Joining a fledgling group of companies trying to address the disparity in how workplace health benefits for same-sex and heterosexual married couples are taxed, Google said Thursday it would compensate its gay and lesbian employees for the extra money they currently must pay the federal government each year.
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Search engine giant Google has taken a public stand against Proposition 8, the anti-gay marriage measure on the November ballot in California.
Co-founder Sergey Brin said in a blog posting last Friday, that the California based company, is "an active participant" in policy debates that relate to its main businesses. He also noted that Google lay claim to a "diversity of people and opinions," Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, straight and gay. He acknowledged that it was an "unlikely question" for Google to take a stand on this initiative. But for Google, he said it became an "issue of equality."
"However, while there are many objections to this proposition -- further government encroachment on personal lives, ambiguously written text -- it is the chilling and discriminatory effect of the proposition on many of our employees that brings Google to publicly oppose Proposition 8. While we respect the strongly held beliefs that people have on both sides of this argument, we see this fundamentally as an issue of equality. We hope that California voters will vote no on Proposition 8 -- we should not eliminate anyone's fundamental rights, whatever their sexuality, to marry the person they love."
