So some of the usual suspects (*cough* American Family Association *cough*) have gotten something in a twist because Google is endorsing the “radical” notion that people shouldn’t be executed just for being gay. That’s the issue that kicked off the Legalise Gay campaign, in case you didn’t know.

So these people, who claim to follow that guy who said “love your neighbor as yourself” and “why do you worry about the speck in your neighbor’s eye and pay no attention to the log in your own?” are calling for a boycott of Google because Google is opposed to mortal violence against gay people.

Boycott Google? That’s going to be interesting.

Let’s forget about products like smart phones running Google’s Android OS, and services like GoogleDocs and such, and just think about their core business: search. So, who are they going to use? Bing?

Not that they can’t, but here’s the thing: a couple of decades back Bing’s owner, Microsoft, decided that maybe they should have a lobbyist go down to the state capital here in my home state (which is also Microsoft’s home state) because that’s what successful companies do. They polled their employees, including managers and executives, about what the lobbyist should suggest the legislators do. The overwhelming consensus: pass some statewide Gay rights law.

Not lobby for a tax break (that sort of thing would come later), but lobby for Gay rights.

And that’s what they did. Even now when the company (IMHO) has lost much of its way and become just another lumbering short-term profit making beast, it still sponsors and supports gay events, provides health benefits to same-sex partners, lobbied for the full domestic partnership refendum a couple years ago, the marriage equality referendum coming up for a vote soon, and in pretty much every way is at least as supportive of Gay rights as Google.

Yahoo, like most other large tech companies also has gay-friendly corporate policies and has sponsored gay rights events. It’s difficult to find a large tech company in the western world that hadn’t twigged to the fact a bit ago that one way to attract and retain talented employees is to be inclusive and supporting of, among others, gay employees.

So for search alone, they’re going to be hard-pressed to find an alternative that isn’t supportive of gay rights. I don’t see how a boycott is even possible.

As an aside, for the allies and defenders of the AFA and their ilk, getting angry because a company or person suggests that maybe gay people shouldn’t be executed just because they love who they love? That is advocating violence against gays. It isn’t a misinterpretation or distortion. It is exactly what they are doing.

And exactly what you are defending.