Here’s an interesting political tidbit that I didn’t have room for in my article about Republican State Senator Bill Finkbeiner’s decision to endorse the gay civil rights bill this year:

As you might remember, there was a big shit storm when the gay civil rights bill went down last year. What set it off was The Stranger’s revelation that Microsoft had decided to withdraw its support for the bill, after being pressured by an eastisde evangelical pastor named Ken Hutcherson. The idea that one religious fundamentalist could convince one of the most powerful corporations in America to reverse its position on gay rights fed straight into the post-election fear that evangelicals were taking over the country, and the story became big national — even international — news. After a ton of embarrassing publicity and blogosphere pressure, Microsoft reversed its reversal and pledged it would support the gay rights bill this year.

What does this have to do with Finkbeiner? Well, Finkbeiner’s district includes Redmond, where Microsoft is headquartered, which makes him Microsoft’s man in the state senate. So did Microsoft’s about-face on gay rights have anything to do with Finkbeiner’s about-face on gay rights? Did Microsoft make good on its promise to lobby for the bill this year by pressuring Finkbeiner to change his vote?

“They did,” Finkbeiner told me on Monday. “As much as they talked to me about anything except transportation, this was it.”

However, Finkbeiner took pains not to appear too deep in Microsoft’s pocket and said that the decision, in the end, was his own: “I put a lot more weight on what my constituents would think about this issue than I did on what Microsoft would think about it.”

Still, for those wondering whether all the blogosphere pressure (scroll down to “Microsoft Abandons Gays, or Gates-Gate,” left hand column) worked, and whether Microsoft made good on its promise to push the bill this year, the answer seems to be a resounding yes.