Already a pro-LGBT company, Google is taking things a step further with Legalize Love, a campaign it launched this weekend aimed at addressing LGBT inequality and discrimination around the world.
“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,” Google executive Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe said at the Global LGBT Workplace Summit in London. “It is obviously a very ambitious piece of work.”
The campaign would be aimed at countries that have laws criminalizing homosexuality on the books, like Singapore, as well as those, like Poland, where discrimination against the LGBT community is rampant. “Singapore wants to be a global financial center and world leader,” said Palmer-Edgecumbe. “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 project will eventually expand to every country Google has an office in, and will see the Internet giant—already ranked one of the best places to work by the HRC—partnering with other corporations and human-rights groups, rather than developing advocacy groups from scratch.
There’s business sense behind it, too: As Palmer-Edgecumbe explained, an unfriendly environment in a given country means Google sometimes can’t put the best person for the job in place.
Dennis Velco
Thanks for this article and your reporting. What you do is appreciated.
I posted it to my LGBT Group on LinkedIn to spur members to read your article and to make comment. I also scooped it at Scoop.It on my LGBT Times news mashup.
Link to group >> http://www.linkedin.com/groups/LGBT-Gay-GLBT-Professional-Network-63687/about
All LGBT+ and community allies…. please come join me and 14,500+ of your soon to be great friends on LinkedIn. The member base represents 80% of the world’s countries. As well as the down stream in my LInkedIn personal connections that reach over 22 million potential live stream viewers on LinkedIn.
The group is strictly professional office friendly dialog, posting and profiles / profile images. I’ve been told by many that it may well be one of the best run / managed groups on LinkedIn.
You can be as out or private as you like and I provide instructions on how to set those preferences (In the Manager’s Choice area).
It’s core value is – Visibility can lead to awareness which can lead to equality. Come stand with us and increase our visibility on the globe’s largest professional networking site. Be a professional who just happens to be LGBT – or a welcomed community ally.
1equalityUSA
Thanks Google!!!!!! You are all that and a bag of chips.
Paul
Thanks for the link, Dennis! And yes, Google, great big thank you!!!
UsualPlayers
Funny how that logo that’s supposedly “LGBTQIA” only shows male-male and female-female pairings. Google is engaging in bisexual erasure, and Queerty, as usual, cheers the biphobes on.
Tom
@UsualPlayers: dude it has the bisexual flag in the drawing
UsualPlayers
@Tom: So? As far as I can tell, that’s just a convenient way of relegating bisexuals to the “background” while still claiming to “include” them. Wake up, will you?
Red Meat
@UsualPlayers: Why don’t you just tell us to vote for Romney and shut up?
UsualPlayers
@Red Meat: Because I don’t think you blockheads would know a good piece of advice if it hit you on the head.
Paul
@UsualPlayers: @UsualPlayers: Oh for Chrissakes…is this the Aquarelle mess under another of her personalities? It’s like whack-job central here lately.
UsualPlayers
@Paul: You didn’t do too well in high school, did you? I’m NOT a Republican, that post was ***ironic***. Seems you should direct your bitching towards your high school English teachers, not me.
Paul
@UsualPlayers: WTF r u talking about?? What a fucking train wreck…
UsualPlayers
@Paul: Eloquent. You’re right. Your English teachers have nothing to answer for.
1equalityUSA
You ended that sentence in a preposition
hamoboy
In all seriousness, there is a lot of bisexual erasure (particularly male bisexual erasure) out there, but this logo isn’t one of them. Good for Google. They have a long track record of being one of the best companies to work for.
F Stratford
Some morons in this website just see offense when there is none. I’m tired of people accusing everyone of biphobia and transphobia.
For the record, if most bisexuals are not pretending to be straight, bis would be just as visible as gays and lesbians. But it seems that many bisexuals are content binding as straight men. If you have anyone to blame for your relative non visibility, it’s the bisexuals who are “straight” who can’t be bothered to step out of their comfort zone
Kev C
Bipeds are animals with two feet. Bisexuals are animals with two reproductive organs. Prove me wrong.
UsualPlayers
@1equalityUSA: Looks like you haven’t checked out a style handbook published in the last three decades.
UsualPlayers
@Kev C: So … everyone except hermaphrodites is a homosexual?
And hermaphrodites are nothing but bisexuals?
Kev C
@UsualPlayers: Hermaphrodites are male/female, Bisexuals are just doubles.
UsualPlayers
@Kev C: You weren’t sufficiently clear about what you meant.
Ron
considering the success they had with Chinese censorship,
I don’t think we should hold our breathes waiting for the results.
Adam
@Kev C: The word can mean either things, but most people use the word as in someone who is attracted to members of both genders.
Hank
Thanks Google! Google is raising awareness that love is not gender based; but this is a battle that has been going on for a very long time as can be seen in a warning from a 16th Century Italian poetess on our inherited reality:
“We are born into this inherited reality with it’s rules and unchallenged agreements, duties and obligations, obeying all the rules of God and country, for no biblical hell could ever be worse than this state of perpetual consequence, for you cannot have life without chains and our station determines the size of the cage, but, none the less a cage; and love is not possible in the world that has been created where it is forbidden to express how one feels, where we are forced to seek refuge in the world of dreams, finding more ecstasy in passion than in prayer, such passion is prayer, to melt into the dream, beyond this troubled place, to where we are not even ourselves, you call God’s greatest gift, ourselves, our yearning, our need to love, you call it filth and sin and heresy, as we search for joy and happiness in the arms of another.”
Lyndsey Garza
Dan,
I wanted to express how much I enjoyed your article on July 8, titled “Google Introduces ‘Legalize Love’ Campaign to Fight Anti-Gay Laws Worldwide”.
Something that really stood out for me, while reading, is your emphasis on how “ambitious” this movement is — even though there’s dollars, cents and sense behind Google’s initiative. Google is already regarded as one of the best companies to work for and by partnering with other companies and human-rights groups, Google will become the best company for all — not only the heterosexual. This in itself is a powerful stance. If Google cannot place a person best fit for a job, due to their sexual orientation and the discrimination in the country, this means less qualified (but perhaps heterosexual) individuals are given special priority. This isn’t how business should run. The best person for the job should land the job based on merit and not what happens behind their own closed doors. Countries like Singapore and Poland are going to have to embrace equality in order to compete as a global leader in today’s society.
I wanted to share with you a clip that you might find interesting. I think the video could really add to your coverage and I think your audience will enjoy.
“Google Launches Legalize Love Campaign”
http://www.newsy.com/videos/google-launches-legalize-love-campaign/
The clip does a great job of concisely sourcing and compiling news reports to emphasize the scope and context the content being reported on. Newsy synthesizes and analyzes news into neutral comprehensive video clips showing a variety of opinions on the story.
I hope you will embed this video into your blog and maybe in the future, we could swap blogroll links and widgets.
Thank you so much for your time and consideration. I look forward to working with you in the future,
Lyndsey Garza
Community for Newsy
Twitter: @newsyvideos
http://www.facebook.com/newsyvideos
Tom
@UsualPlayers: are you insane?? the gay and lesbian part of the logo is just as visible as the bisexual part. wow you really have an issue with a good thing for some reason. Many of my bisexual friends are delighted with this logo your just filled with rage it seems and would like to take it out on what you can.
UsualPlayers
@Tom: In other words, you’re a biphobe who gets his kicks by practicing bisexual erasure. Why don’t you go join Fred Phelps at the Westbore Baptist Church or Michelle Bachmann’s staff? I’m sure they could always use one more bigot.
Tom
@UsualPlayers: I am far from a biphobe, my boyfriend who i love is bisexual, i have no issue with bisexual people clearly. Also i fucking hate the Westbore Baptist Church and Michelle Bachmann. So stop with your rash judgments and accept a good thing.
UsualPlayers
@Tom: “I am far from a biphobe, my boyfriend who i love is bisexual.”
Right. Just like the racist who says, “How can I be racist? I used to date a black guy.” Your words are the words of a rabid biphobic bigot. The fact that you’re dating a bisexual guy just makes your biphobia all the more unforgivable.
UsualPlayers
@Tom: “I am far from a biphobe, my boyfriend who i love is bisexual.”
Right. Just like the rac!st who says, “How can I be rac!st? I used to date a black guy.” Your words are those of a rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth biphobic bigot. The fact that you’re dating a bisexual guy just makes your bitter, bilious brand of biphobia all the more unforgivable.
Tom
@UsualPlayers: I really hope you do not take yourself and your comments seriously. You are acting as if you know who I am with your rash assumptions. If you are serious i would hope you do not act like this in your day to day life or your going to get yourself killed. And no, i am not a biphobe because i love and support my beautiful bisexual boyfriend, however that is not enough for you so ill just say this… i am not a biphobe or any other phobe because i support equal rights for everyone, i love everyone for who they are and am on my way to becoming a social worker who will fight for the rights of everyone no matter their background, sexual orientation, religious views, age, gender, race, or ethnic origin. I would even fight for people like you, people who are bitter, and try to put down others in hopes that someday they would realize their wrong doing and help change others like them for the better. THIS is how i know i am not a biphobe.
UsualPlayers
@Tom: Rick Santorum couldn’t have said it better.
Tom
@UsualPlayers: I am beginning to think you are Rick Santorum. Anyways i have to go volunteer at my university lBgt center now. I thank you for entertaining me.
mudgeboy
Thanks Google. Soon homophobes will be such a minority that they’ll slip away into the night …