else?
The phrase “separation of church and state” wasn’t invented by a liberal, but by Roger Williams, founding pastor of the first Baptist Church in America. The separation serves as a shield for the Church and for Christians, not a weapon for persecuting dissenters.
LOL. Sheesh.
From your very first sentence “Marriage was created by God…” you are wrong. Marriage originally had nothing to do with religion, in various forms, it pre-existed the Abrahamic religions by many hundreds of years and was only seriously adopted by the church generally in post medieval times in Europe, having mutated from property transfer and ownership to a declaration of love.
As an avowed agnostic I continue to be amazed how ‘Religion’ claims ownership on marriage, just as it continues to assume itself the only truly moral arbiter, pontificate about education, and trying to influence the legal system. It is all very well that people believe silly things; it’s another matter entirely when they try to influence the rest of us fellow human beings who willingly grant you your rights to believe what you will.
And on the 8th day God created marriage? I missed that one, what with the ancients lying down with their slave maids and consorts and such, lol…..
Also contending saying that all gay people were after was tax benefits is beyond dodgy. They mostly just wanted the whole set of rights that all people forming a legal family have (a family unit with or without children – older people and sterile folk have always been allowed to marry after all).
And you’re right – the LGBTQ+ community does want to be treated and accepted the same as other people. Imagine! The horror!