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Alabama's anti-discrimination bill will bear Tim Cook's name after all
Alabama state Representative Patricia Todd, the state's first openly gay lawmaker, is pushing for a new anti-discrimination bill and will be getting some help from Apple's own Tim Cook. Reuters reports that after some initial back-and-forth on whether it would be to the bill's (and Apple's) benefit to have Cook's name attached, Todd was contacted by Apple's general counsel who relayed an enthusiastic message from Cook himself in favor of the bill bearing his name. There had previously been a good deal of confusion as to whether the naming of the bill would actually go through, as Todd says she was contact by an Apple official who was concerned that linking Cook to the bill may not be a good idea. Apparently once Cook heard that he was being spoken for, he decided to take matters into his own hands and declare that naming the bill after him was perfectly fine from his point of view. Cook publicly came out as gay in an October article published in BusinessWeek, less than a week after receiving an award from the Alabama Academy of Honor. In his acceptance speech he openly criticized Alabama's antiquated stance on gay rights, and encouraged lawmakers to do more. Todd's bill, which is expected to be officially introduced in March, is precisely the type of action Cook had called for, so the naming would seem to be a perfect fit.
Why the NFL's Chris Kluwe will always be @ChrisWarcraft on Twitter
It's been a big week or two for Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe. Beyond his resolute focus on the field, the former WoW player has been juggling an avalanche of media interviews after lighting up the internet with a ferociously profane tongue-lashing on equality and gay marriage. When a Maryland legislator tried to tighten the screws on Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo's support for marriage equality, Kluwe unleashed a tirade on sports blog Deadspin that quickly went viral. "Your vitriolic hatred and bigotry make me ashamed and disgusted to think that you are in any way responsible for shaping policy at any level," Kluwe wrote. "I can assure you that gay people getting married will have zero effect on your life. They won't come into your house and steal your children ...They won't even overthrow the government in an orgy of hedonistic debauchery because all of a sudden they have the same legal rights as the other 90 percent of our population." While we couldn't actually print the Kluwe's most choice quotes on a safe-for-work site like WoW Insider, Kluwe most assuredly made his point. The Maryland delegate backed off, and Kluwe's been snowed under with interviews. One of those interviews was with yours truly at Tecca -- and we concluded our discussion with an email conversation about that other thing you've all been waiting to hear about: his love of gaming and history with World of Warcraft.
Profanity filters, homophobic slurs, and Blizzard's shaky relationship with the LGBT community
Warning: This post may contain language that is offensive to some. Yesterday on the official World of Warcraft forums, a poster brought up the fact that the word "transsexual" gets censored by Blizzard's mature language filter. Almost immediately after, another poster brought up the fact that the word "homosexual" is censored as well. The obvious follow-up question has stirred a hornet's nest of controversy: Why are these considered bad words? Predictably, that forum thread quickly spun out of control. It was ultimately locked by a moderator, but not before Blizzard Community Manager Bashiok chimed in: "Transsexual" censored by filter We've reviewed our filter list and there are a few words there that should not be blocked as profanity; we'll be removing them in a future patch. source So case closed, right? Well ... hold on. Before we simply close the books on the matter, there are some important questions to be answered. Namely this: Why was "transsexual" censored in the first place?
