The internet search engine, Google, says it opposes a marriage protection law in the US state of California.
In November, as US citizens go to the polls in a general election, the citizens of California will be asked to vote on a marriage protection measure, known as ‘proposition 8’.
Prop. 8 would amend California’s state constitution making it clear that only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognised in California.
In 2000 over 61% of Californians voted in favour of adopting the same language: “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”
But earlier this year judges in San Francisco overturned the people’s vote, arguing that it was unconstitutional. This opened the door to ‘gay marriage’ in the state.
So now, voters are being asked to amend the constitution to protect marriage.
Now Google has stepped into the argument by announcing on its official blog that it opposes Prop. 8.
Sergey Brin, a Co-founder & President at Google, posted this yesterday:
“As an Internet company, Google is an active participant in policy debates surrounding information access, technology and energy. Because our company has a great diversity of people and opinions — Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, all religions and no religion, straight and gay — we do not generally take a position on issues outside of our field, especially not social issues. So when Proposition 8 appeared on the California ballot, it was an unlikely question for Google to take an official company position on.
“However, while there are many objections to this proposition — further government encroachment on personal lives, ambiguously written text — it is the chilling and discriminatory effect of the proposition on many of our employees that brings Google to publicly oppose Proposition 8. While we respect the strongly-held beliefs that people have on both sides of this argument, we see this fundamentally as an issue of equality. We hope that California voters will vote no on Proposition 8 — we should not eliminate anyone’s fundamental rights, whatever their sexuality, to marry the person they love.”
Earlier this month, Google settled out of court with The Christian Institute over the issue of pro-life abortion ads.
It changed its policy world-wide to allow religious groups to place factual and campaigning ads on the issue of abortion.