Florida Agenda

On Saturday, Internet giant Google launched its “Legalize Love” initiative, with a purpose, according to dot429.com, “of inspiring countries to legalize marriage for lesbian, gay, and bisexual people around the world.” Although initially targeting Poland and Singapore, Google plans to expand the campaign to every country where it conducts business—so pretty much everywhere, except perhaps North Korea—focusing on areas with homophobic history, laws, and culture.

According to a company rep, “We want our employees who are gay or lesbian or transgender to have the same experience outside the office as they do in the office. It is obviously a very ambitious piece of work.” That spokesperson told dot429.

com, “Singapore wants to be a global financial center and world leader and we can push them on the fact that being a global center and a world leader means you have to treat all people the same, irrespective of their sexual orientation.”

The corporate dominoes are falling, ever falling, with Retail America focusing their efforts on the lucrative LGBT market, and its attractive buying power. JCPenney, which flexed its gay muscles when it hired openly gay Ellen DeGeneres as its spokeswoman, also debuted an ad in its May catalog featuring a lesbian couple, and followed up in June with a gay Fathers Day-themed campaign. (The JCP catalog is received monthly by 14 million consumers.) The retailer also sponsored a float in last month’s New York Gay Pride parade. Macy’s Inc. also has a long record of supporting LGBT rights and of advertising in gay media (including the Agenda).

Last month, discount giant Target began selling greeting cards marketed to same-sex couples, including such fare as a wedding card that reads “Mr. & Mr.” It was just two years ago that the retail chain was condemned by LGBT activists for contributing $150,000 to conservative politicalaction committee MN Forward, which supported Republican Tom Emmer, a gay marriage opponent who was a candidate for Governor of Minnesota.

In addition to its commitment to social responsibility, LGBT spending power is an attractive incentive for major retailers to “come out.” According to Witeck Combs Consulting, approximately 16 million gay adult Americans possess an estimated spending power this year of $790 billion. That translates to $49,000 per capita in greenbacks for Pink America.

By Bob Kecskemety

Microsoft has joined dozens of corporations, organizations and governments in support of a challenge on the constitutional grounds of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The friend-of-the-court brief Microsoft, and 70 other organizations filed late last week points out the significant costs and administrative burdens DOMA imposes on employers as well as the ways DOMA interferes with employers’ efforts to promote diversity and equal opportunity in the workplace and harms their ability to attract and retain talent.

The businesses and organizations, which include Starbucks, Google, Time Warner, CBS, Nike along with several cities, filed the brief in the case of Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. US Department of Health and Human Services. It is one of two consolidated cases from Massachusetts challenging the constitutionality of DOMA.

In 1996, Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as between one man and one woman. It bars the federal government from treating same-sex marriage as legal or granting gay couples federal benefits. This means that same-sex couples, who get married where same-sex marriage is legal, aren’t eligible for the benefits that come with federally recognized marriage such as filing joint federal tax returns or social security and immigration law benefits.

Same-sex marriage is only currently legal in the states of Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Washington DC and Vermont.

There are about a dozen cases around the country challenging DOMA. The joined Massachusetts cases, currently before the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, are the first to reach the federal appellate level, just one step down from the U.S. Supreme Court, according to The San Francisco Chronicle.

The friend-of-the-court brief said in part:

“Our enterprises are located in states, including the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, that recognize the marriages of our employees and colleagues to same-sex spouses.

At the same time, we are subject to the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which precludes federal recognition of these marriages.”

Companies have complained that when a same-sex couple legally gets married, it requires them to maintain two sets of books because the couple is considered married under state law but not married under federal law. The double entries, they say, ripple through human resources, payroll and benefit administration.

In a major shift in policy, earlier this year, President Obama directed the US Justice Department to stop defending DOMA and Attorney General Eric Holder sent a letter to Congress to inform them that the Justice Department will now take the position that DOMA should be struck down as a violation of a gay couples’ right to equal protection under the law.

“The President and I have concluded that classifications based on sexual orientation warrant heightened scrutiny and that, as applied to same-sex couples legally married under state law, a crucial provision of the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional,” Holder wrote.

Also earlier this year, it was rumored that Coca Cola pressured its law firm, King & Spalding, from defending DOMA in court. King & Spalding were hired by the Republican-held Congress to defend DOMA in court. However, Coca Cola is one of King & Spalding’s largest corporate clients. Coca Cola is not one of the 70 organizations which filed the brief in the U.S. Circuit Court.

The companies that joined in the friend-of-the-court brief filing before the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston are:

ABT Associates, Aetna, Inc., Akamai Technologies, Inc., Alere Inc., Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, Biogen Idec, Inc., Blue Cross Blue Shield of Mass., Inc., Boston Community Capital, Inc., Boston Medical Center Corp., Bright Horizons Children’s Centers LLC, Calvert Investments, Inc., CBS Corporation, The Chubb Corporation, Communispace Corp., Constellation Energy Group, Inc., Diageo North America, Inc., Eastern Bank Corp., Exelon Corp., FitCorp Healthcare Centers, Inc., Gammelgaden, LLC, Google Inc., Integrated Archive Systems, Inc., Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group, LLC, Levi Strauss & Co., Loring, Wolcott & Coolidge Trust, LLC, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co., Massachusetts Envelope Company, Inc., Massachusetts Financial Services Company, Microsoft Corp., National Grid USA, Inc., Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc., New England Cryogenic Center, Inc., NIKE, Inc., The Ogilvy Group, Inc., Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Partners HealthCare System, Inc., Reproductive Science Center of New England, Skyworks Solutions, Inc., Starbucks Corp., State Street Bank and Trust Co., Stonyfield Farm, Inc., Sun Life Financial (US) Services Co., Inc., Time Warner Cable, Inc., Trillium Asset Management Corp., W/S Development Associates LLC, Xerox Corp., Zipcar, Inc., Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, The Boston Foundation, Massachusetts Association of Health Plans, Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, Inc., The National Fire Protection Association, Out & Equal Workplace Advocates, Retailers Association of Massachusetts and by the following cities: The City of Boston, MA, The City of Cambridge, MA, The City of New York, NY.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA – A Google search for Santorum has generated some inappropriate results ever since gay columnist Dan Savage organized an online campaign to link graphic sexual terms to the socially conservative senator’s name. Several of Google’s top search results would offer sites with the following information: “A frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex.”

The presidential candidate has reached out to Google to remedy his problem but he said that Google has refused to help.

“I suspect if something was up there like that about Joe Biden, they’d get rid of it,” Santorum said. “If you’re a responsible business, you don’t let things like that happen in your business that have an impact on the country.”

A Google spokesperson has responded to Santorum’s charges: “Google’s search results are a reflection of the content and information that is available on the web. Users who want content removed from the Internet should contact the webmaster of the page directly.

Once the webmaster takes the page down from the web, it will be removed from Google’s search results through our usual crawling process.”

MOUNTAINVIEW VIEW, CA – For the next few weeks, if you type in the word “gay”, “lesbian”, or “transgender” in a Google’s search box, you’ll get a rainbow along with results. It’s Google’s way of honoring gay pride month

and will be available for the next few weeks.

This is not the first time Google has shown their support during gay pride month. For the last two years, Google added a rainbow bar below the search box.

In a written release, a Google representative wrote: “Google supports its LGBT employees in many ways: raising its voice in matters of policy, taking a moment to remember the plight of transgender people around the world and going the extra mile to ensure that its employees are treated fairly.