As an Internet company, Google is an active participant in policy
debates surrounding information access, technology and energy. Because
our company has a great diversity of people and opinions — Democrats
and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, all religions and no
religion, straight and gay — we do not generally take a position on
issues outside of our field, especially not social issues. So when Proposition 8 appeared on the California ballot, it was an unlikely question for Google to take an official company position on.

However,
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. We hope that California voters will vote no on Proposition 8
— we should not eliminate anyone’s fundamental rights, whatever their
sexuality, to marry the person they love.

Posted by Sergey Brin, Co-founder & President, Technology