Wear Nikes, Drink Coors, Fly Boeings. Just don't buy Microsoft.

Over at New Frames, they've got the story that Microsoft just withdrew it's support for an anti-discrimination bill that would afforded protections to gays and lesbians in Washington state. Why? Because a local evangelist threatened a worldwide boycott. The bill just failed 25-24.

It is unthinkable that one of the world's most powerful corporations caved when threatened by an evangelical pastor from a mega-church. The pastor, Ken Hutcherson, a former washed up NFL line-backer, met with a top executive from Microsoft in February and threatened that he would organize a national boycott against Microsoft if the company didn't pull its endorsement from the bill. ...

Microsoft claims that they did not base their decision on "any external factors" and claimed that this year they want to focus their "resources and efforts on a limited number of issues," ones that most closely align with their "business objectives." That's a bunch of crock if I ever heard it. In the meantime, companies that supported the bill were Boeing, Nike, Coors Brewing, Washington Mutual, Hewlett-Packard, Corbis, Qwest... just to name a few.

Discuss this at New Frames.

[Editor's Note: That's right, comments are closed on this topic. We're using this 'elsewhere' feature to point folks to other good stuff in the blogosphere, but we're not interested in grabbing their traffic. So, going forward, we'll ask you to comment on these posts over there. Also, while you're there, have a look around. Never know what you'll find.]

April 22, 2005 Posted in elsewhere.