Apple CEO, Tim Cook, has come out as the first openly gay CEO of a Fortune 500 company.
“Let me be clear: I’m proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me,” he wrote in a column in Bloomberg Businessweek.
Congratulations, Tim! And it’s great to see you acknowledge, along the way, how America has changed and become gay-positive over the last several decades:
The world has changed so much since I was a kid. America is moving toward marriage equality, and the public figures who have bravely come out have helped change perceptions and made our culture more tolerant…
Part of social progress is understanding that a person is not defined only by one’s sexuality, race, or gender.
Although it’s not so great, Tim, that you still couldn’t stop yourself from playing the Gay Victim card like a drama queen:
Being gay has given me…a window into the challenges that people in other minority groups deal with…
…there are laws on the books in a majority of states that allow employers to fire people based solely on their sexual orientation. There are many places where landlords can evict tenants for being gay…
I challenge GP’s readers to post in the comments, any examples of U.S. / State “laws on the books” that positively or specifically authorize “employers to fire people based solely on their sexual orientation.”
As for the bit about landlords and tenants: It’s also known as freedom of association, Tim. It’s a good thing because *you* get to have it as well; or at least you *should* get to have it (I am aware that the State of California unfortunately denies everyone that freedom).
All of this got me wondering: How do Americans compare to the rest of the world, in attitudes toward gays/homosexuality? Pew Research has the answer (hat tip, Zero Hedge):
Note how, in the above list of 40 countries for 2013, all of the Islamic or Muslim-majority countries were at 78% disapproval or higher (Egypt at 95%). Compared to 37% or much less, for the U.S. and Western Europe (Spain at 6%). Fascinating.
Tim, one measure of tolerance is that a majority don’t give a rat’s (or any other creature’s) ass about your ass or any other aspect of your personal life. You’re not important. Your gayness doesn’t give you a claim to my sympathy, my respect, or any other aspect of how I do or do not interact with others. Your corner office isn’t a closet, so shut up and get back in there and design something. Oh, that’s right, you don’t actually do anything — you just talk a lot and ‘run things’. I will watch closely as Apple slowly begins to fail under your tenure w/out Jobs to watch over you and you will be the first gay CEO of a Fortune 500 to be ousted. I laugh at you, nouveau riche nerd.
What Ignatius said, +1000.
Regards,
Peter H.
And one more thing, Tim: If your homosexuality is a ‘gift’, i.e. something you were born with, why are you ‘proud to be gay’? Proud of what, a hormone abnormality? A genetic aberration? Pride should be earned and you, by your own conceited explanation, were merely given your sexuality. No, Tim — what you consider your pride is merely something decades of a gay agenda insists is your identity and it is a lie. Whether you understand that is either a crime or a tragedy, but it’s no cause for celebration. Now run along.
I’m still turning over this bit in my mind:
It could only refer to general employer-freedom laws; laws that let employers hire/fire people as they may happen to see fit.
In other words: Tim Cook is opposed to general employer freedoms, as to hiring and firing. Tim Cook is opposed to employers being able to exercise their own judgment, without monitoring or surveillance or interference from The State, as to hiring/firing. Tim Cook FAVORS monitoring, surveillance and interference from the State, on employer hiring/firing – and God knows what else? (Because State interference is like potato chips; people rarely eat just one.)
For a CEO to hold such views is fairly horrifying. (even if common)
Yeah…right….’laws on the books’….
Why is it that so many think that because there is no law against doing something that there must be a law that favors it or vice versa?
No wonder we thinks rights come from government, rather than being innate.
Clue Tim: There. Are. No. Laws. On. The. Books. Stating. That. Discrimination. Against. Gays. Is. Allowed. A lack of a law specifically protecting gays does not discrimination make.
In fact, isn’t there a law that says a person is allowed to exercise their religious beliefs? So, where do you stand, Tim, on forcing clergy, bakers, and photographers to violate their religious beliefs? Beliefs which do no harm to gays at all? Where do you stand on that, Tim?
Oh forget it. Just shut up about it, Tim. We really don’t need to know your feelings about it, any more than we need Barbra Streisand dictating foreign policy to us.
I would bet that many don’t think it. They’re just playing a cheap rhetorical trick, trying to give people a misleading impression.
My two cents on the whole employer-employee thing:
If an employer fires a gay employee, more often than not, it’s probably because of performance issues, not sexuality.
If, however, an employee’s sexuality is the cause of the termination, then it’s probably for one of two reasons: the employer’s business is promoting a certain religious viewpoint, or is operating by a certain religious code, and homosexuality is not compatible with that code. Even then, the employer may keep the employee in question provided he/she does not publicly thumb his/her nose at the employer’s requests. I speak from experience: one of the teachers at my Catholic high school was gay. The administration was aware, but permitted him to teach provided that he did not contradict Church teaching homosexuality in class or bring his live-in boyfriend to the school. He violated both stipulations and was fired. That’s a rather clean-cut matter.
There is also that matter of the employee being fired for their sexuality because of prejudice on the part of the employer: the business does not have a code of conduct that forbids homosexuality, the employee’s homosexuality does not impede their performance. The employer just doesn’t like gays, and doesn’t want any working for them. And if that’s the case, why would a gay person want to work for such an employer anyways?
And then there’s the situations where the employee’s sexuality was, in fact, disruptive. Maybe the employee was guilty of sexual harassment, or the employee’s behavior was otherwise disruptive.
Long story short, a gay person’s employer should either not know (why should they?), or the employee’s homosexuality does not hinder workplace performance or violate a workplace values statement that the employee was made aware of prior to accepting the job, and the employee isn’t doing stuff that would get a straight man fired on the spot. And if your boss flat-out thinks you’re scum, why would you continue to work for your boss?
Just my thoughts. I think their pretty reasonable, but what do I know? I don’t make burnt offerings to Hilary, She-Who-Will-Be-Queen, like the good little queers.
I know one guy who being gay is a gift from god to. The only jobs he ever got over min wage where from guys he slept with, & recently he slept with the vice pres of a college to get into a degree program.
Your gay drama shouldn’t take up more time than your breaks allowed.
And I’m proud to be left handed.
Media pretends there would be no arrests if white football players held down black and put their fingers up their rectum, just like when the 28 blacks gang raped an 11yo white Hispanic girl in Houston. The only reports of anal gang hazing in the US are committed by blacks.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/question-looms-sayreville-did-race-play-role-hazing-case-n236626
ISIS is supposedly quitting using his phones.
The Saudis, too.
I wonder if this boycott will cascade or be “just pretend.”
(I say that because Israeli goods are routinely repackaged for sale in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Muslim world, just so people won’t be offended.)
“there are laws on the books in a majority of states that allow employers to fire people based solely on their sexual orientation. ”
thank god for this, the workplace is a dreadful enough workplace even without drama queens and people constantly lecturing you about how their special snowflakiness dependent on how they use their genitals.
“…you will be the first gay CEO of a Fortune 500 to be ousted…”
FWIW, this title has already been claimed. Robert Hanson was CEO of American Eagle Outfitters for about a year before there was a nasty infight on their board that led to his ouster. They were a Fortune 500 company (at the time; now they are in the 600s I believe) when he was appointed as the first openly gay CEO.
What can an openly gay CEO of Apple do for me that he couldn’t do if he were not openly gay?
Since I am not cult bound to Apple, I would like to believe that I could switch for a better brand without being a homophobe.
I don’t think there are any laws that call for the firing of anyone lest they steal, damage company property and/or image or threaten coworkers with bodily harm.
But Tim Cook’s statement has and will cause a ripple effect.
Happy Halloween!
http://i1124.photobucket.com/albums/l569/rusty98119/IMG_20141031_073752_zpssfggk78n.jpg
“14.What can an openly gay CEO of Apple do for me that he couldn’t do if he were not openly gay?”
whine in your ears until you drop dead about his victimhood status
But for me problem is that Mr. Tim Cook gave two contradictory statements: one “I’m gay!” second “Don’t define me based on my sexuality”. First say that when you see Tim Cook you should see first of all “a gay”, second say don’t treat him like gay. If Mr. Tim Cook said something like “I’m person with homosexual feelings” this may mean that his homosexuality is only one of his features.
But this is normal for liberal and left way of thinking; they say that they want world without judged based on “one’s sexuality, race, or gender” and at the same time built world where you are strict define by your sexuality, race, or gender.
Why is being gay so positive a thing for an Apple CEO that he should be lauded, but giving money to supporters of Proposition 8 is so negative a thing for a Firefox CEO that he should be ousted?