Gay rights group asks Microsoft to return award
Company blasted for ending support of bill
Saturday, April 23, 2005
By ELIZABETH M. GILLESPIE
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A gay and lesbian advocacy group that gave Microsoft Corp. a civil rights award four years ago has asked the company to give it back, blasting the software maker for withdrawing its support of a state bill that would have outlawed discrimination against gays and lesbians.
Darrel Cummings, chief of staff for the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center, said in a statement yesterday that Microsoft appeared to have yielded to anti-gay extremists.
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The bill banning discrimination against homosexuals in housing, employment and insurance failed by one vote in the Senate Thursday.
Ken Hutcherson, pastor at Antioch Bible Church, met with Microsoft in February, threatening to launch a national boycott of its products if it didn't come out against the bill, according to a Thursday story in the Seattle weekly The Stranger.
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In a story published yesterday, The New York Times reported that the bill's sponsor, Rep. Ed Murray, said Microsoft's top lawyer told him last month that the company was feeling pressure from Hutcherson and was concerned how its Christian employees might react if it supported the bill. Messages left with Hutcherson and Murray were not returned yesterday.
In Other Seattle News
Pair who beat gay man get 11 1/2-month terms
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER STAFF
Two men convicted of beating a Seattle man because he is gay were sentenced yesterday to just under a year in jail.
In June, Micah Painter was beaten and cut with a broken bottle in an assault by a group of men, one of whom first asked whether he was gay before attacking him.