My stance is that Microsoft should never have been involved in this type of politics to begin with– if they stayed out of it, no one on either side of the issue would have complained.
But they got involved, and some claim that they took the wrong side by staying neutral??? If staying neutral isn’t safe…look out Switzerland!
Why did Microsoft let one lone pastor at a church threaten them and bully them into changing from their Pro stance? Maybe they saw it like this:
1.51% of the population is gay, lesbian, bi, or transgender. 76.5% of the population is Christian. The math seems pretty clear to me. If there were a group to appeal to, it would be the Christians. This vote took place right after President Bush was re-elected in 2004 where it was understood that the Right Religious Groups voted heavily and unified together. If they were to stage a national boycott against Microsoft it would definitely hurt the company and as we know, their obligation is to make money for their stakeholders.
Let’s look at another case: Boy Scouts of America (BSOA). In 2004, the Boy Scouts made a policy (upheld by the Supreme Court) that Gays were not allowed to be troop leaders. There was an intense outcry charging that the decision was an example of bigotry and protests all over the country ensued. Again, this is during the same time period as the Microsoft case. The total membership for BSOA in 2003 (before the new policy) was 997,398. In 2006 (after the new policy) the membership had quadrupled to 3,998,914. Clearly being labeled as “anti-gay” may not be that bad for business.
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Being labeled "anti-gay" HAS hurt the BSA; your statistics are off.
First, Dale v. BSA was decided back in 2000, not 2004 (and first came to national attention in 1998 when the NJ supreme court ruled). Second, BSA membership has been falling since 1998, as you can see from the annual reports on the BSA's website:
http://www.scouting.org/Media/AnnualReports.aspx
2003 was 3,200,218
2006 was 2,868,963
Your figure for 2003 is only Boy Scout membership, without Cub Scouts or Venturing/Sea Scouts, while your 2006 membership number includes Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, Venturing/Sea Scouts, AND all the adult leaders.
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