The nation's oldest and largest legal group dedicated to the protection of gay and lesbian civil rights is looking into the whole
Brouhaha surrounding Blizzard's seemingly anti-gay guild recruitment policies.

Lambda Legal attorney Brian Chase told Kotaku Thursday that he is working with Sara Andrews of Tennessee and Greg Woo of California about the issue.

Blizzard sent Andrews an email warning her against trying to recruit for her gay-friendly guild because it violated the company's anti-harassment policy. Andrews wrote Blizzard back saying she wasn t insulting anybody. Blizzard replied that her actions could incite others to harass players who otherwise wouldn t be harassed.

Woo is a member of Stonewall Champions, one of the larger gay-friendly guilds in WoW. The group also has guilds in numerous other MMOs including Guild Wars and City of Heroes.

"You can't tell gay and lesbian people that they have to be quiet so other folk won't harass them," Chase said. "If you want to stop harassment you have to stop the harassers not the victims."

Chase added that under California law a place of business cannot be discriminatory.

"That is settled law in California, but these laws haven t been enforced in a virtual world, yet," he said. "I think telling gay and lesbian people that they have to be quiet and go back into the closet is discrimination."

Lambda Legal Defense Fund

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