jason

Cory Doctorow:
Lambda Legal, a queer-rights group, has sent a letter to the lawyers at Blizzard asking them to stop discriminating against gay players.

World of Warcraft's moderators have been shutting down gay-friendly guilds in the game on the tortured grounds that letting people mention that they're gay will encourage jerks to say nasty things about gay people, and since saying homophobic things violates WoW's policies, ignorant jerks shouldn't be tempted into being homophobes.

The Lambda Legal letter takes Blizzard to task for this bizarre ruling and warns them that this is a legally and morally dubious stance to take:

In order to avoid any similar incidents in the future, we ask that you inform all of Blizzard’s system administrators that they are not to discipline any players for mentioning or discussing sexual orientation or gender identity in a non-insulting fashion. We also ask that Blizzard confirm that LGBT-friendly guilds are allowed to announce their existence in the same manner as any other guilds. Of course, Lambda Legal would be more than happy to offer any advice we can to assist Blizzard in crafting a nondiscriminatory clarification of the terms of service for W.O.W., or in providing guidance to the administrators enforcing Blizzard’s anti-harassment guidelines. We ask that you respond within thirty days of the date of this letter to avoid the need for further action.

Link

(via Wonderland)