Internet giant Google has come out against Proposition 8, an initiative measure on the 2008 California General Election ballot that seeks to amend the California Constitution to prohibit gay marriage.

Our position on California’s No on 8 campaign
9/26/2008 03:23:00 PM
As an Internet company, Google is an active participant in policy debates surrounding information access, technology and energy. Because our company has a great diversity of people and opinions — Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, all religions and no religion, straight and gay — we do not generally take a position on issues outside of our field, especially not social issues. So when Proposition 8 appeared on the California ballot, it was an unlikely question for Google to take an official company position on.

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.

Posted by Sergey Brin, Co-founder & President, Technology

My immediate reaction to this is simply, who cares what you think? You are a corporation, not a cause. Get over yourself. The obviously liberal executives of Google are simply using their position and access to people to promote a ridiculous point of view. I cannot help but wonder if they would take such a position against other chilling initiatives if they thought that it would cost them money. I don’ think so.

I say ridiculous for a reason. Look at the weak reasoning employed by Mr. Brin. The issue is one of equality, he says, we should not eliminate anyone’s fundamental rights to marry the person they love. What fundamental right is that? Never heard of if before. Did I have a right to marry my first cousin and I never even knew it? Dang, I have some good looking cousins. Obviously not. How can people have a fundamental right that has obvious and time honored limits? They don’t. Since this right never existed in the first place, it cannot be eliminated. Fundamental rights, Mr. Brin, are not invented out of whole cloth by a radical state court. That would be a rather pathetic way to be granted a fundamental right.

For Google execs to make such a statement is just another the hubris of the successful. They think it, so it must be right. The rest of us day laborers just haven’t figured it out yet and need their guidance. Thanks, but no thanks.