OK, here's why Microsoft has decided to sacrifice gay rights

It's in return for a complete abolition of H-1B quotas:

The U.S. should remove visa limits to allow more skilled foreign citizens to work at U.S. companies if it wants to remain a leader in technology, Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates said today.

Microsoft is having a hard time finding skilled workers within the U.S., and the lack of H-1B visas for skilled workers is only making the situation worse, Gates said in a panel discussion at the Library of Congress.

"The whole idea of the H-1B visa thing is, 'Don't let too many smart people come into the country.' The whole thing doesn't make sense," Gates said.

Gates echoed the concerns of other business and education leaders who warn that the U.S. must improve science education and boost spending on research and development to avoid falling behind India, China and other countries that are rapidly gaining ground.

But Gates reserved his sharpest criticism for the visa caps, which he called "almost a case of a centrally controlled economy." Gates added, "If the demand is there, why have the regulation at all?"

Congress capped the number of nonimmigrant visas for skilled professionals at 65,000 in 2004 and 2005 in an effort to increase border security and ensure more jobs for homegrown tech workers.

That's a third of the 195,000 work visas issued annually during the high-tech boom years from 2001 to 2003.

The entire quota of H-1B visas was snapped up the first day of the fiscal year last October by U.S. employers anxious to recruit foreigners for jobs in medicine, engineering, education, research and programing, among other fields.

While increasing the number of H-1B visas is important, "we can't be so naive to believe that there is not a very serious border-security problem that we need to deal with," said Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.), who heads the House Rules Committee.

Undersecretary of Commerce Phil Bond, a top Bush administration technology official, pointed out that the unemployment rate for engineers is above the national average.

When even the Bush Administration, whose favor Gates is trying to gain, is admitting that the unemployment rate for tech workers is above the national average, you know that Gates' claim that there aren't enough qualified American tech workers is utter horseshit. There may not be enough qualified American tech workers who are under 35 and willing to work 100 hour weeks for $13,000/year, but there are plenty of skilled tech workers out there. This isn't about addressing a shortage of workers, it's about turning the American workplace into a global sweatshop.

Thomas Friedman? Go fuck yourself.