If you didn’t know the history, you might think that Google was trying to be funny today. When you search the word “gay” or “lesbian,” your search results are adorned with a curved rainbow right around the search button.
June is Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender month in the United States. The national awareness month was declared this year by President Obama, saying –
Every generation of Americans has brought our Nation closer to fulfilling its promise of equality. While progress has taken time, our achievements in advancing the rights of LGBT Americans remind us that history is on our side, and that the American people will never stop striving toward liberty and justice for all.
This is the third year in a row that President Obama has declared June LGBT month. Former President Bill Clinton did the same in 2000. There was controversy about the issue during George W. Bush’s presidency, as he said no to making June LGBT month.
Google has made no attempt to hide their support of gay rights. In 2008, Google publicly came out against California’s Proposition 8, which aimed to overturn the Californias Supreme Court Ruling allowing same-sex marriage by strictly defining marriage as an opposite-sex practice. The people of California passed the proposition. Google said –
It is the chilling and discriminatory effect of the proposition on many of our employees that brings Google to publicly oppose Proposition 8.
Last year, Google proudly announced that over 300 of its employees had marched in the Pride parade in San Francisco. The company also participated in other pride parades across the globe in places like Poland and Tokyo.
And this month, Google is doing its smart part to promote LGBT month. Not only will terms like “gay,” “lesbian” and “transgender” prompt the rainbow to display in search results, but so will queries like “queer,” “GLAAD,” “homosexual” and of course “LGBT.”