June is LGBT Pride Month, a celebration officially begun in 2000 when President Clinton declared the month “Gay & Lesbian Pride Month.” Every June since President Obama took office, he has declared the month “LGBT Pride Month,” which recognizes two additional groups – bisexual and transgender.
In 2011, President Obama called upon Americans to “observe this month by fighting prejudice and discrimination in their own lives and everywhere it exists.” And for another year in a row, Google is making a small step toward this with some Easter Eggs hidden within search.
Searches related to LGBT including LGBT, gay, gay marriage, lesbian, transgender, bisexual, homosexual, and queer will all display a multi-colored pattern right under the search bar. Check it out below:
This isn’t the first time that Google has given their search box the rainbow treatment for LGBT terms. Last year, during June, Google displayed a more subtle pattern on the right-hang side of the box when users searched any of the terms listed above.
And it’s not just cute rainbow designs coming from Google is support of LGBT people. Back in 2010, Google made a point to show how they support their LGBT employees by officially announcing that 300 of their employees had marched in San Francisco’s annual Pride parade.
Plus, Google wasn’t shy back in 2008 about their position on California’s Prop 8, which sought to outlaw gay marriage:
While there are many objections to this proposition — further government encroachment on personal lives, ambiguously written text — it is the chilling and discriminatory effect of the proposition on many of our employees that brings Google to publicly oppose Proposition 8. While we respect the strongly-held beliefs that people have on both sides of this argument, we see this fundamentally as an issue of equality.
Although Google is one of the most outspoken tech companies on the issue of LGBT equality, another high-profile name might be making a subtle push in that direction. Yesterday we learned that Apple’s upcoming iOS 6 will include gay & lesbian Emoji.