Save up to $300/year on phone billsWordPerfect co-founder: $1 million for gay marriage ban
When I covered WordPerfect back in the day, the go-to guy for the press was a fellow named Pete Petersen. He was the one who would return your phone calls and answer questions about the company and its products. But Petersen owned only 1 percent of WordPerfect. The two majority shareholders were its co-founders, Bruce Bastian and Alan Ashton.
From time to time, you could corral Ashton for a quote, but that was the exception to the rule as he much preferred to stay out of the limelight. So it was with more than passing interest that I came across news of Ashton's decision to help bankroll proponents of a ban on gay marriage in California:
The campaign issued an urgent appeal, and in a matter of days, it raised more than $5 million, including a $1 million donation from Alan C. Ashton, the grandson of a former president of the Mormon Church. The money allowed the drive to intensify a sharp-elbowed advertising campaign, and support for the measure was catapulted ahead; it ultimately won with 52 percent of the vote.
I haven't seen breakouts of how people working in California's technology business voted on the question of banning gay marriage. Still, I'd be flabbergasted if it paralleled opinion in the rest of the state--let alone Utah. Silicon Valley isn't Orem.
But while one man, one vote sounds fair on paper, it counts a lot more when you're voting as a member of the super-rich. So it is that Ashton, who hasn't been active in a significant way in California's technology industry for years, may now wind up having more impact here than for anything he did in his previous career as an entrepreneur.
Update
As many have pointed out to me, WordPerfect's other co-founder, Bruce Bastian, also got involved in the Prop 8 issue and contributed $1 million to the other side.
Charles Cooper has covered technology and business for more than 25 years. Before joining CNET News, he worked at the Associated Press, Computer & Software News, Computer Shopper, PC Week, and ZDNet. E-mail Charlie.
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I want to have the right to marry four nubile young women.
What, I can't?
How dare you deny my happiness!
Get the idea?
/P
As much as I detest the LDS Church (I have my own reasons, part of it from living in Utah for seven years), they do not allow or condone polygamy. The FLDS church (a splinter sect in Southern Utah and Northern Arizona) - does. OTOH, their leader is currently facing a whole lot of prison for his role in the 'marriages' you mentioned.
Penguinisto, You can't marry minors because we recognize them has not being able to make informed decisions or provide informed consent. they cannot enter into a legal contract for that same reason.
and Anon, taking another's (minority) group's civil or legal rights in a free country is...dispite what your religious beliefs are...contrary to the very ideals of this country. You don't advocate taking women's, black, or handicapped people's rights, do you? You don't presume to be better than all and impose your beliefs on others and codify it into the very constitution that guarantees all people to be equal under the law, right? It is you that should check your facts before your speak. Marriage has indeed evolved over history. It DID NOT start as a 1 man/1 women institution. Rather, polygamy was the norm..as well as it being a way for one man to take another man's property through arrangement of marriage of his daughter. It has been redefined by heterosexuals continuously through the ages. Some are faithful while other are not, some are sexless while others are not, and yes, marriage is not a prerequisite to have children as you think. I love the ridiculous argument that people make in that marriage exists to make and protect children. By that very definition, you would need to bar seniors past child bearing years to marry and pass a law banning out of wedlock pregnacies and prosecute parents who are not married. There are PLENTY of children being raised by gay, non married, and divorced (YES...1 ouf of every 2 marriages) parents that are doing fine. So stop arguing all this hogwash that you use to defind your bigotry and just admit that you believe that you are morally superior to everyone else and everyone should follow your beliefs...at least I could respect your argument then.
Fact is, rights != "happiness". Just because it makes you happy does not make it a right (see also illicit narcotics).
Me, I have no dog in this fight. On a personal level, I don't give a damn.
OTOH, on a philosophical level? It's a fun exercise. So what if I did want to marry more than one woman? What if one woman wanted to marry more than one man (polyandry)? What if an incestuous couple wished to marry under condition of sterilization? What if a Microsoft Fanboy wanted to marry his laptop running Vista? Sure it's a slippery-slope argument, but honestly, It's there, and in this case, it can very easily roll downhill.
/P
Marrying a child is not valid, because children are not given rights to legally consent to contracts such as marriage until they are 18. We'd have to assume unless the legal age of consent were lowered to 12 or 13, this wouldn't be an issue.
Marrying an inanimate object is not valid, because an inanimate object is not alive and can not give its own free consent to enter into a binding contract like marriage. In the future, if artificial intelligence gets so good that we could argue some robots are "alive," this argument might gain more weight. But right now, you might be able to program a computer to say "I Do" but under law, an inanimate object is not give the rights to enter into a legal contract.
The argument for marrying animals is the same - they can not legally give their consent to enter into a contract with humans. If at some point, some animals evolve the intelligence to freely communicate with humans, this might become more of an argument, although there would be some serious biological/genetic issues to consider.
The polygamy argument is the only valid one on this "slippery slope" as you call it, and if you take religion completely out of it, there are some biological/genetic reasons why it can be harmful to society. We'll use 1 man marrying multiple women as an example, because that seems to be more common. If 1 man marries multiple women, he's reducing diversity in the gene pool, by taking women "off of the market" so to speak that would have been available to mate with other men, thereby increasing diversity and speeding evolution. One could argue what if the man and all women were sterile? If the women and man were to freely sterilize themselves on their own free will, this could make sense, but it'd be a lot of oversight for the government to regulate. There'd need to be new divisions created to ensure anyone marring more than one person either only mates with one of them or doesn't mate with any of them. You still are reducing diversity in the gene pool though, as those women won't now mate with anyone else.
Sill though, gay couples CAN'T mate on their own. There are ways for gay couples to have babies, but that still propagates diversity in the gene pool when they do.
One man marrying one man or one woman marrying one woman doesn't push the law like polygamy would, mostly for biological/genetic reasons. Therefor polygamy shouldn't even be in the argument against gay marriage.
Amazing that, in your argument against polygamy, you use gene-pool implications to defend gay marriage.
Logic must not be your forte. Or perhaps circular logic is? :-D
LOL! Now that's funny.
Regardless of his stand on gay marriage, it's quite obvious to everyone that Peguinisto would fellate Jobs on a city street (in Cupertino preferably) for all to see if only Jobs would let him.
You see? They never really gave up polygamy, just made it a reward for a good life on Earth. So the charge of hypocrisy absol-friggin-lutely stands. This is a group of people who were chased out of the Midwest before settling in Utah, whose leader was killed by a bigoted mob -- and it doesn't seem strange to anyone that they are scapegoating gays? I guess if you read about what a "Lamanite" is, or about the Mountain Meadows massacre, you'll understand that Mormons have long been hypocritical about the rights of "others".
@"xcopy" and his clones: I aim to please... but I find your freudian statements rather telling. ;)
Problem is, once one group gets what they want, other groups will demand their piece as well. How do you stop that when they use the same argument you presented?
/P
however, not supporting something for the sole reason that you are afraid of the slope is ludicrous. it's just a front for your own personal beliefs that you are obviously ashamed to admit.
On the other hand, legislating against gay marriage serves no purpose except to pander to those who believe that their own brand of morality should apply to everyone else, and with support of the law. Strangely, it is these same people who are happy to have poverty on the doorstep of every major city in the world and war in every corner.
You seem like an agitator and fool just looking for arguments on these boards as a full time job, while posing as a thinker.
Frankly, to put it bluntly, what difference does it make to you if Degeneres and Di Rossi get married in law? Except that Portia is quite hot and that it is a shame to see her change sides. As for the lawyer talking about marriage working, I wonder if he is one of the many lawyers making money out of divorces!!! As for our society working, I would suggest that it is flawed at best, and would refer you to the ridiculous rates of crime, poverty, illiteracy, conflict domestically and internationally. Our system is far from successful, or at least far less successful that it ought to be, given the technological advances and supposed advances in education in recent times.
Really, what stuns me most is the idiocy and simple mindedness of the 'educated'.
Was your life torn apart when the government forced white kids to share the same school room as a black person?
Can I donate to the people who made this video? I want to expose the rest of that book. It probably said stupid things like "Jews have a right to life," or that "Muslim people have feelings." I bet that book even discourages the use of the N word. That school is stepping over the line! What happened to the days when we could whip the devil out of a left handed child?
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Seriously, the book was probably just saying there are lots of different types of people in the world and not to point at them or make fun of them or call them names just because they are different from you.
It was probably created by someone who's son is in jail because he made fun of a foreign person, so they are just trying to stop kids from getting worked up because someone is different. And hopefully you won't teach your kids to make fun of gay people, or someday they might try to kill a gay person "in the name of god" and end up in that same 6x8 dirty jail cell.
I just want to say 1 more thing: My God has the ability to love everyone, even gays. It's too bad that your god is limited in his amount of love.
If liberal Christian (oh, what an oxymoron!) Americans had been reading their Bibles, they would have learnt that it says homosexuality arose because of the unrestrained pursuit of pleasure. Romans 1:18-26.
Strident words, but true nevertheless, and it marks the state of any society which embraces current Western values.
There is supporting data that suggests prenatal stress results in a higher level of homosexual offspring in humans. Homosexuality occurs in most mammals. In a study of rats, increasing the population to a level beyond what could be supported by available resources resulted in a higher number of rats exhibiting homosexual tendencies. The biological imperative to breed is obviously necessary to the survival of any species. However, in times of limited resources, over population can adversely threaten the health of a set population. A natural check to overpopulation would increase the chances of localized group survival in the face of limited resources. Homosexuality at a percentage of the population directly related to the availability of resources (food, water, etc.) as determined by the stress level of pregnant mothers within that species' population (famine causes stress) might act as a natural 'optimizer' for population control in addition to death. Any group reproducing at it's unchecked biotic potential has a high level of probability that it will use up local resources needed to support itself. A percentage of that group that will not reproduce fluctuating in numbers relative to the amount of sustaining resources improves the chances for survival of that group. Therefore, it can be theorized that homosexuality is an evolutionary survival mechanism serving the purpose of overriding the normal 'wired' imperative to reproduce in a naturally select few individuals to assist in the survival of the group as a whole.
Choice? Many, if not most homosexuals at one point or another struggle with their own identity. Many if not most attempt to reject it early in their lives for the sake of 'fitting in' and to avoid the ridicule and often violence that being who they were born to be brings. Many people love chocolate. Some are obsessed with it. If liking chocolate were to suddenly make one a member of a group as persecuted as homosexuals, most chocolate lovers would easily and gladly turn to vanilla. For those basing opinions on the subject by cherry picking from the bible, it's worth noting that the bible is full of contradictions. It calls for capital punishment for sex outside of wedlock and for men who touch the bed of menstruating women be put to death. Look it up, it's in there. There is good reason for the separation of church and state when it comes to passing legislation (unless you're for killing a man who sleeps in the same bed as his wife during all stages of her 'cycle'). Legislating the rights of others away because they are different is never good for any society. People use to quote from the bible to justify slavery. Slavery was the will of the majority for a very long time. It was still very wrong. Our form of democracy is built on protecting the rights of the minority. The 'slippery slope' argument is the argument of a simple mind. Homosexuals are not asking to mary multiple partners, animals, children, or the moon. They wish to engage in exactly the union conservatives say they value in relationships between humans, that being a life long commitment to one person to the exclusion of all others, to take care and nurture said person, to desire the same in return, to maintain property and joint rights based on that commitment, and to be able to take legal responsibility for each other in times of need.
What happened to California and the computer industry there doing stuff like this?
I cant stand that absurd statement. "create more jobs" WE GAVE OUR JOBS AWAY! And along with them, our tax base and economic spending on a local, regional and national level.
We deserve to have our nation working at Walmarts now.
That makes people pushing homosexual agendas on everyone else bigots too.
On the one hand you have a guy who funded advertising against a bill that would force the public acceptance of a fetish that the majority of people find objectionable (even in CA where the proposition died). This being a political issue since it make it to a vote. Then there is you who has written off an entire person based on how they feel about a fetish.
Homosexuality is a fetish. It's not love, kindness, companionship, intimacy, friendship, or any number of other things that people have outside of marriage. It's also not a 3rd sex, race, religion, or a new species.
"It's also not a 3rd sex, race, religion, or a new species."
Agreed.
AbiWord is much better and free as is OpenOffice.Org and also other free and open source programs.
I am not sure what Mormons have against Homosexuals, but it will turn around and bite them later.
The answer: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
CNet... please go back to the business of technology!
I take offense at gay marriage has absolutely nothing to do with technology. I prefer you stay off Cnet than continue to read its free service to the public. This guy has his hand involved in technology and he used the money he earned from technology to promote his enslavement agenda. The guy is from the tech sector and should be traced to the activity he is doing.
This is the same thing if Steve Jobs is dying. Steve Jobs is a tech guy. Even though jpmays can see the connection of Steve Jobs dying has any impact in the tech industry, but most people do.
Lay off the absolutely nothing stuff.
Neither Obama, nor the blacks or latinos invested tens of millions of dollars. 'Nuff said
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But homosexual supporters spent even more than the Yes side. Homosexuals played and lost, now they are out rioting in the streets, and in one case caught by TV news attacking an old woman who diagreed with them.
Say anything you want about homosexuals... except that they support the democratic process. They think they are above the law, and that's wrong.
http://www.hrcbackstory.org/2008/07/bruce-bastian-d.html
Why are you singling out folks one side?
No, the homosexuals are "above the law" not for protesting, but for vandalism and attacking old ladies. The point is, whilst they throw a tantrum about losing, they are breaking the law and causing thousands of dollars of damage to private property. That sure sounds to me like they think they are above the law.
Of course, I should expect this kind of liberal claptrap coming from a guy who's happy gas is expensive. http://news.cnet.com/8301-10787_3-10086979-60.html
I wouldn't be thrilled to learn that other corporate fatcats underwrote a political campaign with million dollar checks either. If you have any information about that, send it my way. I'd be quite interested to see that. But here's my bigger point: I don't want outsiders sticking their big noses into my affairs. Alan Ashton doesn't live here and has nothing to do with my region. He's entitled to his own beliefs, so let him do politic all he wants in Utah. I doubt he would be thrilled if I underwrote a million dollar campaign to push a law for Utah residents.
Yes, big money does make a difference in almost any election. That doesn't mean I have to take it in silence. And It particularly ticks me off when outsiders wade in. And that's what you have here.