Because it's outright discrimination right here that voters in california need to deal with in November that could most definitely have an effect on other states and maybe eventually countries in removing discriminatory practices: a set deadline to deal with an ugly issue that if enough people vote yes on, will mean that everyone on all sides will waste more money and time trying to fight (and oh man, the money going into these yes and no on prop 8 campaigns..). Not that that won't happen if this prop is defeated, but it would be less of a mess than it would if it were not. California's potential impact on this situation is huge. It's a start.

Now, if we were talking money, which afaik Google has not donated to any no-on-prop-8 campaign, then I would agree with the open letter Matt wrote, but a public statement? From Google?

I'm not saying AIDS orphans aren't a pressing issue as well, but organizations and companies better fit to attempt to make an impact on that and many more humanitarian crises are working right now to do so and have been for a while, and I really don't think Google doing what they did for prop 8 for AIDS orphans instead would change much. Google did something like "Donate to $x charity!" link on their frontpage for previous crises like hurricane katrina and the recent devastating earthquake in China, and I bet that would have a larger impact if said charity were one like MSF etc. working to treat and stop AIDS or some adoption agency specializing in AIDS orphans. Or to AIDS research. Or something. Feature a new one every week. Sponsor a child. Adopt a child. Anything. Now that's a cool idea (although one would have to wonder how many people would pay attention, what kind of usability impact it would have on the site, and how many people would just see if they could remove that on their personalized page..).

The world sucks, honestly, but just because one problem is a lot worse than another doesn't mean that the lesser problem should be pushed aside for the sake of the larger problem. They're not exclusive, and some entities are just better fit to help on one than another.