From my CNN News feed:
Apple CEO Tim Cook today announced that he is gay in a column in Bloomberg Businessweek. “Let me be clear: I’m proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me,” he wrote.
Why did he have to mess it up with that God stuff?
The link points to an internal UC login page.
yup, for me too.
Thanks; I’ve fixed the link.
Hmmm…
Thinking of today’s Hili dialogue, “I consider the sausage among the greatest gifts dog has given me!”…
Oooh – I suppose there is an unintended entendre there…! oops!
Ha ha, I thought you were expressing gender happiness.
“Why did he have to mess it up with that God stuff?”
One possible, and somewhat passive aggressive motivation, would be to piss Christians off. The Christians I’ve known believe homosexuality to be a choice. The notion that someone is born gay is strongly rejected.
In this sense, I don’t mind it. Although there is some reflexive eye-rolling.
Oops sorry didn’t mean this to be a reply. And I admit to chucking at the double-entendre.
What did you chuck at it?
I _chuckled_ at this too.
How many chuckles would a chucklechucker chuck if a chucklechucker would chuck chuckles…? Or something.
I like that idea.
I expect to be reading about the calls to boycott Apple products shortly.
Christians always blame the apple anyway.
Nice one!
Boycott by Christians or atheists? 🙂
actually Steve is probably running things up there so Tim has to play nice.
I thought he’d been out for years, he just didn’t make a fuss about it …
I don’t know if he was ever “publicly” out, but it’s been pretty widely presumed.
And it’s a pretty great day when the CEO of the most valuable company on the planet comes out.
I think it’s neither great nor not great. It should be viewed with as little significance as his favorite color.
What is great is that within my lifetime, it is now possible to make such an announcement without turning yourself into a pariah. The fact that the announcement is now perceived as unremarkable indicates huge progress in human morality, and you don’t seem to realize that “viewing this with little significance” is a big step forward in just the last few decades.
The stuff that is ho-hum tomorrow was bitterly contested yesterday.
Exactly. I tw**ted “Shock news! Tim Cook believes in god!”
He probably added the God comment to cushion any backlash from the more fundamentalist and bigoted elements of this nation.
Well that’s a pretty forlorn hope.
That reminds me of that joke where a guy sits his parents down and says, “im an atheist”. The parents start freaking out. He the. Announces that he is actually gay, to which they respond, “Oh, thank god!”
And that reminds me of a bit from the great Julia Sweeney which in effect was:
“After I told my parents I was an atheist, my mother wailed: ‘An atheist?! I don’t mind that you don’t believe in God, but an atheist!!!?'”
Exactly what I was going to comment, sir. This is indicative of the huge progress that’s been made.
We saw the tide turn on same-sex marriage in 2012 (summer to be specific). Obama (sitting president) came out in favor of it. In the fall elections, all the referenda went the right way (for the first time).
Here in Minnesota, we went from an all-Republican legislature and a referendum to prohibit same-sex marriage on our ballot, to an all DFL (local flavor of the Democrats) legislature, the referendum failed spectacularly, and within six months, our governor (Mark Dayton, he’s a good guy) signing a statue legalizing same-sex marriage. It chokes me up thinking about it.
Some of our family friends, who have been together for donkey’s years, got married within 6 months of the statute. That was (truly) one of the most moving and fun weddings I’ve ever attended. Let me tell you: There was a lot of love in that room.
But it is simply one among many civil rights issues, no more or no less than others. To read some atheist sites (not WEIT), one might get the impression this is the only thing that mattered. Perhaps atheists respond disproportionately because it is a chance to ‘stick it to religion ‘ .
It’s cool, but I don’t understand the euphoria.
I take it that every time a famous person announces their orientation then that helps to tip the balance toward essentially full acceptance. The balance is tipping dramatically these days, which is great, but I approve of anything that helps it to tip faster.
Perhaps you fail to distinguish celebration from euphoria. Or perhaps you aren’t personally affected so you don’t recognize how other’s might want to celebrate. Or perhaps your general empathy module is rusty.
There’s lots of reasons why you might not understand.
I disagree. That is the way I would like it to be, but that ain’t the world we live in right now. We still have a ways to go.
You’re right that it should be, but until it actually is seen that way by society at large (and our legal system), these kind of announcements will always be pretty great.
Yeah I think everyone knew it, he just hadn’t formally declared it.
:))
That would depend on what he means by the word. For many it is a reflex with no religious meaning.
Ah yes – as ‘bloody’ meant originally ‘by our lady’… & I say hell even though it is just a myth…
If someone believes in a god and believes it made everything, then it made Tim Cook gay.
Bigots tend to give religious justifications for their hate so Cook saying God did it disarms them.
If you have a bug problem use insecticide even if it has side effects.
He’s a Southerner, so it probably comes naturally to him.
It’s also a really interesting rhetorical move, making it clear that he’s religious and suggesting that his sexual orientation is a divine gift rather than sinful.
Well Pope Francis isn’t all bent out of shape about gays, so why not? And ironically of course the Vatican and the Church have been one of the biggest gay-run institutions for centuries. Maybe it’s about time they started supporting the lifestyle and not oppressing it while living it in semi-secrecy.
Why are the facts of reality a gift or a curse? Weird thinking from a lack of thinking. It’s sometimes easy to fall into these traps.
His statement was probably meant in the same sense that Helen Reddy thanked God “because She makes everything possible.”
“Q: What’s the worst thing you can tell a Klansman about God?
A: She’s black.”
The whole statement is messed up. Consider a straight person saying, “I’m proud to be straight.”
Ranks right up there with pride in one’s race or sex.
None of those are things to be proud of.
When other people think one should be ashamed of them, it’s understandable that one would express pride.
The absence of shame is not the presence of pride.
The phrase “I am not ashamed” is not equivalent to “I am proud”.
Yes, I can understand the impulse to express pride in something which one feels pressured to feel shame about. But that’s something you say about excited utterances, not carefully prepared statements.
For example, as a white liberal male in today’s society, I’m bombarded by illiberal forces on the far left telling me I should be ashamed of that fact. In rejecting that baseless assertion, I don’t react by saying that I’m proud to be a white male. Can you imagine the reaction if I did?
You do understand, I hope, that the historical contexts of you as a white male liberal and someone who is gay or black are rather different.
How does one become arbiter of what may be said in prepared statements vs. “excited utterances”?
I understand that you appear to favor unequal treatment of different human beings. I do not. Such are the perils of being a morally consistent egalitarian.
We all favor unequal treatment of different human beings depending on context. Do you think we should treat six year olds the same as adults?
History and context are important in determining how we act. People who have been marginalized for generations are not starting with equal opportunities. People who can be fired in many parts of the US simply for being gay are not situated in an equal social space as you are. The fact that you would (and should) feel silly to claim pride in being white does not negate the feeling of pride being appropriate for gay people.
+1
I completely agree with GB.
“The fact that you would (and should) feel silly to claim pride in being white…”
…should make you think about why that is so.
Because you have really high levels of vitamin D & still managed to avoid skin cancer! 😀
I’ll get my coat.
ba dum tsh!
Hopefully, in times of trouble, Cook will ask himself what Jobs would do instead of what Jesus would do.
You know, when I was young, I eventually realized that the handwriting on the cards that Santa left with his gifts was a perfect match for Mom’s handwriting. Why hasn’t Tim yet made the same connection?
b&
Trying to even up the attacks – trying to make sure they come in evenly, from all sides. Sort of like the old joke about “I’m not biased ; I’ve got a chip on both shoulders.”
“Why did he have to mess it up with that God stuff?”
One possible, and somewhat passive aggressive motivation, would be to piss Christians off. The Christians I’ve known believe homosexuality to be a choice. The notion that someone is born gay is strongly rejected.
In this sense, I don’t mind it. Although there is some reflexive eye-rolling.
I am proud that I was born rich. Proud that I grew up in a log cabin (no a contradiction). Proud to have above average intelligence. Proud to be an American.
What is it with being proud? Especially proud of things that one was born with or into.
Should I be proud of accomplishments? Anything I may have done is the outcome of my genetic makeup, my upbringing and my opportunities. I do not understand pride.
Pride in our accomplishments is perfectly understandable in evo-psych terms. If I put in a lot of hard work to achieve some tough goal, pride is my reward for seeing it through successfully. If I didn’t feel pride in the result, there’s be no point in doing it; I might as well sit on the couch watching TV.
Pride is what motivates us to undertake difficult challenges with high fitness payoffs.
Whenever someone has a “proud to be Scottish” or whatever else as a bumper sticker, I want to whisper to them “Pride is one of the 7 deadly sins”.
We had a big discussion about the word “pride” when I studied Spenser since it’s all about the 7 Deadly Sins. I still remember laughing about how the professor (who also was laughing) talked about how pride doesn’t mean what it used to and mentioned the bumper stickers.