Then let me answer it for you. Because you don't let your sense of ethics prevent you from doing whatever will get you the biggest slice of cake. Or, more accurately, because you have no sense of ethics.

Sure, that's a fine point but without wanting to be insulting for the sake of being insulting - given the context it seems a little bigoted. There's nothing in the original article to suggest that the woman in question was saying "I'm a lesbian and if you have a problem with it then you're a bad person!". All we can take from the article is that it was in her profile. She claims she was harassed about it. The fact that you're bringing up an extreme example - someone ramming their orientation down your throat, for want of a better phrase, implies more about your attitude to homosexuality than anything else.
I think this woman is well within her rights to complain about the situation, and given the information we have she certainly doesn't appear to fit in to the stereotype you've described.
As I said, I've no intention of turning this in to a flame war - just an observation.

Whether sexual orientation is considered a protected class with regards to discrimination varies state to state in the US. Similarly, the right of homosexuals to marry also varies from state to state, with some states fully allowing it, while others having outright banned it (with my own state, California, being completely schizophrenic on the matter).
Actually, violating the TOS then kicking up a stink about it is exactly the way one should go about challenging the matter, especially if the girl in question intends to pursue the matter through the courts. It's quite possible that MS already violated existing laws with their policy and actions, but nothing will come of it unless someone goes after them for it. Additionally, in the US you cannot bring a case to the courts unless you have standing, meaning that you need to have been harmed in some way before the courts are be willing to hear you out. If this girl had simply noticed the policy and wanted to have it changed she'd have had no recourse through the courts, but now that she has arguably been harmed through the policy she can bring the matter before the courts if she so desires, and potentially establish case law on the matter in the process.

Neither do I. I like a good discussion not ranting and raving XD.
What you say is possibly true, but for the sake of civility I will keep my attitude about homosexuality out of the discussion. Like I said before, live and let live but please keep it to yourself whatever it may be.
Also, it depends on who was harassing her about her orientation. Was it other users or the company itself? If it is other users, then she has no one to blame but herself for allowing people to know her orientation in her profile as there still are uncivil people out there who do not know how to either phrase their opinions in an intelligent manner or can't keep it to themselves. But if it was the actual company harassing her about it, then she has the full right to make a fuss about it since no one should be harassed about their orientation should they decide to let people know about it.

If she told a co-worker that she was a lesbian and she then received a load of abuse, would she have no one else to blame but herself? I'm pretty sure the XBLive T&C's state that you can be banned for personal abuse - almost every net community has that clause. In that case, if she was open about her sexuality and received abuse, MS should have banned those responsible for the abuse.
Given that you're clearly an intelligent human being capable of rational discourse, I would be interested to hear your attitude to homosexuality. I'm certainly happy to keep it civil, though I can't speak for the rest of the GOG'ers.

The biggest problem is that XBL is full of twats but there's no way to really punish them without constant monitoring. The only thing they can do effectively is a script based text search for keywords in profile pages so unless someone says "Hey I'm a bigoted cunt and think jew nigger fags should die!!!" then they're unlikely to spot them. Most of the dipshits I've enountered have practically no information in their profile.
Personally I hate the idea that people should be banned for simple stuff like that. In reality though it would have been a number of direct complaints from a team of bigoted idiots that couldn't be ingored and there was enough technicality in the TOS to justify a ban. Stupid and annoying but thats business for you.
I'm definitely a "people are people" kind of person, I hate everyone equally regardless of other factors.

Edited your post for ya :).
Christ, if only you looked like your avatar - I'd marry you.

The professional workplace and a game/net community are two totally different environments though. You don't just get banned in a workplace you get sued and punished for harassment, whereas in a lobby/net community all you get is either a permanent or temporary ban and a nasty email telling you that you have been bad (unless you were making direct threats on that person's life which is a different matter entirely.) and that's it; of course that is my opinion because I don't make it a habit of harassing people either at work or in a net community. I still hold the opinion that she is to blame for the harassment by the users, not because she deserves it or anything like that, but because she put private information in a public place thus opening herself up to harassment by a certain amount of users. Again, she doesn't deserve it but she should expect and not be surprised if other users do harass her about it.
About my attitude concerning homosexuality, I will do my best to put this forth in as concise and clear cut manner I can manage whilst attempting to avoid anything inflammatory or derogatory in nature.
I do not see the point of it, to tell the truth. I always wonder "Why?". And I don't like it because it is, IMO, indirectly responsible for the whole metrosexual thing amongst men. They wear make up and anything else related to make up and good grooming taken to an illogical extreme. I just don't like it but I don't wander around and hurt people because of their orientation. And I won't ostracize a homosexual because of their orientation; after all, a person is more than just their sexual orientation and I am able to seperate my dislike of the orientation from my friendship with the person. I hope this is intelligent enough. If I can clarify anything, let me know.

So what if she made information on her orientation available? The only people to blame for her being harassed are the cunts who were doing the harassing. It doesn't matter what information people make available about themselves- if you then choose to be a dick in response to that information that decision is entirely on you.

You seem to be linking certain flamboyant personality traits with homosexuality. I think it's often safe to assume that should one have said traits they probably are gay, but you certainly can't assume that if someone is gay they'll have those traits.
To be quite honest I find all that stuff a little tiresome - I hate fashion and all things related to it but that's got nothing to do with homosexuality.
As for "I do not see the point of it" - I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here. I get the impression you think someone suddenly says "hey I know, I'll be gay" rather than simply finding themselves attracted to members of the same gender. In that respect there's no *point* to it, it just is what it is.
edit: As to the point about the harassment - perhaps she should have expected that kind of response as the world is full of aggressive idiots, however the blame lies solely with those who were being aggressive idiots. I think it would be fair of her to raise a complaint and have said players banned or at least given a formal warning about their conduct.

Why should she have expectations of being harassed? I'm sure she was aware of the possibility, just as every person in the world is aware of some facts about themselves that some assholes may choose to harass them about. That doesn't mean any of us should take it as a given that if we share that information we'll be harassed, or feel that we shouldn't share that information if we so desire just because of what those few assholes may choose to do in response. Rather, what needs to happen is that the hammer needs to be brought down hard whenever people choose to act like assholes towards others because of who those people are.

Which is why we need a "smack people over the internet" application. The fact that people have realised that they can spout any bullshit without any threat of being smacked about for being a twat has led to a massive increase in dickheadery

It'd be pretty naive not to expect harassment simply because the internet is a hotbed of morons who like to spout abuse. It's wrong, it's unpleasant but it's fairly obvious it would happen.
Definitely, she shouldn't change what she does because of the idiots.
Couldn't agree more.
Internet anonymity really allows people to unleash their inner fuckwit. Unfortunately, even if we could get a "Kick you in the nuts" drive bay for pc's, it's highly unlikely the morons that deserve it would buy them. As a result the only thing you can really do aim for a zen like attitude and just not give a crap. That, or restrict your online activities to communities that are moderated sensibly.

What he means is, you know a certain percentage of people are assholes. You know that when the people in question are the users of an online gaming service, that percentage rises drastically, for the simple reason that noone has yet found a way to punch someone else in the face over the internet. If you then, on said gaming service, make public a fact that you know assholes will give you grief about, you have no right to act surprised when it happens. You can feel angry, you can feel sad, you can feel that your rights have been violated, but you cannot say that you didn't see it coming.

Or communities that sport a remarkably low asshole percentage. Such as this one :-D