SEATTLE, April 21 (NY Times) - The Microsoft Corporation, at the forefront of corporate gay rights for decades, is coming under fire from gay rights groups, politicians and its own employees for withdrawing its support for a state bill that would have barred discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Many of the critics accused the company of bowing to pressure from a prominent evangelical church in Redmond, Wash., located a few blocks from Microsoft’s sprawling headquarters.

Microsoft officials denied any connection between their decision not to endorse the bill and the church’s opposition, although they acknowledged meeting twice with the church minister, Ken Hutcherson.

Dr. Hutcherson, pastor of the Antioch Bible Church, who has organized several rallies opposing same-sex marriage here and in Washington, D.C., said he threatened in those meetings to organize a national boycott of Microsoft products.

After that, “they backed off,” the pastor said Thursday in a telephone interview. “I told them I was going to give them something to be afraid of Christians about,” he said.

Whew! That was close. With Microsoft’s support, it easily could have become illegal to not hire gay people on the basis of their gayness in the state of Washington. And then… the rest of the nation might’ve followed suit. And then…

Well, let’s put it this way: If not hiring gays because they’re gay is outlawed, only outlaws will not hire gays because they’re gay.

Me, I’d never discriminate against gay people just on the basis of their orientation. But I’ll defend to the death your right to not hire them.

Think of the small businesses, for crying out loud! Average American guy running a garage in the year 2006, let’s say. He’s breathing his first sigh of relief because now he won’t have to pay that “death tax” that he’s been worried that he may someday earn enough money to have to pay. Okay, maybe his job’s never gonna allow him to have that much, but there’s always the lottery or maybe he gets paid millions by Hollywood to “tell his story” or something… whatever. Things happen. The point is that he’s never going to have to pay that “death tax” now, and he’s happy. He’s also glad that he’s now got the right to put his social security money in a private account, which is something he’ll get to as soon as the lottery or the “tell his story” thing happens because at the moment he’s a little too busy and it’s not a lot of money anyway… In short, things seem to be moving in the right direction…

Then into the man’s garage flounces some gay guy. Not just any gay guy, but a total flouncy kind of gay guy. Flouncing. Not that all gay guys flounce, but some do and this is one of ‘em. He looks at the “Help Wanted” sign and tells our mechanic that he’d like a job. He then displays a formidable resume of car-fixing experience and demonstrates his prowess by replacing the drive train on the ‘97 Chevy that’s been on the blocks all day in nothing flat! Clearly, this is one completely qualified flouncy gay mechanic…

So our man starts thinking. “Gee,” he thinks, “This guy’s good, but I don’t want to hire him. For one, we’ll be working really close together under cars and stuff, and what if he starts to find me attractive? Also, what if people stop coming to my garage because I’ve got a flouncy gay mechanic working for me? Then I’ll never earn enough money to be glad that I don’t have to pay the death tax!”

What’s more, as our garage owner looks around him, he notes that his business is just loaded with objects and processes that are ripe for innuendo. “Crank shafts.” “Pistons.” “Cylinders.” “All weather sealant.” Etc. It’ll be just too tempting for the flouncy gay mechanic, and uncomfortable-making jokes are bound to follow.

“Plus,” he adds to himself, “I’m a religious man who believes that gayness is a sin, and if there’s one thing I can’t have in my garage, it’s a sinner!”

So the garage owner doesn’t hire the flouncy gay mechanic. It’s pretty clear why, and they part amicably. The garage owner goes back to the Ford Escort he was working on and on the way home buys a lottery ticket that earns him millions of dollars. The flouncy gay mechanic, now turned down by the last garage in town, begins to reconsider his lifestyle choices, joins a church, and gets married to a wonderful girl who helps him to not be so gay anymore.

Happens all the time. But not if this law is passed.

See, then what happens is this: The flouncy gay mechanic takes the garage owner to court, and in accordance with state law, the garage owner is required to hire the gay mechanic. It’s a disaster. Other employees quit after a few too many “stick shift” wisecracks, customers start to seek out other, less-gay garages (our garage owner doesn’t have a problem with gay people, really, but his customers do), and suddenly the dream of earning enough money to be glad not to have to pay the death tax is DEAD. As is the garage. The gay mechanic, who’s got rich gay friends, buys the garage and remains very, very gay, while the former garage owner goes home to an empty house because his wife has left him because he doesn’t have a job anymore. So now the former garage owner really hates gay people because the flouncy gay mechanic that he was forced to hire has bought the garage that he, the former owner, built with his own two straight hands and has indirectly taken his family away from him.

It’s the same old tale from this point on, you’ve heard it a hundred times: The gay mechanic sells his story to liberal Hollywood for a million bucks and turns the garage into a kitschy shop that sells vintage clothes and antique lunchboxes. The former garage owner gets drunk one night and throws a trashcan through the window of his former garage and ends up spending the next ten years in prison for “hate crime,” and in prison he is turned both gay and Muslim and ends up blowing himself up in a crowded public place a few years later. The former garage owner’s former wife turns to prostitution to make ends meet, which damages her son to the point where he goes to school one day and “pulls a Columbine,” mowing down faculty and students with a blameless but undeniably deadly assault rifle. And the girl, the poor sweet girl - who we should’ve talked more about, the one who would’ve married the gay mechanic and turned him straight if only the garage owner had been allowed to not hire him - that poor, beautiful young girl (whose name is Claire) becomes a fat and embittered lesbian who gets a job as a bus driver but just snaps one day while driving a bunch of senior citizens to a Church retreat, just snaps because of her misfortunes and twisted dreams, and drives the bus right off of a cliff and down onto the rocks of the beach below, and the ensuing fireball outshines even the beautiful Pacific sunset as flaming pieces of devout, church-going seniors and one angry lesbian fly in all directions before landing in the ocean with an angry hiss and disappearing into the watery depths forever. The radio on the bus, ironically, is still working, and as the sun sets and the ambulances start to arrive (too late, years too late), we hear an advertisement for “Crank Shaft! The Musical,” which is the touring production of the Broadway smash based on the hit Hollywood movie about a plucky gay mechanic who stood up for his “rights.”

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So let’s hear it for Microsoft, who saw the light and withdrew their support for this dangerous bill. In fact, you might want to send ‘em a thank you note and encourage them to oppose future bits and pieces of the Gay Agenda. Don’t do it out of hate, or for me, or for straight people in general, or for small businesses, or even garage owners. Do it for Claire.