Tuesday, August 30, 2011

According to Felix Salmon...

...at Reuters, Apple's new CEO Tim Cook, left, "is now the most powerful gay man in the world." What's more (my emphasis):

But surely this is something we can and should be celebrating, if only in the name of diversity — that a company which by some measures the largest and most important in the world is now being run by a gay man. Certainly when it comes to gay role models, Cook is great: he’s the boring systems-and-processes guy, not the flashy design guru, and as such he cuts sharply against stereotype. He’s like Barney Frank in that sense: a super-smart, powerful and non-effeminate man who shows that being gay is no obstacle to any career you might want.

And I agree. Who wouldn't?

Well, maybe Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum. They are both candidates for the GOP nomination who are famously homophobic. Now, admittedly, neither one is likely to ever get elected president. But what if one of them did, and was forced to meet with Tim Cook in some gathering of America's top CEOs? How would that go? Not too well, I would imagine.

Which brings me to the point of this post: Haven't Bachmann or Santorum ever met a gay person? (Okay, Bachmann's half-sister is a lesbian.) But what about Santorum? Doesn't he have any gay friends or relatives? How about neighbors, or colleagues, or ... anything? If not, what sort of a bubble does this guy live in, anyway? And is this someone we'd really want as president? Really?

How about somebody who lives in the Real World -- in 2011.

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