Apple's Tim Cook and Salesforce's Marc Benioff DECLARE WAR on anti-gay Indiana

Re: It's never black or white.

The state hasn't banned gay people, they've allowed private business to decide who they do business with. This is more freedom, not less, and less government, not more. This leaves business to operate as they see fit, and to succeed or fail depending on the will of the people who transact with them. That's more democratic than having a government tell us what we can and can't do, and far more democratic than having a CEO tell a government what they can and can't tell people to do. Are you sure it's a good thing when CEOs use their influence over government, rather than over the public?

Re: It's never black or white.

"Is Apple's influence such a good thing when thinking about corporate tax laws, the 100+ billion they're hiding in tax heavens?"

It's interesting how erroneous memes start with loose thinking. Apple are frequently cited in articles on tax avoidance (perfectly legal) these days, so it seems reasonable to make the sweeping statement they are hiding 100+ billions in tax havens. Except they aren't. They are keeping their money in the jurisdictions where they earned it and not moving it to the U.S. because when you move money doing so attracts tax. When no tax is due, there's no point in moving money back to the U.S. or any other place in the world, until you need it there for a reason. Otherwise if you later need to move your money elsewhere in the world you will have needlessly paid tax where it simply wasn't owed in the first place.

Indeed Tim Cook is on record as stating Apple do not use financial instruments for side-ways effects on tax (do not use instruments for effects other than their intended purpose - so no loans from one Apple subsidiary company to another to reduce profit margins in higher tax jurisdictions ) and they do not move money to to jurisdictions it isn't needed other than for the purpose of tax reduction. Those are actually pretty strong statements and deserve to be acknowledged. Especially when certain competitors who are trying to claim the moral high ground and do make use of financial instruments purely for their sideways tax effects and do move money to tax havens when it is not required there to cover any genuine operational costs. Google I'm looking at you.

Re: It's never black or white.

Suppose you're a photographer and you turn down a gay couple because you're already booked for the given weekend or you decided in advance to take that weekend off.

Suppose you turn them down because the other couple pays more, or you decide to cancel the vacation because a friend comes by asking for that specific date.

They sue you for discrimination.

You lose the lawsuit because that's how things roll.

--

Think about it. If you *can* win that case, then businesses have all the right to discriminate against anyone they don't want to serve. It's just that they need to provide a different reason for refusing business.

However, if you can only lose that case, then gay couples can walk to any photographer and demand pictures being taken for one dollar (or at cost), and if you refuse, they'll sue you to bankruptcy. And don't even think about turning up at their wedding and taking lousy pictures. They'll sue you for that, too.

Re: It's never black or white.

Really? That's what business is for or should even remotely be involved in social issues? Because Halliburton was interested in securing freedom by supporting our troops for our country and our allies but I bet you were a nut job over that weren't you...

Liberalism is a mental disorder!

Re: Torn

Peopl with no ethics throw money at the democratic process, like big polluters, tobacco, etc. So why not someone promoting rights?

Re: Torn

But they're private businesses, exercising their freedom to discriminate against State governments belonging to a weird cult.

Re: Torn

You raise an interesting point. If next week, a law is passed to tell these two CEO's that they must do "something" that goes against their grain, such as (and I'll be off the wall) "pay the employees more equitably", do you think they would stick up for this? Right now, it's in their interest to be socially responsible, maybe next week... not so.

Re: Indiana, WTF?

The side effect of this is that there is a booming trade in stickers saying 'We serve Everyone' being sold to businesses.

Then those that aren't are going to start to suffer with reduced business.

Do they deserve it?

The words

you reap what you sow

Seems to be quite apt IMHO having had a few incidents in the US over the 40years I've been going there. Common Sense is almost totally absent in a large part of the US especially (IMHO) amongst those who watch Fox News.

Re: Indiana, WTF?

My exact thought.

Moral issues aside this creates a contradiction between contract, company code (something every large company has) and local law. This automatically raises a red flag for a large company in terms of operating there (as I said - this if we put the moral issues aside and look purely at the liability aspect).

Large companies have provisions to deal with this in on a country basis and they are quite expensive to maintain. If they have to do the same on a per-state basis they will scream murder. And in this case they did.

Re: Indiana, WTF?

As I understand it, they didn't pass a law that explicitly says that discrimination is legal. The law they passed was phrased as a means of allowing shop owners and employers to protect their religious beliefs. The enablement of discrimination is a loophole result (which may or may not have been the original intention of those that riased the bill) by not forcing them to serve people who's belief/lifestyle-choise/way-they-were-born offends the religious sensibility of the store owner.

Indiana is a very 'bible-belt' kind of state though. Pro-religion and pro-replublican, for the most part.

Re: Indiana, WTF?

The law allows private businesses to pick and choose their customers without the risk of being sued by publicity hungry political groups. essentially this is already the law in the UK

Should a synagogue be allowed to refuse to rent a room for a neo-nazi meeting?

Can a church hall turn down a booking from satanists?

Can a French restaurant turn away a UKIP member

Re: Indiana, WTF?

>>>

Do they honestly think a law like this could do anything but harm, could do anything but cause further divisions and unrest? Who actually benefits from this?

<<<

There is an odd subset of politicians (mainly Right Wing) who seem to think that Bad Things can simply be legislated out of existence. The thought process seems to be that if you ban gays, then homosexuality (which they see as a choice) will some how disappear. Some of them have banned reporting on climate change, or even using the phrase "climate change".

You can judge how successful these campaigns to deny basic human nature are, because for many years we have had laws against murder and prostitution. And if you look around our society, you will surely agree that no-one ever gets murdered or becomes a prostitute.

Re: Indiana, WTF?

"Putting rich, egocentric, media hugging CEOs aside for a moment, if Indiana really has passed a law that legalizes discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people, then what the hell were Indiana's lawmakers thinking of?"

You _do_ know that Indiana was the state which passed a law making pi equal to 3.2, don't you? There is nothing too bizarre for Indiana to do. Nothing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill

Indiana lawmakers do not, cannot, think.

You think this is more true now than in the 1920s when Carnegie and Rockefeller ran thing?

Or the 1950s when "what was good for GM was good for the USA"

There are usually loud voices arguing against corporate influence of government. They must have taken the week off.

@Jai: Is the Shiawase Corporation happening already?

I thought we still had a few years yet before that was due to come to pass? If they're getting an early start on that whole FusterCluck, I need to move hoop to stockpile as much APDS rounds, Panther rounds, MedKit Supplies, & Trauma Patches I can find.

Thanks for the tip Chummer, I'll find some PayData to sling your way in gratitude...

Mines the one with the NovaTech ComLink in the pocket... =-)p

I take exception. Corporates are not people, they are businesses. I don't believe any corporation should be involved in politics or interpreting the Constitution as to rights, etc. Just because it might be the right thing to do in this case, can anyone guarantee that for the next thing?

Part of the reason we're in the mess we're in now is due to politics and business and also politics and religion. Those mixes are bad news for those who get in the way and it's generally the people.

While I'm on a rant.... those who want to practice this discrimination, etc... are they really that much better than those who want Sharia Law? I see the same narrow-mindedness in both groups.

Yeah... I'm a dreamer.

@jal - "It's all a bit cyberpunk, isn't it, when Corporations can have a direct influence on political policy. Not even via the behind-the-scenes funding and lobbying, this is Big Corporations publically announcing the way they want the laws to be."

Well, as I recall this has been going on forever. Back in the 50s the chairman of GM was quite cozy with Eisenhower and when called out about it quite famously said "What is good for GM is good for the country and vice versa."

"in 10, 20 or 30 years, does government just become an administration office, responcible for managing and implementing the will of the top 20 Corps?"

Doesn't exactly this happen now?

It's all a bit cyberpunk, isn't it, when Corporations can have a direct influence on political policy.

Good lord, how naive can you be? Do they not teach critical thinking where you come from?

Corporations have had "a direct influence on political policy" since the concept of the corporate business was invented, just like every other organization with significant resources.

And that is as it should be, in a democratically-appointed republic, where the ostensible goal of the political system is to make decisions (by proxy) through deliberation. Now, opinions differ on the potential quality and rationality of deliberative democracy; some (I'm looking at you, Jurgen Habermas) have rather aspirational hopes for it, while others are more cynical. But you can't believe in any sort of democratic practice without acknowledging the essential nature of that deliberation, which is always and only rhetorical action.

And that, in turn, means the people who comprise organizations will make statements in the name of those organizations, and people who are prominently associated with an organization will speak under its aegis. Organizations are a source of ethos.¹

And we want that to be overt, because the alternative is to push it under another layer of indirection, with corporations and other organizations influencing the political sphere through proxies.

¹The traditional Aristotelian view of ethos as the audience's recognition of the speaker as "good" (moral, upstanding) is obviously too limited, and the term - where it's still found useful - is used for any sort of argumentative weight that comes from real or presumed credibility, reputation, or association.

Re: Cook ... came out publicly as gay late last year And Cakes ...

You are posting on a Technology comment forum - I very much doubt you (or any of us) look like a "fit" anything

:)

Re: Cook ... came out publicly as gay late last year And Cakes ...

@Mage the guest house couple were only refused after they had turned up in the evening expecting to be able to sleep in a bed. There are gay-only hotels and a gay resort, I've been refused entry to a club for being straight, refused a taxi ride and been excluded from parts of gyms for being male, so I support the general principal (it would be homophobic and misogynistic not to support discrimination!) but nobody should support them refusing service at such a late stage.

Re: What next in the name of religious freedoms?

>Stoning of the blasphemous?

>Human sacrifices?

>Slaughtering the non-believers?

Probably. Which side are you talking about?

Christ was killed for "blasphemy" and human sacrifice is consistently mentioned as being a reason God brings sooner-than-expected judgement down on the heads of the "heathen" as well as his own people. The term "religion" is useful for bashing opponents with straw-man arguments without having to listen to what they have to say. Why listen to anyone's views when you can dismiss them as cannibals?

Does everything have to descend into soundbites? The law is to stop people being forced to aid and abet behaviour they disagree with. This isn't about the what people are, its about what they do. We don't expect National Geographic to accept advertising promoting creationism, it was explicitly created to evangelise evolution. We don't expect Environmental PR companies to promote Big Oil.

Just because I sell cakes commercially, why should I be forced to make them to promote things I disagree with? What if I'm asked to make a cake to honour everything Thatcher did, I could be prosecuted? How about one celebrating Blair's decision to go to war in Iraq? Do we so worship money that all else is rendered unimportant? Looking at Apple's cash-pile I can see what they worship. I don't berate them for their success, but I see no reason not to assess their character based on what they do with that success. If they (or even just TC) want to "do good" they could play less politics regarding who can have what opinions on sexual habits and spend a lot more cash on bringing clean drinking water to a very large number of villages where people are dying for lack of it.

I guess talk is so much cheaper.

Re: What next in the name of religious freedoms?

"Stoning of the blasphemous?

Human sacrifices?

Slaughtering the non-believers?"

You presumably work in ISIS's PR dept?

Re: Hypocrisy or stupidity?

"Hypocrisy or stupidity?

Apple say they can't support a law which leaves people free to run their business as they like"

There are lots of laws in place to deny bosses the freedom to run their businesses as they like. The purpose of most of these laws is to force business owners to behave more decently: to permit workers to have holidays, to ensure that workers' safety is maintained, to prevent pollution, to ensure that businesses pay tax, and all sorts of other things conducive to society's overall benefit.

Denying business owners the freedom to run their businesses as they like is a Very Good Thing.

Government makes these laws, of course: government is how civilised people arrange their society for their benefit. Government in any given place might not work particularly well, but properly organized democratic government is simply we the people deciding how we want to run society and of course one of the points of government is to take away individual liberty for the greater good.

And yes it IS for the greater good that individuals should be denied the right to murder, rape, steal - and to be denied the right to break health and safety laws, pollute the environment, evade tax, or use their bigotry as an excuse to prevent someone enjoying a full part in society alongside everyone else.

The only thing wrong with anti-discrimination legislation in my book is that it doesn't protect enough people.

"The solution to the gay marriage "problem": get government out of marriage."

That is probably the silliest idea Craigness has put forward yet.

Because government regulates marriage, benefits result: married couples have legally enforceable rights and responsibilities towards each other and their children; married couples also have rights as a partnership which others are legally obliged to honour.

If you take government out of marriage, then all that useful social structure falls apart - and to be replaced by what, exactly?

A hodge-podge of a myriad different arrangements, with half the nation refusing to recognise the various marriages concocted by the other half? And no-one with any legally enforceable rights and responsibilities towards their partners and their children?

This is a solution, is it? I think not.

Governments do useful things and for now, though I am an anarchist in my soul, I'd rather live somewhere with a government than without.

Re: Pehaps

> Pehaps we should replace the words 'Gay' 'Lesbian' and 'transgender' with the word 'Black' when reading this bill

>Because then it would be rightly tossed in the garbage bin where it really belongs

No it wouldn't. Although perhaps prompted by aggressive "equality" legislation which does try to get involved with sex and the exercise of morality, it isn't about gays or lesbians or sex in general.

You could actually read it, rather than just retweeting or reading the opinions of those with an agenda or a need to generate news. I think this is it:

http://iga.in.gov/static-documents/9/2/b/a/92bab197/SB0101.05.ENRS.pdf

For a legal document, its very short and relatively easy to read. Probably shorter and easier to read than Apple's Terms & Conditions on their latest iTunes patch.

Re: Nazis in America?

> we should replace the words 'Gay' 'Lesbian' and 'transgender' with the word 'Black' when reading this bill

> Because then it would be rightly tossed in the garbage bin where it really belongs

Maybe you should actually read the bill instead of buying into the hype... those words do not appear anywhere in the bill.

http://iga.in.gov/static-documents/9/2/b/a/92bab197/SB0101.05.ENRS.pdf

Re: Pehaps

The words 'Gay' 'Lesbian' and 'transgender' do not occur in the enacted Indiana law. In essence, the law prohibits, within Indiana, any government action that burdens an individual's free exercise of religion unless the government can demonstrate that the burden is the least restrictive way to further a compelling state interest. It could equally be used as defense by a business whose owner followed a religion that dictated that Blacks or Jews or Muslims or Christians were not to be dealt with.

The law likely will be used by a small number of businesses to discriminate against gay, lesbian, or transgender customers by declining service to them. Most businesses are conducted for the purpose of earning money, however, and will not concern themselves with the sexual orientation of their customers as long as the latter pay promptly. Some will announce, as an earlier poster noted, that they proudly serve all. They are likely to gain business at the expense of the discriminators but may lose some who are offended by that. The net effect, but for decisions by angry convention organizers and non-Indiana businesses to punish the state and its people, probably would be all but invisible.

Re: Pehaps

"we should replace the words 'Gay' 'Lesbian' and 'transgender' with the word 'Black' when reading this bill"

Surely they can just add it in?

Re: It's just the hallmark of a Good Employer

The law, as written, does not establish or endorse any discriminatory action by the State of Indiana. It does permit a probably quite small number of people or businesses to discriminate on the basis that serving some customers (by assumption those who are gay, lesbian, or transgendered) is a religious conflict. It also is worth noting that the law covers only actions taken by Indiana government entities or by individuals based on Indiana government action. In particular, it does not apply to protections established by the federal government.

Re: Ban Craigness for freedom's sake

I expect Craigness would support The Reg's freedom to ban him. The real irony, though, would be when you trumpet it as a victory for tolerance.

Re: Ban Craigness for freedom's sake

Hmm.... on the one hand, everyone wants tolerance. On the other, banish for expressing a viewpoint. If you don't like what he says, either refute it or don't read it. Sort of like dealing with trolls.... but in this case, I'm not sure he's trolling.

Re: This is why the law is needed

So what you are saying is that society should shut up and just accept bigotry?

"This is why this law is needed": industry move out of Indiana

Look at this response from @W.Anderson to understand the attitude this organized effort has to achieving their goals. If they do not received what they want they wish upon and want to impose any and all punishment. They have no tolerance for a person whose faith says decide they should not be a party to something. Like it or not, this is the result of the "Gay Agenda" being pushed down everyone's throat. You wanted to call man-man & woman-woman unions marriage although for thousands of years its been between a man and a woman. You had to have the validation and used the courts and not the lawmakers to achieve it. If you would have come up with "your own word" for this civil union there would be more support. But, this bill isn't just about homosexuals, it is about a business deciding who it wants to do business with, without that business being harassed by government like seen in the District of Columbia and other cities where they pay laws requiring businesses to not discriminate. There are ridiculous comments all throughout the comments for this article like "replace the word gay with black" and now the religious zealots will discriminate against them. These comments are grounded in ignorance and the writers are probably deceived. If you knew the Truth which is God's word, saved by the blood of Jesus Christ so the word was in you and your actions were born out of this Truth then you wouldn't make these statements. Jesus Christ is God and God is pure and Truth. God judges the unsaved but the saved are to judge the saved so these constant statements of "Don't judge one another" is an ignorant understanding of Gods word used by the unsaved or deceived to manipulate others by misquoting Gods word. God judges the unsaved and the saved are not to because by being unsaved you are lost (God says this, not me). They will go to hell no matter if they were girl scouts and boy scouts, no matter if they lived their lives doing good things (as you hear at every funeral along with the proclamation they are in heaven) - if they, if you don't accept Jesus Christ as your savior you WILL go to hell. Now, for the saved, you can be deceived. Ah yes, this is a tricky one. One way to see who is following God's word (picking up his cross, dying to self and follow Jesus) is by the fruit they produce. God is Love but He is also Justice and Pure. You can be gay, a thief, an adulterer, into pornography, selfish, and any other sin where you fall short of God's glory. God loves you as you are His but He will hold you accountable for these shortcomings. I don't know how this is played out in our lives nor in heaven. The bible isn't clear (at least to me) but we do know that God disciplines his children. Christians should limit association (be unequally yoked) with the unsaved and those who want to live in their sin. Jesus told the prostitute to "Sin no more". She was forgiven of her sin but God said to go forward living for Him. This prostitute, along with all of those I listed above who sin are (should be) welcome by Christians and by churches as we all (those who are saved) fall short.

"This is why this law is needed-Part 2": industry move out of Indiana

I'll step back from the sermon as that wasn't my intent but it just happened and say that it the above that I believe and if I choose to turn down business that is me denying to self but giving God glory because He says marriage is between a man and a woman and that homosexuality is an abomination. What you do in your house is not my business. If you want civil unions for tax and other financial benefits along with legal access to each others life should be easily accomplished. But, the comments in this article show there is no tolerance for my beliefs while you demand I tolerate yours. Some day I will deny and answer to my Lord. I will have many things to answer for but Jesus died on the cross for me which is my Hope and my Salvation. What is your Hope? God's word doesn't change. You can re-write the bible and replace words if you want but if we destroyed ALL bibles in the world, it wouldn't matter as Gods word is infallible. By the way, there are many Christians to include the Disciples of Christ, Presbyterian, Methodist and the Episcopal churches who are acting on emotion and not in adherence to Gods word.

What you say appears correct, but is overridden by the fact that federal civil rights law supersedes Indiana law in the matter of discrimination against black people and women. I am not, however, a lawyer.

Why stop with blacks? You are clearly trying to stir the pot. Let's include the Asians, Hispanics, all Africans, Middle East descent (Persian & Arab), Indians (India), Gypsies from Romania, oh and the American Indian. You can surely get your "Ferguson" like reaction from one of these groups can you not?

Presumably employees of any enterprise are also allowed to discriminate against whomsoever they please by the rights of religious freedom?

You can't get on the bus of which I am the driver? You can't swim in the community pool because I'm the ticket seller? At the checkout I won't ring up the bottle of wine because my religion forbids me to handle it? I won't teach kids about evolution because my religion doesn't believe it? As a teacher I expect to beat kids because my Bible says do not "spare the rod"?

Does Six_Degrees not mean "trailer capital"?