Among the biggest differences between Steve Jobs and Tim Cook as leaders of Apple is Cook’s willingness to use his platform as CEO to push positive social change.
Having last week shamed Indiana’s controversial “religious freedom” bill — which potentially allows a business to deny service to would-be customers if they disagree with their sexual orientation, based on religious beliefs — Cook elaborated on his thoughts in a weekend editorial for the Washington Post.
Proclaiming that “Apple is open … to everyone, regardless of where they come from, what they look like, how they worship or who they love,” Cook makes a powerful case. Check out his thoughts below.
Cook writes:
“There’s something very dangerous happening in states across the country.
A wave of legislation, introduced in more than two dozen states, would allow people to discriminate against their neighbors. Some, such as the bill enacted in Indiana last week that drew a national outcry and one passed in Arkansas, say individuals can cite their personal religious beliefs to refuse service to a customer or resist a state nondiscrimination law.
Others are more transparent in their effort to discriminate. Legislation being considered in Texas would strip the salaries and pensions of clerks who issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples — even if the Supreme Court strikes down Texas’ marriage ban later this year. In total, there are nearly 100 bills designed to enshrine discrimination in state law.
These bills rationalize injustice by pretending to defend something many of us hold dear. They go against the very principles our nation was founded on, and they have the potential to undo decades of progress toward greater equality.”
Cook goes on to argue that discrimination is bad for business. Apple recently put its weight behind this idea, along with close to 400 other companies, by telling the U.S. Supreme Court that the confusing array of laws about gay marriage “places significant burdens on employers and their employees — making it increasingly hard to conduct business.”
“From North Carolina to Nevada, these bills under consideration truly will hurt jobs, growth and the economic vibrancy of parts of the country where a 21st-century economy was once welcomed with open arms,” Cook writes in his Washington Post editorial.
Cook also talks about his upbringing in the South during the 1960s and ’70s, writing that, “Discrimination isn’t something that’s easy to oppose. It doesn’t always stare you in the face. It moves in the shadows. And sometimes it shrouds itself within the very laws meant to protect us.”
Cook’s public stance on gay rights is not new. Having come out last year, Cook’s outspokenness about the fact that people should have the right to “love who they choose” has even resulted in an LGBT anti-discrimination bill being named after him.
Let’s hope his words continue to be listened to. Driving iPhone sales to new all-time highs might make Wall Street happy, but his belief that Apple should be a “force for good” might turn out to be Cook’s lasting legacy as CEO.
Source: Washington Post
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
42 responses to “Tim Cook rips discriminatory laws that ‘rationalize injustice’”
I personally don’t give a rats a$$ about anyone’s sexuality, but what a joke Apple saying they are open to anyone!!! They are one of the most oppressive and closed companies on the market and routinely deny other companies and people the ability to publish their app on the Apple App store simply because Apple doesn’t approve or agree with the app.
Ironically, I fully support Apple’s right to decide what gets published on their app store. But they shouldn’t use their influence to call other business bad for essentially doing the same thing.
Freedom is a two-way street and that often means allowing people the freedom to make bad decisions. I’m disappointed that Tim doesn’t recognize that.
I wonder if Tim would speak out in the same way it was the Westboro Baptist Church being discriminated against instead of homosexuals? We all know he wouldn’t but if we build laws forcing business to serve everyone Apple may soon have to publish the Westboro Baptist Church anti-gay app.
Fanboy rants have no place in a discussion about human rights. Save that screed for the technology wars.
huh? Try reading more than the first paragraph next time.
Rest assured I read the whole thing. Your rant fits neatly into unimportant subjects like what technology platform to use. Not so much on issues of substance like human rights.
The whole article about Cook not respecting other people’s religious freedoms has nothing to do with tech and doesn’t belong here.
So, your argument is that it’s intolerant to intolerate intolerance? Got it. That’s like saying anyone who criticizes prejudice is displaying prejudice against those who are prejudiced.
That logic loop of yours will make you dizzy!
I guess it was important enough for you to comment on it… three times. LOL!
Don’t get me wrong…I think this is a serious topic worthy of serious discussion. But turning it into another battle in the silly fanboy wars like you’re doing doesn’t do the topic justice. This isn’t about Apple.
The other paragraphs did not do anything to make your analogy less rediculous.
I have actually seen the Westboro in person protesting. The signs they carry are so offensive that the local TV station had to blur some of them. Their language is so vulgar, no one wants their children to hear what they say. They are against anyone not like them which includes the military, government, black folks, Hispanics…. you name it.
There are times I do wish we let natural selection run is coarse. Driving 85 mph without a seatbelt while texting your gurlfriend in a beat up clunker with bald tires leaking break fluid… then I remember who else is on the road.
I actually agree with you about the offensiveness of some gay pride demonstrations. But the vocal minority on the extremist end of any issue routinely goes too far. You have to take a more holistic view. Just like I can be a Republican without supporting the extremist views on the far Right. Those people are so crazy it makes me sick to be associated. But, for me, the basic values of conservatism are worth supporting despite the crazies.
Gay rights is no different. The vocal extremists are nauseating, but the underlying values of human rights are still worth supporting.
Greg_the_Rugger, I have NOT see the Westboro signs. However, I believe the below has some tact.
It’s one thing to decide what you stock. Which is what Apple does through curation. It’s something entirely different to discriminate against someone based on race, sexuality etc.
However these laws should be allowed, but only if that business is willing to put up a huge sign who they discriminate against.
Society as a whole will do the rest.
The only thing I disagree with about your comment is that laws should not be allowed to discriminate against another human being based on sexual orientation, religion or for any kind of difference. What next, back to discrimination based on race? Taking a step back to a time when people were literally treated like dogs is not the way any society processes. Could you imagine the outcry if muslims across America started banning christians from entering their stores? It’s one hell of a slippery slope to go down, and very hard to come back from. Why should any person have a right to treat any other person less than themselves just because they aren’t like them? People may not like certain things in life, but we can’t legislate against everything we don’t agree with.
That’s right – you should not have the right to ban anyone from entering your property.
So your religious beliefs are greater than my human rights to just be me. Yep, that works, in Nazi Germany’s.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m very much against this law. But I was trying to make the point that the businesses wishing to discriminate should have to advertise that. People would soon stop shopping in those places.
In many ways, this is what Apple is doing but in reverse. They are an openly advertising that they are a liberal company with liberal beliefs and a liberal agenda. This is nothing new. So if you really feel strongly against this, it’s been made quite clear take your money elsewhere. Despite what you may think, Apple doesn’t need you.
I’m not a hater, not at all. My issue with this law is that once you make it ok to discriminate against gender race or religion, it’s a slippery slope to come back from. Imagine the outcry if a Muslim department store insisted all women entering the store had to wear a burqa, and this law would allow this to happen. As a father of a gay daughter it angers me that she can be discriminated against by this law.
I understand that some religious groups feel threatened by gay lobby groups hijacking the agenda, and I don’t agree with that. Gay lobby groups shouldn’t be threatening any church with activism. If a religion only believes in marriage between man and woman, no lobby group has a right to force them to marry same sex couples. But making a law to prevent this is overkill and dangerous to every right and freedoms people have died for.
Nice comment, you’re right it’s not exactly the same I was just trying to get people to think about it differently. And by the way, I don’t agree with this law. It is unnecessary because freedom of religion is already a right so passing another law about it is just stirring the pot.
I am however a big Free market thinking and agree whole heartily that these types of things should be left to the market to decide.
Business who make bad choices will likely not be in business for long.
I kinda get what you’re saying but I think, technically your argument is, respectfully, full of shit.
On one hand we’re (tim) is talking about personal freedoms, basic human rights. And then you’re mixing this up with business practices. These two are not the same thing, I know what you’re driving at but at the end of the day business is business and personal freedoms and rights are something entirely different.
Example. A taxi company can refuse to take your fare if you’re drunk or abusive or smelly or they just don;t want to take fares at that moment – this is their right as a business. However, they cannot refuse to take your fare because you are black, gay, atheist, etc etc. That is discrimination. Is pretty simple.
You’re probably playing devil’s advocate or maybe you’re not. Either way I think to question Tim’s lack of recognition on what ‘freedom’ means when he’s a gay bloke, coming from the one of the most backward parts of the US in terms of human rights policy is simply staggering.
Well said.
You are missing the point. Religious freedom is not a right of corporations. It is a personal right which is likely to apply to small business owners.
For example, a store-keeper should not be forced by the government to perform acts that are offensive or contrary to his/her religious beliefs.
Unfortunately the over-bearing government is using more and more legislation to turn us all into slaves and taking away any freedom or free-speech – unless it is the PC actions specified by all that legislation.
Exactly. What is interesting about this issue is that those who are gay are saying that people of a religious persuasion should not be allowed to discriminate…which means that they themselves are discriminating against people with religious beliefs. A little logic makes this evident. Tim Cook jumping in shows that he is more than willing to discriminate as long as it suits his agenda. His “basic human rights” remove the “basic human rights” of another person. If we’re all grown ups, why not a vote for freedom? Let each person live their lives according to their own standards without the state jumping in and kicking people out of their tiny businesses and threatening to take their homes while further issuing monetary damages. This is happening all over the US at this point. If a conservative state works to defend one group, the liberals blow up. If the liberal states starts eliminating the “unwanted”, you won’t see a blip about it on the MSM. Doesn’t Apple have enough cash without going after Mom and Pop florists and bakers? I hate to tell Mr Cook, but the country was founded on religious freedoms, not gay rights.
Freedom of religion is about picking what to believe, not freedom to impose that on other people.
What you believe is one thing, but your religion has no place on business.
“people of a religious persuasion should not be allowed to discriminate” – you hit the nail on the head. They should not because their religion is their choice. A gay person, a black person, a handicapped person does’t CHOOSE their state, they ARE Gay, Black, Handicapped. One is a choice to believe in a belief system that dodges taxes and professes to be right and the ‘true way’, the other is how someone is born or has become through no choice of their own.
As for religious freedoms, they’re mostly ‘religious intolerances’ dressed up as freedoms. Period. I’m with Tim. The dude gets my vote 100%.
Receiving goods or services from a private business is not a right!
In your example, the taxi driver’s rights are just as equal as the passengers. If the driver is a gay and the Westboro Baptist Church leader wants a ride, the gay driver has no obligation to give him one and the refusal of service is not an infringement on anyone’s rights.
Governments are the primary entities who infringe on rights and the Bill of Rights was specifically written to protect American’s from the government not each other.
Having someone arrested, fined, or otherwise punished by the government over their views, sexuality, religion, etc… would be an infringement on their rights.
What an absolute moron you are. Please show me where Tim Cook says anything about homosexuals? His statement is in general about the dangers of legislating against any person in favour of religion. Replace the word christian with muslim in this discussion and see if that one would go down well with the precious souls of Indiana. If they legislated to ban idiots, you’d be in some trouble.
What is it about you neo-fascist libs that prevents you from respecting anyone else’s opinion?
You’ve got this all mixed up. Apple can decide all day long what apps they choose to carry in the app store. What they can’t do, is decide who to sell those apps to because of race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, etc.
Unless they ban apps that promote a certain religion or opinion. Nooooo, they would never do that. There’s more than one way to discriminate.
A business has every right to make choices to sell what they want (as long as it’s legal). And you have a choice to buy the product if you want.
If I owned a book store and chose not to sell books about Christianity, that’s not discrimination. It’s when I don’t allow Christians into my store for no other reason that the fact that they are Christian, that it becomes discrimination.
What’s so hard to understand about that?
Here’s what’s so hard to understand: You’re wrong. They’re both discrimination. Discrimination is selection among options that leaves some possible selections out. So, the difficulty is that you don’t know what discrimination is. But the difficulty is on your part.
That is correct, they are both discrimination. However discrimination is also “the practice of unfairly treating a person or group of people differently from other people or groups of people”
You see, in the first scenario, the choice was made because the business owner specializes in, say, action sports books. That’s why he doesn’t carry Christian books. But, hey Christians are more than welcome to purchase them. Context is important.
Why is discrimination acceptable on the stocking side of a store but not on the selling?
These are tough questions with lots of emotion but try to think about it differently… Why not just let the market decide? Let the store stock whatever it wants and sell to whoever it wants. If it does things right (Like Apple) it will succeed. If it does things wrongs (like Westboro Baptist) it will likely fail over time.
“Why is discrimination acceptable on the stocking side of a store but not on the selling?” – See my comment to c_hack
“Why not just let the market decide? Let the store stock whatever it wants (I agree) and sell to whoever it wants. (I dissagree)” – So, you really believe that a business should be allowed to NOT sell to, say, a black man, simply because he is black? Is that really what you think? What about people with red hair? Muslims? Buddhists? Big noses? Cleft lips? Homosexuals.
Yes, they should be able to do so. It’s their property. Let them see how far they get, turning business away. Businesses will sell where profit is. Just as it took the force of law to prohibit businesses from selling to blacks, to force businesses to not serve blacks, to make blacks sit at the back of buses–all LAWS that GOVERNMENT used to force businesses to discriminate, and all of which laws businesses fought and sought to first prevent and after failing to prevent, to overturn–it would take the force of law to force businesses to discriminate in selling against gays. (Or redheads, Muslims, Buddhists, big noses, cleft lips, or any other moronic parade of horribles you think makes a convincing argument.)
LGBT activists will not stop at marriage.
The current uproar in Indiana is proof.
Last week Indiana Governor Mike Pence signed their state ‘Religious Freedom Restoration Act’ into law. The law is nearly identical to the federal law introduced by Senator Charles Schumer, passed 97-3 by the Senate, and signed by President Clinton in 1993.
The law protects the freedom of all people of faith to live, breathe, and practice their faith as they see fit. No person of faith can be discriminated against unless the government can show that it has a compelling reason to do so.
The LGBT backlash is now in full throttle. Corporations like Apple, Yelp, Salesforce, PayPal and others are threatening to stop doing business in the state unless they repeal the law.
Openly gay Apple CEO Tim Cook essentially said: unless Indiana law allows discrimination against people of faith, he and his Silicon Valley bullies will destroy them. If Tim Cook was so offended how come he hasn’t pulled apple products from these states? Because LGBT has an agenda.
Some facts you need to know about the fight in Indiana:
Indiana’s new law is nothing new. The federal government and 19 other states have similar laws.
The law does not allow anyone to discriminate against gay people for any reason. If a gay person were to order a pastrami sandwich, a deli owner could NOT deny him service under this law.
People of faith that wish to abstain from morally cooperating in gay weddings can do so, and gay people are free to take their business to the thousands of other photographers, florists and banquet halls. It’s called freedom. It’s what we do in America. But the media and those like Tim Cook cloud the issue and call it discrimination when it is not.
Wake up and connect the dots. Gay marriage is just the start. What irks LGBT activists so much about this new Indiana law is that it strips them of the right to IMPOSE their agenda on you!
Marriage is not the end game for the sexual liberation left. Their radical goal involves dismantling the nuclear family and annihilating the Judeo-Christian understanding of human sexuality, and even religious freedom itself.
Religious freedom for all!
“The law is nearly identical to the federal law introduced by Senator Charles Schumer, passed 97-3 by the Senate, and signed by President Clinton in 1993.”
–Not true. The Indiana law differs in some very non-trivial ways from the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
“Marriage is not the end game for the sexual liberation left. Their radical goal involves dismantling the nuclear family and annihilating the Judeo-Christian understanding of human sexuality, and even religious freedom itself.”
–Nope. Despite your fear-mongering, the goal is, and always has been, equal rights, and non-discrimination.
Perhaps you can point out the non-trivial ways that the Indiana law differs from the federal law.
But really, you can’t. Because there are none.
At present, Indiana (like most states) has no law prohibiting discrimination in public accommodations against gays. And yet it has no discrimination in public accommodations against gays–despite having no law prohibiting such discrimination. The Indiana law would not change anything in that regard, and is not intended to do so.
Despite your fear-mongering, the Indiana law has no such intent. And yes, the goal of gay marriage is destruction of the institution of marriage, not non-discrimination or equal rights. Equal rights already exist.
This entire column is based on a false smear of the Indiana law. Oddly enough, the governor of Connecticut is bravely saying the state won’t pay for travel to Indiana. Will it pay its own employees to work in Connecticut? The state has the same law as Indiana.
Cook is full of shit on this. In every way, he is wrong, and he is smearing. And Dormehl, so are you, you ignorant parrot.
This article fails to point out (though a large number of news outlets have) that Apple continues to expand proudly in nations where among other discrimination homosexuality is illegal and gays are tortured and killed. It remains to be seen if Tim Cook will make any comment or public statement on the matter. I suspect it’s easier to speak out about the state of Indiana than Tehran. After all if you insult some conservative Christians in America they’ll forgive you but if you anger the wrong people there you’re apt to find your head rolling.
Apple seems to have no problems dealing others who actually do violate human rights. Furthemore, Cook is only getting involved becuase he’s a homosexual himself. Apple reserves the right to do things for their beliefs but seem to want to force others to do what they won’t. Ask him why Apple refuses to advertise on Rush Limbaugh’s show. The gays want to force everyone to celebrate their perverseness. For business owners who do not share their depravity, there is no tolerence.