April 22, 2005

Microsoft Comes Under Fire for Reversal on Gay Rights Bill
By SARAH KERSHAW

EATTLE, April 21 - The Microsoft Corporation, at the forefront of
corporate gay rights for decades, is coming under fire from gay rights
groups, politicians and its own employees for withdrawing its support for
a state bill that would have barred discrimination on the basis of sexual
orientation.

Many of the critics accused the company of bowing to pressure from a
prominent evangelical church in Redmond, Wash., located a few blocks from
Microsoft's sprawling headquarters.

The bill, or similar versions of it, has been introduced repeatedly over
three decades; it failed by one vote Thursday in the State Senate. Gay
rights advocates denounced Microsoft, which had supported the bill for the
last two years, for abandoning their cause. Blogs and online chat rooms
were buzzing on Thursday with accusations that the company, which has
offered benefits to same-sex partners for years, had given in to the
Christian right.

"I think people should feel betrayed," said Tina Podlodowski, a former
Microsoft senior manager and former Seattle city councilwoman who now runs
an advocacy group for AIDS patients. "To me, Microsoft has been one of the
big supporters of gay and lesbian civil rights issues, and they did it
when it wasn't an issue of political expediency, when it was the right
thing to do."

Microsoft officials denied any connection between their decision not to
endorse the bill and the church's opposition, although they acknowledged
meeting twice with the church minister, Ken Hutcherson.

Dr. Hutcherson, pastor of the Antioch Bible Church, who has organized
several rallies opposing same-sex marriage here and in Washington, D.C.,
said he threatened in those meetings to organize a national boycott of
Microsoft products.

After that, "they backed off," the pastor said Thursday in a telephone
interview. "I told them I was going to give them something to be afraid of
Christians about," he said.

Microsoft's decision not to endorse the anti-discrimination bill and its
meetings with Dr. Hutcherson were first reported Thursday by The Stranger,
an alternative weekly newspaper in Seattle.

The bill, which had passed in the State House, would have extended
protections against discrimination in employment, housing and other fields
to gay men and lesbians. It was supported by other high-tech companies and
multinational corporations including Nike, Boeing, Coors and
Hewlett-Packard.

Microsoft officials said that the recent meetings with the minister did
not persuade them to back away from supporting the bill, because they had
already decided to take a "neutral" position on it. They said they had
examined their legislative priorities and decided that because they
already offer extensive benefits to gay employees and that King County,
where Microsoft is based, already has an anti-discrimination law broader
than what the state bill proposed, they should focus on other legislative
matters.

"Our government affairs team made a decision before this legislative
session that we would focus our energy on a limited number of issues that
are directly related to our business," said Mark Murray, a company
spokesman. "That decision was not influenced by external factors. It was
driven by our desire to focus on a smaller number of issues in this short
legislative session. We obviously have not done a very good job of
communicating about this issue."

"We're disappointed that people are misinterpreting those meetings," he
said.

But State Representative Ed Murray, an openly gay Democrat and a sponsor
of the bill, said that in a conversation last month with Bradford L.
Smith, Microsoft's senior vice president and general counsel, Mr. Smith
made it clear to him that the company was under pressure from the church
and the pastor and that he was also concerned about the reaction to
company support of the bill among its Christian employees, the lawmaker
said.

Mr. Smith would not comment for this article.

Representative Murray said that in a recent conversation with Mr. Smith,
Mr. Smith said that the minister had demanded the company fire Microsoft
employees who testified this year on behalf of the bill, but that Mr.
Smith had refused. According to Representative Murray, Mr. Smith said
"that while he did not do the many things that the minister had requested,
including firing employees who had testified for the bill, he believed
that Microsoft could not just respond to one group of employees, when
there were other groups of employees who felt much different.

"My refrain back to him was that this is a historic moment, that I only
had a few weeks, and I wanted Microsoft to do the right thing," the
legislator said. "Their concern, he said, was that obviously they were
hearing from fairly conservative employees who were connected to this
minister. They needed to sort out how they were going to deal with those
problems."

Representative Murray said the company's contention that the decision not
to support the bill had nothing to do with the church was "an absolute
lie."

A Microsoft employee who said he attended a meeting this month with Mr.
Smith and about 30 employees, most of them gay, said that Mr. Smith
discussed his meetings with Dr. Hutcherson and left the impression that
the company was changing its policy on the bill as a result of those
meetings.

"Brad was very clear that the decision to be neutral on the bill was made
subsequent to his meeting with Ken Hutcherson," said the employee, who
spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared retribution from the
company. "My gut feeling is that the pastor and his threat of a boycott
and the general sensitivity around this issue was a factor in this
decision."

He added, "At the meeting, what Brad told us was that Microsoft made its
decision on the bill between the first and second meetings he had with
Hutcherson."

The Washington bill was one of several similar bills being debated in
state legislatures across the country, which remains divided on social
issues like same-sex marriage.

Dr. Hutcherson, who has become a leading national critic of same-sex
marriage, said he believed he could have organized a widespread boycott of
Microsoft. He said he told the Microsoft executives, "If you don't think
the moral issue is not a big issue, just count the amount of votes that
were cast on moral issues in the last election."

"A lot of Christians would have joined me," he said, "But it would have
been a lot more people, too."