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<div class="timestamp">February 6, 2012</div>
<h1>Java and Justice</h1>
<span><h6 class="byline">By <a rel="author" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/frank_bruni/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More Articles by Frank Bruni" class="meta-per">FRANK BRUNI</a></h6>
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<p>
If you’re among the fair-minded Americans who believe that two men or
two women should be able to wed, there’s an easy though slightly caloric
way to express that. Get a caramel macchiato. Maybe make it a venti.
Then get another tomorrow. </p>
<p>
<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/starbucks_corporation/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More information about Starbucks Corporation" class="meta-org">Starbucks</a>, you see, is under fire for its <a title="CNN.com " href="http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/25/news/companies/starbucks_gay_marriage/index.htm">public support</a> of the <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/same_sex_marriage/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="More articles about Same-Sex Marriage, Civil Unions, and Domestic Partnerships." class="meta-classifier">same-sex marriage</a>
legislation that recently passed the State Senate in Washington, where
the company has its headquarters. That legislation is expected to clear
the House as well and be signed by Gov. <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/christine_o_gregoire/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about Christine O. Gregoire." class="meta-per">Christine Gregoire</a> in the next few weeks. Washington would become the seventh state in which such marriages are legal. </p>
<p>
The Christian conservatives who have been trying to stop that aren’t
pleased. They’re involved in an effort to gather enough signatures to
suspend the law’s implementation until a voter referendum can be held.
In the meantime, Steven Andrew, the president of USA Christian
Ministries, has called for a national boycott of the coffee chain,
saying that while its executives “can follow Satan if they want to,”
God-fearing Americans shouldn’t join them on that caffeinated road to
hell. </p>
<p>
I mention Starbucks not so much to rally to its defense as to make a point about same-sex marriage, enacted in <a title="Times piece. " href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/25/nyregion/gay-marriage-approved-by-new-york-senate.html?pagewanted=all">New York</a>
last June and now under serious consideration in Maryland, Maine and
New Jersey. It’s the future. And the response of corporate behemoths
based in the state of Washington reflects that. </p>
<p>
In addition to Starbucks, <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/microsoft_corporation/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More information about Microsoft Corporation" class="meta-org">Microsoft</a> and Amazon <a title="Seattle Times piece. " href="http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2017392956_amazon02.html">spoke up</a>
for same-sex marriage. All have surely taken note of several polls over
the last year suggesting — for the first time — that a slight majority
of Americans supports it. All have no doubt taken even greater note of a
generational divide. In a <a title="Gallup poll. " href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/147662/first-time-majority-americans-favor-legal-gay-marriage.aspx">Gallup poll</a>,
70 percent of people in the 18-to-34 age range favored same-sex
marriage, while only 39 percent of people 55 and older did. </p>
<p>
More so than politicians, corporations play the long game, trying to
engender loyalty for decades to come, and they’re famously fixated on
consumers in their 20s and 30s. </p>
<p>
They see support for same-sex marriage as a winner, something that will
help with employee recruitment as well. On Microsoft’s in-house blog
last month, the company’s general counsel, Brad Smith, <a title="Microsoft blog. " href="http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_blog/archive/2012/01/19/marriage-equality-in-washington-state-would-be-good-for-business.aspx">explained</a>
its backing of the Washington legislation in part by noting “an
unprecedented national and global competition for top talent.”
Microsoft, he said, doesn’t want to lose potential recruits to states
with fairer laws. </p>
<p>
Corporate recognition of a rapidly changing world isn’t limited to the
coasts or to companies widely considered progressive. While <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/penney_j_c_company/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More information about JC Penney Company Inc" class="meta-org">J.C. Penney</a>,
based in Plano, Tex., hasn’t waded into the same-sex marriage debate,
it recently hired as a pitchwoman Ellen DeGeneres, an outspoken advocate
of gay rights who is married to the actress Portia de Rossi. On Friday,
in the face of pushback from (you guessed it) Christian conservatives,
it <a title="Reuters article. " href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/03/us-jcpenney-ellendegeneres-idUSTRE8121VK20120203">reaffirmed</a> its commitment to her. DeGeneres is also a <a title="CoverGirl website. " href="http://www.covergirl.com/talent/ellen-degeneres">pitchwoman</a> for CoverGirl makeup. </p>
<p>
A growing number of politicians presumed to have sights on higher
offices and elections down the road seem to read the trend lines and tea
leaves the same way companies do. </p>
<p>
Andrew M. Cuomo, the New York governor, didn’t just assent to marriage
equality. He led the charge for it, guaranteeing that it would be a
cornerstone of his gubernatorial legacy. Gov. Martin O’Malley of
Maryland, the chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, is
following suit. He devoted parts of his State of the State <a title="video. " href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/blog/bs-md-state-of-the-state-20120130,0,6645505.story">address</a> to an appeal for marriage equality, and has tweeted about it repeatedly. </p>
<p>
The issue plays out in quieter ways, too. In Washington, final-hours
support came from State Senator Brian Hatfield, a Democrat who considers
himself a devout Christian and who said in a statement that he “went as
far as to ask God for a sign.” It came, he said, in an e-mail he got
from former State Representative Betty Sue Morris, a fellow Democrat,
who recounted how much she regretted a vote she cast against same-sex
marriage in 1996 — and why. </p>
<p>
She shared her story with me on the phone on Monday. “In December of
1998,” began Morris, 70, who then started crying. “Excuse me. I just
remember it so vividly. My beautiful daughter, Annie, was home for
Christmas, and she told us that she was gay.” </p>
<p>
In the days that followed, Morris said, she remembered her vote and
“felt like I had denied her something. A wholeness. A freedom.” </p>
<p>
“Here’s this precious child that you love and you care for,” she added.
“You don’t want to be a part of making them grieve for anything.”
</p>
<p>
As it happens, she said, Annie didn’t even remember the vote. Now 47,
she lives in California and married her longtime partner in 2008, just
before <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/californias_proposition_8_samesex_marriage/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="More articles about Proposition 8." class="meta-classifier">Proposition 8</a>
overturned the state’s short-lived same-sex marriage law. The Ninth
Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to rule imminently on the
proposition’s constitutionality. </p>
<p>
Morris told me: “Whenever someone opposes this, I always counsel: you
never know. You never know when it will be your child or your
grandchild. And you will eat your words.” </p>
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<p style="text-align:center">•</p><br clear="all"></div></div><br>-- <br>Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)<br><a href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com" target="_blank">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</a><br>