Apple CEO Tim Cook came out as homosexual in October in an open letter published by Bloomberg and you can imagine that the internet exploded with the news at the time. I remember checking Twitter right after the Apple CEO announced that he was, in fact, gay and has been since he remembers, and seeing millions of tweets saying that Tim Cook should be proud and declaring him a brave man for coming out as gay in a position like his. I didn’t understand that at first, but upon reading the Apple CEO confession at Bloomberg, I understood that Tim Cook as well as many other people on the planet are wary of gay people in positions of power. In my opinion, sexual orientation and one’s career are totally different.
Nonetheless, a bill in Alabama will be named after Apple CEO Tim Cook. The bill is an anti-discrimination bill at the workplace and the drafters have suggested that the confessions of Tim Cook have influenced the creation and approval of the bill. Patricia Todd was the one to introduce the bill to Alabama legislation and has declared that the bill’s official name will the the Tim Cook Economic Development Act and it will outlaw discrimination based on sexuality in the workplace. Even though the bill has been public for a while now, Apple CEO didn’t say anything about it for a while.
Now, it seems that Tim Cook has finally acknowledged that his name was being used to name a piece of legislation, even though some had thought that he might have been vexed by the idea. Spokespersons for Apple declared that the Apple CEO is in fact honored to have such a law named after him. That would be the appropriate reaction, since the Apple CEO in his confession stressed the fact that being gay has made him stronger and has helped him develop his personality and self esteem. At the same time, Tim Cook said that through his sexual orientation, he experienced what he described as the minority feeling and learned how to emphasize and relate to minorities and groups that were being discriminated.