Apple received the highest possible score on the Human Rights Campaign’s 2019 Corporate Equality Index. This means it took steps to provide greater equity for LGBTQ workers and their families.

It’s one of 571 businesses earning the CEI’s top score of 100, meeting new and higher benchmarks.

Apple’s Russian version of Siri launched earlier this month, and while the presence of the virtual assistant in Russia is certainly welcome, its early bigoted views were not.

According to one YouTube user, Siri not only refused to answer questions about gay bars but went a step further, providing downright homophobic responses. In the video, Siri supposedly claims to be embarrassed by the topic, suggesting that gay marriage is a bit of a downer.

Apple CEO Tim Cook is the most powerful (openly) gay man in America, and also the first openly gay CEO of a Fortune 500 company. As such, he’s done a lot for gay rights during his interim at Apple, and now he’s doing even more, making a sizable personal donation to a gay rights campaign in his home state of Alabama, as well as Arkansas and Mississippi.

Gay rights are the civil rights issue of our time, whether in the marriage chapel, the emergency room or the workplace.

That’s why Apple CEO Tim Cook’s decision to proclaim he is “proud to be gay” in a powerful personal essay is an important and truly historic act.