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Google Gay Marriage

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235 pointsdanso141 comments

Will children be able to draw rainbows free of political and cultural symbolism? Or will the appropriation become permanent, much like the word "gay" which has lost its original English and French meaning?

"The rainbow flag made its debut in 1978 at San Francisco's Gay and Lesbian Freedom Day Parade... The original flag had eight colors, two more than its customary version, each representing an aspect of gay life: red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sun, green for nature, blue for harmony, and violet for spirit."

"In 2006, a straight family in Kansas had to defend flying a rainbow flag at their bed and breakfast from some angry townspeople... Understanding the wider symbolism, the owners nevertheless chose to fly the flag because their young son said it reminded him of the movie The Wizard of Oz, evoking the movie's signature song, Over the Rainbow."

http://observatory.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=7007

The rainbow (though still used in pride events here) has retained a non-cultural symbolism here in Hawaii due primarily to the prevalence of them on a daily basis. It's not uncommon to see people walking around with a rainbow motif on their clothing.

The University of Hawaii has several names for its sports teams, some of which are The 'Bows, Rainbow Warriors, and Rainbow Wahine.

Not to mention everybody has one on their car, as the rainbow's on the license plate.

People can't draw swastikas anymore without invoking political and cultural symbolism. Sometimes groups appropriate symbols in ways that render them cultural signifiers. Seems like a somewhat trivial comment on such an important civil rights issue.

Yes, just like they can draw maple leafs without thinking about Canada. Did red and blue on the American flag ruin the colors for children in the rest of the world?

Children can draw rainbows free of symbolism right now and forever.

Flags are different. Flags always have symbolism, that's their point.

Similarly, children can draw a hammer and sickle for fun if they want. However, should you put it on a flag and fly it in front of your house, don't be surprised if people draw conclusions.

> Similarly, children can draw a hammer and sickle for fun if they want. However, should you put it on a flag and fly it in front of your house, don't be surprised if people draw conclusions.

Even more extreme: Swastikas in the decorative masonry in a government building? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Greca_a_svastica_-_palazzo...) Don't expect much controversy. Swastikas on a flag in the same building? Expect an issue. Something being in a flag or not is an incredibly important context that must be considered.

Swastikas are a little different though. It's been decoratively used for apolitical reasons for thousands of years on all sorts of things, but was only really flown as a flag starting with the NAZIs in the 1920s. There's a lot of architecture, even in Europe involving pre-NAZI swastikas. And before and even shortly after the NAZI party adopted it, it was used a a good luck symbol in the west (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_use_of_the_swastika_in_...).

I think that is quite similar to rainbows though. Use lots of places in a variety of ways for a very long time, but only really use on flags by the LGBT movement.

And religious symbolism. Don't forget that the rainbow is really a symbol of the covenant between Noah and God that He would never destroy the earth in a great flood again.

A rainbow is an optical effect of light passing through a fine mist of water droplets. It has nothing to do with genocidal deities.

quick, somebody think of the children.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh2sWSVRrmo

Are you for real?

Can’t you see quite clearly that in the story you are linking to the bigots are the problem, not the symbol?! Isn’t that obvious?!

The problem there is people who fly flags as vague decorative objects when the entire purpose of a flag is to be a symbol for a specific group or cause.

People who put flags on their house because they like the pretty colors are as tasteless as someone wearing a black armband because they think their outfit needed an accessory.

A rainbow is curved. The Pride flag is not.

> A rainbow is curved.

More specifically, its a circle. Though usually you can;t see the whole thing.

> The Pride flag is not.

The pride flag is a section of a rainbow of infinite radius.

Alternatively, a pride flag is an orthographic representation of a rainbow whose curve is in the direction perpendicular to the viewing plane.

I have a small child who draws rainbows all the time. There's no symbolism or subtext beside the desire to make use of all of the crayons.

Don't worry, the kids are just fine. As are the trout.

What suspicious "political and cultural symbolism" lies behind the rainbow pride flag? Pride, tolerance, and acceptance of other people's sexualities and lives.

Oh my. What ghastly values. What terrible "appropriation".

Words change meaning over time. People create logos and symbols to represent their ideas and points of view. When corporations do it to sell things, it's called branding. When we do it to try and get treated like equals by society, it's called "appropriation". Sigh.

While I know its 4:40PM PST so the supreme court ruling is "old news" already, but I'm disappointed that this is the only related post to the rulings on the top 60 of HN. And it's not even directly about them.

Snowden, on the other hand, dominated HN when it broke and still continues to do so. While HN isn't necessarily political, it often is for matters of liberty. Why isn't this a bigger deal in this community?

Because you can't conspiracy-theorize it. I'm only half kidding.

It's Bed, Bath, and Beyond conspiring to become the biggest economy on Earth.

I don't think you should be disappointed for two reasons.

1) Outrage will always get more publicity than celebratory or agreeable states. That's just human nature. I suspect by it not being big news on HN it is because most of the community supports Gay Marriage or at the least is not offended by it. I strongly support it.

2) it isn't technology focused. The NSA snooping is about misuse of the technology we all hold dear. It's also international, where as a Gay Marriage ruling in the US is really a regional issue, where many of us already live in more enlightened places. NSA snooping through major international sites is an international issue. Even if I'm never in the US, facebook, google, et.al (did I use that right?) affects me too.

So take heart, it isn't that the HN community doesn't care, it is more likely that many of us say 'good, about time', but that man not necessarily prompt an upvote.

Agreed. Imagine HN if the Court had issued a strong ruling with the opposite outcome.

Technology focused? I'll remember that the next time I see a string of "how to run a startup" and "how to raise VC" posts.

Personally, I'm happy there's only one post on HN about it. Generally, discussions of social issues on HN tends to bring out the crazies in force.

Oh come on, you know what he meant. The members of HN are passionate about startups, technology, money, somewhat politics. Gay marriage and other social issues spark little interest. It's understandable.

Because gay marriage has nothing to do with technology, but NSA spying does.

"gay" alone is enough to trigger it. It's been there for some time.

Correct; presumably it's for the month of June (Gay Pride). But it is particularly appropriate in light of today's events.

"hrc" will also do it

As will "sf pride", a reference to the San Francisco Pride parade and celebration, which happens to be this weekend.

But "Commodore 64" won't, which is a shame.

Cool, have fun!

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m58fv5FOIO1qfv6zxo1_500.jp...

!!!NSFW!!! you could have flagged as not suitable/safe for work

Why is it NOT SAFE FOR WORK but it's safe to show up on SF's streets, with children and teenagers all around?

I thought that stood for "Hillary Rodham Clinton" at first, and thought they were being a bit presumptuous there!

(I know she's a supporter of gay rights, but it would be a big leap to translate that into rainbows showing on her google results page)

as will "domestic partnership"

"marriage equality" will trigger it as well.

and "pride festival"..

And equivalents in Polish language (and probably dozen others as well).

and "queer"

and "transgender", which is a nice touch as far as this goes.

actually it's context-sensitive. If you start typing "gay" into the search box on top, the rainbow styling comes on. If you type in something "gay" that has a more negative association, it doesn't. Try entering "gay love" and then "gay hate" or "gay rights" and then "gay bashing".

Hmm, gee, it doesn't do that for me (although I have google auto-complete turned on)...

and "stonewall"

That's fabulous.

it should say, "Did you mean: marriage?"

Exactly! Just marriage. I've noticed that this is happening in Canada already, albeit slowly. Like in this article: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/the-hot-button/brides-re...

...and make sure your HR department is up to speed with the new rules. Hopefully this will make HR admin simpler, since everyone will now be subject to the same set of rules.

The Court's rulings today will have very little effect on the day-to-day of most HR groups, as they operate under state law. As I understand it (IANAL), today's ruling simply means that the feds must recognize any marriage solemnized in any state -- the feds are not allowed to have an exclusive definition of "marriage" anymore, so federal purposes like IRS income filings, etc., will be affected, but not the majority of tangible daily marital benefits, which are administered at the state level.

Unless you live in a state with full-fledged same-sex marriage, your HR dept. is still going to have to differentiate.

How long until the feds step in and make it mandatory for all states to recognize same-sex marriage?

Probably not too long on the macro scale, but I'd still say there's several years to go before it's universal applied.

When Democrats will regain the House and a super majority in the Senate.

What you want to happen will happen through the judicial branch, and the composition of the House and Senate will be irrelevant. I'm guessing three to five years.

> What you want to happen will happen through the judicial branch, and the composition of the House and Senate will be irrelevant.

Last I checked, the composition of the Senate had a pretty big impact on who gets into the judicial branch of the US government.

Sure - but the majority for the decision is already there.

My impression -- and its no more than that -- is that the current court splits 5-4 against marriage equality as a right.

If today's ruling is any indication, never. It would be unconstitutional.

Does anyone expect that to hold? It seems obvious that they just needed something that seemed vaguely like a legal basis to justify the decision. It's at least not as egregious as Griswald, but I definitely think they're reaching with the "feds can't have a custom marital definition". If they're going to say it's illegal for the federal government to define marriage because marriage is a state-level thing, they may as well also say it's illegal for the federal government to consider marital status altogether.

Well and beyond that, they're setting a strong precedent for future state's rights cases. I happen to be in favor of that by the way, despite ambivalence towards this particular issue.

Well, I'd expect it to before the Supreme Court on the merits fairly quickly, now that the Nevada and Hawaii the Ninth Circuit cases that were on hold pending the Hollingsworth and Windsor decisions can move forward.

I was thinking of the California ruling specifically, since I live here and so do an awful lot of tech companies.

Although gay marriage was previously legal in California, between all the legal challenges and the passage of Proposition 8, it didn't become fully normalized for legal purposes (ie regulations that are indirectly affected by marriage laws). Now that process will resume.

Well, the California "ruling" was no ruling. The Supreme Court declined to rule on procedural grounds, so the lower court overruling of Proposition 8 stands.

Incorrect. The Supreme Court did not rule on the substantive issue, but did rule on the procedural question of whether Prop. 8 proponents had standing, deciding that they didn't. If they had declines to rule at all they would not have granted Certiorari.

In any case, implementation of the CA Supreme Court's decision could not go ahead until the USSC had issued its decision; now the state is free to promulgate new rules.

That's rather what I meant. From the NY Times article on the rulings (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/27/us/politics/supreme-court-...):

The case concerning California’s ban on same-sex marriage, Proposition 8, was decided on technical grounds, with the majority saying that it was not properly before the court. Because officials in California had declined to appeal a trial court’s decision against them and because the proponents of Proposition 8 were not entitled to step into the state’s shoes to appeal the decision, the court said, it was powerless to issue a decision. That left in place a trial court victory for two same-sex couples who had sought to marry.

I'm belaboring the point to make clear that the Supreme Court did not rule on Proposition 8 itself.

> In any case, implementation of the CA Supreme Court's decision could not go ahead until the USSC had issued its decision

The actual decision that can now be implemented is a decision of the US District Court for the Northern District of California (a federal trial court that struck down Prop 8 as a violation of the federal Constitution), not the California Supreme Court (the state appellate court who upheld the Proposition as a valid Constitutional amendment and not an improperly-passed Constitutional revision under the State Constitution.)

You're right, thanks for the correction. It's been through so many rounds at this point I get them mixed up at times.

So why doesn't the Full Faith and Credit clause of the U.S. Constitution come into play here?

Section 2 of DOMA expressly released states from the requirement to recognize other states' gay marriages, but if it's struck down, "Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State."

So why wouldn't marriage apply? If it doesn't, I suspect this will be the target of new legal challenges.

[ETA: Apparently Section 2 of DOMA was not struck down. Sorry about that.]

The recent ruling was on the Constitutionality of Section 3 of DOMA, not Section 2. Section 2 is, as yet, still in force.

But, IIRC, recognition of out-of-state marriages without conditions has never been required by the Full Faith and Credit Clause -- this was actually one of the arguments against Section 2 of DOMA.

Not as simple as that.

Though federal benefits cannot be denied to married same-sex couples, state benefits can be if same-sex marriage isn't recognised in the state.

This still presents some headaches for some people and even the most well-meaning of employers.

For instance, imagine if you have a same-sex couple living in a state that doesn't recognise SSM (say, Wyoming) but who married in a state that does (Washington State). One of the two is working for a company just across the border in Washington State, but the other doesn't. Now imagine that the state provides health coverage while a person is unemployed, but it doesn't cover people whose partner's employer provides healthcare. Is the employed partner's health insurance liable for treating his unemployed partner or is the state liable to provide coverage?

What about when a couple is travelling? Is a gay partner covered by their partner's health insurance when visiting a state that doesn't recognise SSM? What about states that have civil unions rather than full SSM?

In Britain, it has been discussed a fair bit this week that even though since 2004 we've had civil partnerships which are supposedly "marriage in all but name", gay people in civil partnerships are still not getting fair treatment regarding pensions. As an openly gay man who might as some point want to get married, I've followed the news and discussions around the legislation on same-sex marriage in Britain fairly closely and I still don't know what the situation with pensions is, but apparently it's still broken.

I think things will be in a bureaucratic mess for a while. It'd probably be easier if it could be legalised across the whole country in one fell swoop... but that might just be wishful thinking on my part.

Oh my.

I suspect this is to counteract the search algorithm problem Google was having earlier that equated "gayest" to "worst": http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/23/google-search-algor...

( But this response is the right response: http://asofterworld.com/index.php?id=710 )

I'm not seeing the connection between the asofterworld post you linked, and this topic.

However, I do think that the page behind the hidden heart is most adorable.

It's implying that one should start using "gay" as a superlative instead of as a derogatory statement.

I don't think there's any direct connection. I highly doubt that those who decided to put this rainbow on google.com for pride month were thinking about that issue. But certainly those of us working in search quality weren't happy to learn about our algorithm synonymizing "gayest" to "worst". It's a tricky problem to solve algorithmically, though, if you think about it. It seems harder to identify such cases than, say, Googlebombs, which were addressed in 2007: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/01/quick-wor...

http://globalnews.ca/news/670794/google-celebrates-gay-pride...

That's the first link I found referencing the fact that June is LGBTQ Pride month but if you look back over time Google has been doing this for years. This year it just happens to coincide with trending search terms due to the SCOTUS ruling. I can't believe I'm the first person to post this.

Google employees frequently participate in Pride parades as a group:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Google_gay_pride.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WorldPride_2012_-_10...

Google have also had a 'Legalize Love' campaign started in 2012 - http://www.google.com/diversity/legalise-love.html

Google also produced a TV ad for Chrome based on 'It Gets Better', and invited Dan Savage to talk at Google about It Gets Better.

So, yeah, Google love the gays. I'd love 'em back but for Google Reader. ;)

I don't find this very great to be honest.

Consider the case of a confused kid looking things up in school or something similar, someone spots the rainbow walking behind him, since its very different from the normal Google and gets outed.

Because searching for current events means someone is a homosexual? I really don't understand how this could possibly risk outing someone.

Outed as being confused? How is this a problem again?

What if a straight kid googled 'gay marriage' just to see what the link on HN was all about and someone saw it? For shame! The horror!!

What if a velociraptor that's allergic to rainbows happened to walk by at that moment and flew into a rage consuming the entire public library with its violence?

What if a bully saw someone looking at a rainbow on the screen and said something stupid and was met with an overwhelming negative response by a large portion of his peers causing him to reconsider previous life decisions?

This game is fun!

The same thing happened to me when I was looking up Starcraft tactics and was outed as a nerd gamer. Worst day of my life.

Kind of ridiculous.

My kneejerk opinion is roughly similar.

"That's great! Wait, what happens if I'm in a country where being gay is illegal? Do I really want some searches to be highlighted so visibly?"

But I still think it's great they've done it.

See @charonn0's response.

As a formerly deeply-closeted gay teen, I'm confident that currently-closeted youngsters will consciously avoid performing such a search in a public place.

That's what being closeted is: it's more than just not telling people you're gay/bi/etc. It's about actively managing and monitoring others' perception of you, and the mortal dread of being found out.

Speaking as a formerly closeted person, this is an exact thing I did in school because I didn't want my parents to find out, since they are deeply Christian.

    As a formerly deeply-closeted gay teen

Should have been "former". I haven't been a teen for quite a while now.

I can back this up. Being in the closet is by no means passive.

Yikes. I don't think you're saying kids should be ridiculed for investigating LGBT topics at school, or that they should be ridiculed for being perceived as an LGBT person, but that this may be more likely to happen since this draws visual attention to the fact that you're actively searching for a "gay"-related topic.

There are times when I would browse /r/lgbt (please go to /r/ainbow instead) and had to make sure I was logged into to avoid the custom stylesheet because it would warrant far too much attention for anyone walking behind me while using my laptop.

Either way, not sure if you got lumped in with the pseudo-bigots in this thread but I tried to help you out.

I just want to say that I am extremely happy about the court's ruling!!!! omg omg so happy!!!!!!! FINALLY!!

Somewhat off topic but for Easter Google did what? http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57577171-1/google-cesar-...

It's their site and all but as a business they should be more inclusive. Ironic since billions of people are (at least nominally) Christian and most probably observe or note Easter.

Supporting gay marriage always bring more popularity than almost any other cause

No offense but popularity among who exactly, the Silicon Valley crowd? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_of_same-sex_marr...

Christianity has over 2 billion "members" worldwide and Easter is a major holiday.

So what? Islam has 1.5 billion "members" and I don't recall any special Ramadan doodles.

In short: not everything is about Jesus. Hopefully, this trend will continue.

Just going to throw this out there but I think it would be really cool if they DID include a Ramadan doodle...

I'm a Christian and I think it's cool when I see a religious and non-Christian theme. It helps to make me more aware of other religions and their holidays. You may think that's strange for a Christian, but it isn't actually. Just strange for the ones you hear from in the media.

>> So what? Islam has 1.5 billion "members" and I don't recall any special Ramadan doodles.

Not sure if they are any doodles for Mohammed or Ramadan in Arabic and largely Muslim countries but I don't see why they should be any in countries where Islam barely registers. That applies to any other religion of course. Google would be insane to put a Christmas doodle in Pakistan, Indonesia or Saudi Arabia for example. Local sensitivities should apply.

>>In short: not everything is about Jesus. Hopefully, this trend will continue.

Like I said, this is Google's page but simply because they did it doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. Google surely loves to take boatload of adwords money for Easter and Christmas. Why do they respect local sensitivities when it comes to making money?

Can you imagine the righteous Christian indignation and uproar that would ensue if Google ever turned down money from some Christian advertiser on the basis you suggest?

You're really going very far out of your way to be offended by Google.

> Not sure if they are any doodles for Mohammed or Ramadan in Arabic and largely Muslim countries but I don't see why they should be any in countries where Islam barely registers

OTOH, why not? Spreading knowledge is usually a good thing...

As long as <non-local-religious/cultural-event X> doesn't conflict with something local, and isn't the sort of thing that raises local hackles (a few things do; most things, not really), why not show it, and teach some people a little thing about another culture...?

These numbers are highly exaggerated. For example, the largest christian church has more than 1 billion members (member=baptized) and I don't think that currently there is any way of officially leaving the church after being baptized...

The right of apostasy is considered part of the ICCPR treaty[1], so it should be respected by all the parties. At least here in Portugal, you have the right to demand they stop using you in statistics and such.

Of course, most people don't bother even if they aren't actually religious, so the Church still claims 80% of us are Catholic, even though many don't even get married in a religious ceremony anymore, much less attend mass.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy#International_law

Indeed, that makes me wonder how many non-Christians there are worldwide. And how many people that are opposed to the Christian religion...

5 billion?

You're right: it is off topic and it is their website.

I don't think that's irony.

From what I've gathered, they've never really "doodled" anything that could remotely resemble a religion in the event that it looks like they endorse or favor it over others. Cesar Chavez was a civil rights activist akin to MLK or Gandhi so it seems pretty apt that they'd honor him in a doodle.

EDIT: Looks like I was wrong about religious-based doodles. But it still stands that they don't have to pander to a certain segment of the population (especially a major one) on an annual basis. Personally, I feel the doodles are more about educating and informing. I often come across doodles that represent some person or thing that I had no idea about before and find myself clicking on the doodle and the subsequent links it pulls up as part of the search. Seems like it's not always about celebrating the most commonly known ideas/people.

    "From what I've gathered, they've never really 'doodled' 
     anything that could remotely resemble a religion..."

Maybe that's policy now, but it hasn't always been. They've done easter: http://www.google.com/doodles/happy-easter-2000

In fact, having already done Easter was part of their response to this "controversy" -- there were two subjects for the same day, so they picked the one they hadn't already featured.

They doodle Christmas, saint Valentine's day, and all saints eve every year. Easter is the only commercialized Christian holiday they don't cover every year.

It is likely not a coincidence that it is also the least secularized of those.

Christmas usually isn't "Christmas", it's a generic holidays-themed doodle:

http://www.google.com/doodles/search?query=christmas

Such a shame that Google chose to offend a bunch of people with nothing better to do than be offended.

How does highlighting Chavez (the American farm worker advocate, not the Venezuelan ex-president) slight Christians? Heck, Cesar Chavez himself was Catholic.

Insofar as it matters, Google did have an Easter doodle back in 2000: http://www.google.com/doodles/happy-easter-2000

So you can't even say they've ignored the holiday, just that they prefer to highlight different ones from year to year (with exceptions presumably due to internal popularity or artists' personal predilections).

(Sorry for wasting thread space on this old, off-topic, manufactured controversy.)

Invariably when you hear about a "war on Christianity" in first world countries, the topic is a manufactured non-issue. It never stops, and logic plays no part in it.

Dude, they're having a hard enough day. My heathen-self can now marry and remotely, instantly ruin their marriage. POOR THEM JLGRECO, POOR THEM.

I should not have been so insensitive! :/

If you look at divorce rates by religious affiliation, they seem to be ruining their own marriages.

> In first world countries

Is that a thing outside the US ? I've never heard of it outside of US news.

I'm pretty sure they are people who beleives that in other countries. But do they get media attention like in the US ?

I don't think it is a talking point outside of the US (if it is, I have not been exposed to it), but people in the US do like to point out what they perceive as "a war on christianity" in other countries.

If the country in question is, I don't know, Cambodia, perhaps that is true (no idea if it is or not). But if the American christian fundamentalists are claiming that there is a war on christianity in England or France, then they are without doubt full of shit.

It seems like there is a certain brand of christian fundamentalist in America that really wants to think that the Romans are still tossing them to lions or something. They find that idea vindicating perhaps, I don't know. I don't get it.

> Christian and most probably observe or note Easter.

This was already on HN at the time: There is no agreement on a date for Easter.

indeed. It is a moveable feast: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moveable_feast

Different segments of Christianity celebrate Easter on different dates, even in the same year.

> There is no agreement on a date for Easter.

Sure there is.

In fact, there are several agreements among different subsets of Christianity.

There's also no agreement on a name for the Christian holiday celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. Most of my Orthodox friends call it "Pascha" (and set its date based on the Julian calendar), and my Messianic friends consider it part of the larger "Pesach" (or "Passover" when they decide to communicate it in English). Some simply call it "Resurrection Sunday".

They have done the Easter Bunny before, Easter egg hunts and suchlike. They just didn't do it this year. They don't mark gay pride every year either, that I'm aware of.

There hasn't been an Easter doodle since 2000. The doodle team goes to great lengths to avoid recognizing people/subjects that are controversial (not that this is always successful)

You know what would be inclusive? Acknowledging that not everybody is Christian, and being OK with the Google home page celebrating something other than your Christian holidays on occasion.

You know what would be inclusive? Acknowledging that not everybody is Christian, and being OK with the Google home page celebrating something other than your Christian holidays on occasion.

You know what would be inclusive? Acknowledging that not everybody is for Gay Marriage, and being OK with the Google home page celebrating something other than your pro-Gay Marriage ruling.

Personally I am barely a "believer" and don't oppose gay marriage but your argument made no sense. No doubt you can find people opposing Mandela, Mother Teresa and even Einstein, so no doodles for them to be inclusive?

You are being obtuse; Einstein, Mandela, and gay marriage are not religious topics. I would expect that they would tread lightly around Mother Teresa, being not only a religious figure but a particularly controversial one (read: accusations of human rights issues. Proper heavyweight controversy.)

I'm not saying "omitting Easter is inclusive because not everyone is Christian". I'm saying allowing Easter to be overshadowed by something else occasionally is inclusive. If it has to be about you every time, year after year, that's not inclusive.

Not everyone supports gay marriage and not all opinions are deserving of the same amount of respect. It's OK for companies like Google to have the courage to have an opinion.

Would you be saying the same about "it's OK for companies like Google to have the courage to have an opinion" if Google was taking the opposite stand?

I'd prefer mega corporations staying out of social issues. Produce social value by making great products, not political advocacy.

Absolutely. It's OK for Chick-Fil-A to have an opinion, too.

Google has employees. Some of them are gay. If 15.4% of the San Francisco population identifies as GLB (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_demographics_of_the_United...), we could probably assume that a significant minority of Google employees are gay.

This is an issue of direct relevance to many of those that work at Google. I think it's fine for corporations to take a stand on social issues that directly affect their employees.

The problem isn't with companies having opinions, even political ones. There are opinions I disagree with, but am OK with companies having. And then there are opinions of a lower quality, like those that are hateful and based on superstition. To those, I object.

I think what we should understand is corporate tries really hard to be socially acceptable (some of the ways are marketing themselves as champions of women rights, equal opportunities, LGBT community supporters). It is up to them as to what stand they want to take on a matter. It would be even more courageous if they take the opposite stand on this particular matter precisely because people would howl, cry and do what not.

Mandela: https://www.google.com/doodles/south-african-freedom-day-201...

Einstein: https://www.google.com/doodles/albert-einsteins-124th-birthd...

You seem to be creating a mountain out of molehill. The design they have is targeted at certain searches - not on their main landing page.

How many more replies before everyone figures out they're being trolled. By a throwaway account that's not even hiding it no less.

The pride UI isn't on the homepage, and shows up when you type in a query that indicates you're interested in gay marriage, gay rights, HRC, etc.

During the holidays a holiday UI sometimes shows for [christmas] that has appropriate Christmas decorations

Google has had a front page logo for many christian celebration days, like Christmas. Given this, you're acting incredibly entitled by hijacking a thread for your pet issue to complain about a rainbow color around the search box for a specific search term. Google is already giving much much more attention to Christianity than to gay marriage, but you demand more.

So they should show symbols of Pagan symbols of renewal?

I can't stand the way Google just gloms their brand onto things.

Oh how we love our toys and trinkets.

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