Hacker News Reader

Comment by azinman2 | Hacker News Reader

Was interesting to hear the entire perspective but the "marriage thing?" That wasn't exactly small. Imagine if gave money instead to the KKK... would that have been just "a racial heritage thing?"

Backing something that separates families is divisive and not appropriate for an organization that is about openness and diversity, especially given the current tech climate of monoculture.

Engineers can really be the worst offenders when it comes to hate-like views, I think in part because they're likely smarter than the average person so they've completely convinced themselves that they're the rational ones.

I remember back when I was at Google in 2008. A survey on lgbt issues went around company wide. What came back was so completely shocking and insane, especially out of Russia and India. Burn them, kill them, they don't desire to live, etc. And this was a survey you gave back to your employer!!!

Edit: as many people have missed my point let me clarify. The comparison against the KKK was simply to illustrate that who you donate to and support affects your organization, especially when that cause negatively impacts the personal lives of your employees (and goes against your org core values, and reinforces an existing problem of monoculture). I'm not saying prop 8 == KKK, I'm showing that personal beliefs matter when you're a leader.

View on HN

There's a world of difference between opposing gay marriage and supporting a white supremacist terrorist organization. They're not even remotely comparable.

Specifically, it's entirely possible to oppose gay marriage on a number of grounds without being homophobic or bigoted; in my experience even as a young gay man in San Francisco, most of the people in my life who don't support gay marriage are perfectly reasonable, kind individuals who don't hate their gay friends. It's rather shallow to consider one's stance on LGBT issues through a single, limited lens, given that there are dozens of other issues (HIV, youth homelessness, alcoholism, depression) that affect the LGBT community.

> it's entirely possible to oppose gay marriage on a number of grounds without being homophobic or bigoted

How so?

I mean, I really haven't heard any arguments against same sex marriage that were not homophobic, so I'm actually curious since the definition of homophobia in Merriam-Webster [1] is:

"irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals"

I would thought that opposing to gay marriage would amount to discrimination against homosexuals, no?

Edit: Can't reply to mrbabbage due to anti-flame filter or something, but I guess, if I understand correctly, the contention point is about how people define marriage. So if marriage is, in some people's view, something entirely religious-related, then for them it would not be considered opposing gay marriage as something related to discrimination, but related to not "breaking" said definition.

For others, marriage would be just a religious-independent term, that signifies a certain set of life decisions (living with your partner, etc) as well as certain legal responsibilities and rights.

Ok, I get your point now. And I was honestly not wanting to start a flame war, and was genuinely asking since I wasn't clear on this. I guess the debate then turns into whether as a community (for different values of community) we should consider marriage as a legal term devoid of any religious implication, or not.

Edit2: I'm not even sure if people would even be able to agree on this, at least not for several generations.

Edit3: Wow, not sure why I would get downvoted for asking an honest question. I am seeing the vote counter jump up and down. Very interesting.

[1] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/homophobic

I think the common excuse is religious dogma. And don't you dare think about what that religious dogma comes from or what it implies.

It's not specific to gay marriage, but I think we ought to remove government recognition of all marriages. It codifies assumptions about lifestyle that we don't need to accept as norm.

...or split out religious marriages from state recognised marriages.

If a religious bigot wants to discriminate against gay people, well, that's not great but up to them. When the state wants to discriminate against gay people that's worse, especially since "right to a family life" is a human right.

If a homosexual bigot wants to discriminate against christians, well, that's not great but up to them. When the state wants to discriminate against christians, that's worse, especially since "right to family life" is a human right.

Oh wait, that's already happening and it's got a court ruling backing it: http://www.wsj.com/articles/court-rules-baker-cant-refuse-to...

No, the ruling is about treating every human being equally. Regardless of their religion, skin color, facial features, hair color, etc.

Who is the "homosexual bigot" in your example? The judge practicing the law of the country ? Per U.S. Declaration of Independence, "All men are created equal".

Comments like the last few are a great reminder of why maybe the government shouldn't be prescribing a particular sort of relationship as ideal.

If you don't like gay marriage, that's great, don't get one! Go to a church that doesn't recognize them!

If you do like gay marriage, cool - go get one!

Either way, call yourself married! Or not! Fortunately the government can recognize things like shared decision making, inheritance, property ownership, etc. without having to recognize that some people held a ceremony and a party and others didn't.

You can only have equality before the law. The civil rights laws from the 60s were only justified due to the extraordinary nature of systemic and pervasive discrimination, which state governments encouraged and mandated since the end of slavery, in the South towards Black Americans. Unfortunately, what was then viewed as an extraordinary measure for an extraordinary situation, has now been expanded to every group imaginable and is now being used as a tool of social triumphalism.

There is no crisis where gay couples are unable to find wedding bakers and photographers willing to serve them. I personally have no problem with homosexuality and gay marriage. But someone with religious convictions against it, should not be compelled to be involved. It's totally wrong to force a devout Christian photographer to participate in a gay wedding if he is opposed. What entitles you to his labor?

> There is no crisis where gay couples are unable to find wedding bakers and photographers willing to serve them.

...partly because laws were introduced to prevent discrimination by people offering commercial services.

I don't think this is the case. Social acceptance has preceded these laws; not the other way around.

I've yet to see anyone pro-ssm get behind this kind of thinking, even though it is completely fair and rational to all groups. They want the state involved and for the state to define marriage so as to make it unfair to those who don't believe what they believe. i.e. "Marriage is just a couple who love each other" vs. other traditional beliefs.

Well, I'm pro-ssm and I advocate this kind of thinking.

Pragmatic me thinks: "It's kind of weird that we encode the idea of two adults sharing a home, family, and bed to the exclusion of other models, but IF we're going to do that we should let gay and straight couples do so"

Idealistic me thinks: "Why the hell does the government recognize marriage anyway? People arrange their lives in dozens of different ways. A person can coparent/cohabit/have sex with/share medical choices with/share financial choices with/(etc.) a number of different partners, but we've decided "two adults doing all of those things is the norm, and anything else is less than ideal", which is a bit stifling.

There are other models. Maybe the Mosuo "walking marriage" should become a codified norm instead?

This, loosely, describes my views as well.

I agree. It seems like most of features of legal marriage can be captured through contract law.

Tax law isn't that way, as are many defaults for how things work.

Previously many days did in fact go through very complicated legal proceedings to try and do this, but many places where it matters (like hospitals) don't have those contracts so its very different from just saying 'thats my husband/wife'.

I think that's the more important bit -- having society recognize the relationship as equally valid, such that all the things that normal straight married people take for granted can also be taken for granted by gays. Unless law codifies that, it's harder to do.

Civil rights has often focused on law as a kind of behavior floor and codification of rights -- society then takes many years to catch up but its a very motivating factor.

The answer is to generalize any such legal privileges such that people can make their own arrangements as they see fit.

For lots of people, "marriage" is extremely intertwined with religious practice, and some religious traditions don't recognize same-sex marriages. It's not a matter of a specific desire to discriminate; for these people, marriage simply isn't a thing two men or two women can do.

Furthermore, for the separate population of radical people on the left, they tend to be skeptical of the role of the state in shaping domestic relationships and structures, so they tend to advocate for the abolition of legal structures (like marriage) that privilege certain types of domestic relationships over others. You can even see this in the history of the LGBT movement in the United States -- before the 1980s and the AIDS crisis, LGBT activists fought far more often for the abolition of marriage, not for gay marriage.

And 70 years ago, those same religious people would have said miscegenation is against their religious practices. Similarly for inter-faith marriages. There are many examples of the mutability of their so-called religious practices. So let's not pretend it's anything but a dodge to avoid taking responsibility for their bigotry.

The rejection of gay marriage is entirely contained within religious practice.

I'm in favor of gay marriage, but this position seems widely held and it's a little baffling. Marriage is itself nothing more than a cultural tradition. If you don't agree, go work out a logical derivation of why the practice of pairing up is optimal and report back. From that perspective, is it really surprising that some people want traditional traditions? On the balance, I think gay marriage is a good idea, but I also think there's something to be said for going slow when abandoning traditions.

Marriage has specific social benefits that the government wants to encourage. It also helps to streamline certain bureaucratic processes. At the end of the day, it's simple: it's not your marriage, so why do you care?

> is it really surprising that some people want traditional traditions?

Well, no. I guess not. And in that context, there will definitely always be a broad spectrum of those that want to keep traditions as such, and those that want change.

But it seems that at least for this particular tradition, it gets trickier to just consider it "a tradition" since it is so intertwined with the legal definition, for some countries at least.

So even though it's "just" a cultural tradition, it makes a big effect on the outcome of legal matters.

I mean, I've seen groups that oppose same-sex marriage suggest calling that "legal relationship between two people" something other than marriage, giving it the same rights and that would be enough.

The thing I try to imagine is, what would happen if some country would completely decouple the marriage term from the legal definition, if that would make things better or not.

As long as every legal matter related to the definition of this new term is updated, and so referring to marriage would only be at the religious level (no other consequences than that), what would happen? would that be a good solution for most? or would it be maybe just enough ?

I'm pretty sure there would be people disliking the idea of having a different term, however legally equivalent it may be, and probably they could give good reasons, but would it be the majority or a minority?

I have honestly no idea.

There's a legal aspect, but that's still just a law codifying cultural norms. Why do people have to wear clothes in public? The libertarian abstraction of people as living in isolation from one another until they choose to interact is a good example of a leaky abstraction.

> If you don't agree, go work out a logical derivation of why the practice of pairing up is optimal and report back.

You can't exactly do it from first principles, or from Euclid's five axioms. It's arbitrary, but it's an arbitrary part of the society we live in, so there are reasons why marrying - as opposed to just 'pairing up' - is optimal.

1. Family rights - if your partner is sick and in the hospital, marriage allows you to make decisions on their behalf, gives you visitation rights, and allows you to receive benefits if worse comes to worst. It also gives you greater rights when it comes to any children you may have.

2. Taxes - the government gives incentives to married couples. (We could argue that in states where gay marriage is prohibited this is not the case, but that just sounds like more discrimination.)

But marriage is a non-religious concept, plenty of atheist/non-spiritual people get married.

Noone is forcing religious organizations to perform gay marriage ceremonies in their places of worship.

It's not fear of homosexuals. It's just that what they have isn't marriage.

There's a world of difference between opposing gay marriage and supporting a white supremacist terrorist organization. They're not even remotely comparable. You shouldn't have responded. :( The guy is obviously a troll.

Read my edit.

I'm also a gay man in SF and I don't share your view point at all. Telling me I can't get married, have kids (intertwined issue), and live a normal life means you've denied me happiness and freedom of expression. There's nothing perfectly reasonable about that.

Other issues that affect lgbt community aren't on topic -- eich donated to prop 8.

You decided to compare many good people to terrorists. Don't be surprised by the blowback. If you don't want to distract from your point, consider picking a better analogy next time.

You decided to compare people who deny gay marriage to good people.

I know some that serve the homeless, some that help people get over addiction, some that treat AIDS, and some that help victims of violent crimes.

So, if for example I prevented black people from voting, but then volunteered at a homeless shelter, I could be considered a good person? I can offset my discrimination by doing volunteer work?

I'm not saying people can make up for doing bad things. I'm arguing against prejudice (as in judging someone before you meet them and judging people instead of individuals).

> I'm not saying people can make up for doing bad things.

That's precisely what you are saying. Mormons do wonderful things in many cases, especially in disaster relief and other humanitarian projects. They also have official positions that are bigoted. Both can be true, but the good does not make up for the bad. The prop 8 effort was a work of bigotry.

No, I'm saying it's hateful and hypocritical to ignorantly hate on otherwise good people. It's easier (and probably feels better) to make them all out to be mustache twirlers, but it's more of a convenient truth than reality.

It wasn't an analogy. It was establishing that there is a point at which supporting a class of political organization renders you unfit to be a leader of Mozilla.

There isn't, really. Give it a few years and they'll be considered the exact same. Don't be on the wrong side of history.

(I'm sure we've had this conversation 100+ years ago on slavery. That didn't die in a single day, either.)

I'm sorry but that does not make much sense. Even if they don't "hate" their gay friends, they are pro limiting their rights and actually mandating on how they should live their life.

It is the very definition of being bigoted.

They're not perfectly reasonable, and they are not kind. They just like to think they are through a lenses that hides away some parts of the population.

Edit: spelling

Society at large is mandating the lives of everyone in ways that are much more serious and inhibiting than the inability to get married, so that's moot. Someone else's willingness to perform a religious ceremony on you is not a right. You could make the argument that married people receive benefits that unmarried people do not and that particular unfairness should be done away with, which is a very valid concern, but that was never the point. You stop caring about "rights" and "bigotry" when it no longer affects you or where it is deemed socially acceptable to do so - the single, the polygamous, the incestuous, they can get stuffed.

> Society at large is mandating the lives of everyone in ways that are much more serious and inhibiting than the inability to get married

That's a pretty bad comparison. Limits are in place to protect people's own rights and life. Someone getting married has no influence on someone else's life. Therefore it's an overreach and yes, it is bigotry.

The fight for same-sex marriages is not about religious ceremonies and you should know that. It's about having the same rights as other non-same-sex couples in regards to property rights, inheritance, hospital visit, etc. No one said otherwise.

There's a bit of tension between "divisive is bad" and "we should have a diverse industry", unless "diverse" is redefined to mean "San Francisco liberals of all races, genders, etc."

"Divisive" is an interesting word, and one very, very useful if you're on the popular side of a monoculture. Anyone asking to be in your industry who you don't like is being divisive.

Divisive is a word that happens to look like diverse, but they don't mean the same thing at all. I don't understand your logic.

> I think in part because they're likely smarter than the average person so they've completely convinced themselves that they're the rational ones.

The average Californian voted for the proposition Eich donated to. Is it rational to compare the majority of Californian voters to the KKK? Is it rational to call the positions of both Obama and Clinton in 2008 hateful?

The KKK was likewise once supported by a majority of voters and many politicians.

I need a citation to believe that a majority of (which states?) supported assassination and terrorism.

In fact the presidents of both parties (Eisenhower and LBJ) signed legislation (two civil rights acts) in direct opposition of the Klan's goals.

I'm not saying people need to agree with Eich, but it's an awful false equivalence to compare him to terrorists.

The people didn't support assassination and terrorism, in fact those helped bring down the KKK, but they did support the goal of white Protestant supremacy. At its height in the 1920s, before the KKK's downfall in scandal, "claimed Klan membership exceeded four million and comprised 20% of the adult white male population in many broad geographic regions, and 40% in some areas". (cited on Wikipedia).

Klan member Edward L. Jackson was elected governor of Indiana, and "Although the full extent of the Klan's power was unknown at that time, it claimed that its members occupied more than half the seats in the Indiana General Assembly, and a large percentage of the local offices in Indiana." (Wikipedia again, but uncited)

Regarding Eich, while I don't think he himself supports violence, it's not such a huge leap to violence from a platform whose roots are in the Biblical verses:

"You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination" (Leviticus 18:22)

and

"If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them" (Leviticus 20:13)

The roots of the Bible are much more clearly:

Romans 12

Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Christians who love the Bible know this passage by heart. Very few care to memorize the (no-longer-followed) legal code of Israel. The ignorant choose to take the Bible out of context to justify their hate. Please don't make the same mistake.

I meant opposition to homosexuality and gay marriage, not Christianity in general.

Jesus and the apostles clearly taught that sexual immorality is harmful. It's a sticky proposition for one to call herself a Christian and reject Christ's teachings.

It's stickier yet for someone who doesn't claim Christ at all to define what Christianity entails or what good or bad Christians do.

I don't want to debate theology; I meant only that the Bible says homosexuals should be put to death, and it's easy to see how repeating and emphasizing that verse encourages violence.

It's not much harder to see how defining homosexuals as "immoral" or simply as a lesser class of people not entitled to all the same rights as heterosexuals also encourages violence.

It's impossible to talk about what's moral and not without getting theological.

The Bible defines homosexuals as immoral. It's not ambiguous about that. But it says everyone is immoral. And it says all rights are given by God, not by men. And, partly because of this, it also says, very clearly, that senseless violence is despicable.

That is to say, at least part the problem is with theology, or at least bad theology. And Mozilla, perhaps unintentionally, has taken a theological position by removing Eich. Or at least it thinks it can't productively tolerate certain people. And some of those people are good people with genuinely held religious views.

So, yeah, Mozilla is getting some blowback. And, no, it's not because being opposed to same sex marriage is the same ridiculous theology of the KKK.

It's not impossible to discuss morality without theology (consider humanism) but that's irrelevant.

My problem is with anyone who uses any excuse (including theology) to deny people equal rights.

I do not object to Eich's religious views. If he believes gay marriage is immoral he should be free not to participate in one.

I object to his attempt to impose his religious views on other people through the law and deny other people the right to choose for themselves.

I believe that distinction is also relevant to Mozilla's decision.

> It's not impossible to discuss morality without theology (consider humanism) but that's irrelevant.

Humanism has massive theological implications. You can't be a humanist and a Christian at the same time, for example. The Bible encourages Christians to get along with humanists. Unfortunately, humanists have no holy book to encourage reciprocal behavior.

> My problem is with anyone who uses any excuse (including theology) to deny people equal rights.

You presume rights that are not natural rights. And they're not God-given. They're not even constitutional. (Yeah, the Supreme Court case was terrible law). They simply seemed like they should be rights, so they were "imposed" on "other people" through... well, not the law, but through the legal system. And in the process, the rights of many were violated (the right to due process before constitutional changes were made, for instance).

> I object to his attempt to impose his religious views on other people through the law and deny other people the right to choose for themselves.

...and you want to punish him and his ilk by denying them the right to choose certain career paths. Judges, county clerks, wedding planners, JoP, etc. I guess CEO and other PR positions as well.

If someone can't follow the law, including the rulings of the Supreme Court, rather than their personal beliefs (religious or otherwise), then they aren't qualified to be a judge. That's something all judges must do; it's not unique to this law.

But if they can set aside their personal beliefs while on the bench and follow the law, they can still be judges.

And they can certainly be CEOs, but CEOs will always be judged on their public image. That's not unique to this debate either. Remaining (publicly) neutral on controversial issues is often an unspoken job requirement. Particularly civil rights issues.

> they were "imposed" on "other people"

Everyone can choose for themselves now. Allowing other people to choose is not forcing you to accept their beliefs. (I do agree that wedding planners, bakers, etc should be free to choose whether to participate.)

Freedom means sometimes other people will choose to do things you think are immoral.

How does that jive with comments like " He got shamed out of his job for having had donated money to a group that was against same-sex marriage. Basically, all people who hold Christian values don't deserve to have a job." elsewhere in this thread?

The same Leviticus who claims eating shellfish and birds is an abomination?

"and they shall be abhorrent to you; you may not eat of their flesh, and their carcasses you shall detest. 12'Whatever in the water does not have fins and scales is abhorrent to you. 13'These, moreover, you shall detest among the birds; they are abhorrent, not to be eaten: the eagle and the vulture and the buzzard,…"

Yes, and almost no one pays any attention to the rest of Leviticus anymore -- only to the verses about homosexuality.

More importantly, the second verse encourages those who hate homosexuals to kill them, and I hope the overwhelming majority of us can agree that's not acceptable.

I think a better what to say this is the majority of Californian voters. Voter demographics tend to swing more conservative than the population at large on these issues.

Yes. They're both about harming and dividing people in the name of irrational beliefs supported by their emotions. These beliefs in the past even led to consensuses of imprisonment, beatings, and murders. If Eich merely had an opinion, I'd just disagree with it and say let him keep doing his good work. Putting money into active attacks on Americans' liberties, including his own employees/contributors, is totally different. Keep him or get rid of him is a grey area for me where I'm not decided on morale superiority of either yet. It could have wide-ranging effects in other areas of political participation.

Nonetheless, eliminating the wallet of someone paying to split you from your lover seems like self-defense rather than an attack. Their reaction was justified to say the least. The real evil here is the consistent trend of one group of people trying to limit another they disagree with. Let them be them, us be us, whatever so long as no provable harm is happening. That's my baseline for civil liberties.

By your standard, everyone who supported Obama should be fired, given that he also opposed gay marriage in 2008.

You okay with that?

You missed his/her point - I don't think Obama donated money to the people opposing gay marriage.

I don't think I missed the point at all.

Are you seriously arguing that a donation to a statewide ballot issue has more wide-reaching influence than a donation to the President of the entire country?

Obama didn't have to "donate money". He's the one getting donations for making the policy, not the one giving money to influence it.

Obama is supposed to act as an agent of his constituents and a leader at the same time. His constituents are tens of to 100+ million Americans with a variety of demands. He has to vote or act their way a good amount of time to get or stay elected. It's very constrained and dirty due to inherently corrupt environment between cost of elections (excludes good folks, promotes lobbying) and tyranny of majority. System and demand side are problem because they exclude all honest, decent people from President. Name a counterexample in past two decades if you doubt that.

So, Presidents and often (not always) Congress are a special situation compared to a group voluntarily creating organizatikns to push for harm and people supporting that over better organizations. Totally different in both what options are available to people starting nonprofits and which people can donate to vs what specific actions a President or Congress can pull off.

The other commenter figured it out. Eich donated to a group specifically about causing gay people harm. You can either ignore someone financing harm or punish them as deterrence. Many chose to punish.

Now, Obama is a dirty politician people chose over more honest runners. His claims and voting record mismatched early enough to know. Electing scumbags is another kind of harm. People can ignore or react to that too.

Far as politicians, supporting certain types of laws is a requirement for election given how voters act in this country. So, I'd make an exception there where I wouldn't fire prople but you could boycott their business or state if you wanted.

"Far as politicians, supporting certain types of laws is a requirement for election given how voters act in this country."

Got it. Claiming to support laws that you actually think are wrong is excusable if it means you can get elected.

You're basically saying that Obama lied to get elected, and that you're okay with that.

That doesn't really come off quite the way I think you intended.

Yes.

I just read a quote the other day. Roe vs. Wade passed while Nixon was president, but he didn't really get involved publicly. Some private tapes were made though, in one of them he said that abortion was "necessary" in some circumstances. Such as mixed race pregnancies!

> ... current tech climate of monoculture....

and then a little later

> ... especially out of Russia and India....

So the monoculture is of a diverse "national" cultures but it needs to be replaced with a US centric progressive view monoculture?

You have to explain your reasoning here.

And I don't understand how the opposition to gay marriage is about separating families and is the equivalent of raging racists that lynch innocent people of colour. Can you explain that also?

They think diversity of race/gender is more important than diversity of opinion. I support marriage equality, but would not equate the opposition to the KKK - that's the kind of extremist thinking that arises in a monoculture bubble.

>You have to explain your reasoning here.

This isn't exactly a new idea about open societies. See for example Karl Popper in 1945:

"Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

But it is much more colloquially known as "live and let live."

>And I don't understand how the opposition to gay marriage is about separating families and is the equivalent of raging racists that lynch innocent people of colour. Can you explain that also?

Also, somewhat tired ground by now, but the California proposition would separated families and deprived them of the legal rights that families have. Your "lynch" analogy is a strawman, the KKK doesn't really do that these days, but it still does vile things. The KKK of today is quite equivalent in effect and practice to California's prop 8.

> Also, somewhat tired ground by now, but the California proposition would separated families and deprived them of the legal rights that families have. Your "lynch" analogy is a strawman, the KKK doesn't really do that these days, but it still does vile things. The KKK of today is quite equivalent in effect and practice to California's prop 8.

Well I'm not familiar at that level of US culture, and that illustrates the main point of critique that I tried to convey. The Prop 8 and KKK equivalence is a little unclear to me from a different background.

But that is impressive, using the paradox of tolerance to advocate protectionism.

He followed the internal guidelines and respected the TGBL people inside mozilla. That should have been the end of it.

"I fundamentally disagree with you about this very important issue, and we should still find a way to cooperate" is a crucial idea, hard won and, as we are seeing, easily lost. It underpins multi-religious societies, working democracies, and in general, any group of people that need to do something. Unfortunately, right now we have groups of people that say the polar oposite: "It is good and moral to shun people who disagree with X".

I totally agree with marriage equality. But I think it can be (and mostly was) won on dialogue, not shunning. And I will always be against the shunners (though I hope not to shun them :P).

btw, all I just said applies just as well to klanspeople: Are they harming the employees? No? Are they aligned with the mission? Them keep them. And tell them they are stupid over a beer. Talk the shit out, and fight their stupid ideas in the right places. Do not allow political disagreement, even of the most grievous kind, to cut oportunities for dialogue and cooperation.

Many people simply aren't willing to let single-issue hysteria drive our behavior, instead prefering to consider many aspects of a given situation. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this leads to better engineering output, but it is not exclusive to engineers.

When the single issue is basic human rights, it's hardly hysterical.

> Was interesting to hear the entire perspective but the "marriage thing?" That wasn't exactly small. Imagine if gave money instead to the KKK... would that have been just "a racial heritage thing?"

As long as they operate within the law then that's not something someone should be fired for. Otherwise, would you fire someone for donating to e.g. the Republican party? If you can't express a legal political position without being fired then you don't have free speech[1] in any meaningful sense.

[1] Which does not just mean the first amendment, I don't understand the confusion that leads people to think this.

As a point of fact, he wasn't fired, he resigned.

Aaaand, resigning of your own free will because your employees don't agree with your politics (and may no longer want to follow your leadership) seems like a consequence you should be ready to accept when you engage politically.

>I remember back when I was at Google in 2008. A survey on lgbt issues went around company wide.

What a stupid survey. I would refuse to answer any question if one of hundreds would be about political views. It's not employers matter what I think.

If you mentioned that "boycott Mozilla" thing started by OkCupid, let's don't forget that okcupid CEO did the same as Eich. http://blog.sfgate.com/techchron/2014/04/08/okcupid-ceo-once...

Every candidate has supported things I disagree strongly with. That doesn't change that they may have supported many more things that I agree even more strongly with. Donating to a campaign against marriage equality is very different than donating to a candidate who (among other things) is against marriage equality.

Isn't there a thing in the HN guidelines about "don't start predictable flamewars"?

What happened to Eich was the digital and career equivalent to a lynching. Good views (equality) should not be supported by bad behavior (online lynch mobs).

But this is almost certainly not a useful subject to rehash when there are no doubt other interesting things to discuss about Mozilla.

Are you really equating "being against gay marriage" to "being a KKK supporter"? How are/were families separated due to not being able to get married?

> How are/were families separated due to not being able to get married?

Many same-sex partners have been barred from hospital rooms, cut off from estates (in the event of their partner's deaths), and limited from access to their children after breakups. These all rely on the legal framework of marriage to navigate, and this was something that was not available to most of the gay population of the US until last year.

It's a great example how how the old notion of keeping business, politics and religion separate makes a lot of sense.

If you cannot respect folks professionally, you need to go. If your religious beliefs call for my <insert attribute here> to be condemned/killed/declared heretic/etc, good for you. But we're not taking the issue up at work.

> But we're not taking the issue up at work.

I think I mostly agree with you on the particulars, but asking religious people to stay in the closet isn't healthy either. Maybe certain discussions need to happen outside of the normal workday, but you wouldn't support a policy that required someone to leave their race, gender, or sexual orientation at home, would you?

Unfortunately, religion is a dragon that difficult to tame. My family is Catholic... My wife once was accosted by some fringe evangelical "Christian" guy warning her of imminent doom due to her idolatry of the pope. Not acceptable.

You have the right to live as your conscience and values dictate. But you don't have the right to interfere with the ability of others to do the same.

Well it is to be expected from places like Russia and India tbh. I am from the UK and such comments would be seen as shocking but we all know Russia hates gay people it makes sense that employees who grew up and continue to live in Russia are going to have very Russian views. Just because they work for a modern, progressive company such as Google (or Microsoft or Apple ...) isn't going to change their opinions on such things.

You would have got the same kind of responses in America if you asked about how blacks should be treated/integrated into the company back in the 1950s.

> Well it is to be expected from places like Russia and India tbh.

Every single person in the world knows that one hundred percent of all the people from the UK know damn well to stay away from generalizations. Oh wait.

You've interpreted a statistical claim about population means as a universal claim about all members of a group. That is incorrect, uncharitable, and unhelpful if your goal is discussion rather than browbeating.

Ugh I knew somebody would bring up generalisations. Yes yes I know not every single person in Russia hates and wants to kill gay people. Ask a gay person if they would go to Russia and be openly gay without worrying about it? I doubt you would find many who would be fine with doing that. I have been to Russia many times, it is an amazing place, but I have seen how anti-gay many places in Russia are so yeah I will generalise and say the majority seem to be against gays.

In your example I doubt a giant portion of people would say "burn them alive." I don't think you understand race relations in the US.

Regardless, this was 2008, not 1950s. It also wasn't only Russia and India. Americans, Europeans, and others also came back with extremely intolerant views as well TO THEIR EMPLOYER AND COLLEAGUES!!

Well you didn't mention that second part in your first post did you ;)

Also perhaps not burn alive but they certainly didn't have a problem with lynching them in the South did they?

If someone has different views than you then you have to respect that. And if you don't want to hear about those views then simply don't ask.

>Imagine if gave money instead to the KKK

Not a great comparison. I don't think the campaign, that Eich donated to, killed people.

Gays are killed in many countries BY LAW. Believe me, many of those running the prop 8 campaign, Family research counsel, etc would like to see gays either imprisoned, committed, killed, or otherwise removed from society.

Regardless, the comparison was not meant to be quite so 1:1. It was to illustrate with a "clearer case" that CEOs that support divisive organizations affect the organization that they lead.

Read up on suicides of gay Mormons. It's not a tolerant culture.

Have you read the whole text of the SCOTUS? Because it clearly states that people in the US are entitled to think AND opine differently in this issue...

Just a reminder. Prop 8 passed in California in 2008 with 52% of the vote. Individuals who held that view where hardly extremists.

> Backing something that separates families is divisive and not appropriate for an organization that is about openness and diversity

How about end-users that hold the same divisive values as Mr. Eich? Surely Mozilla shouldn't tolerate these either.

I recommend a first-run wizard that quizzes the user's political stance. If the user is on the wrong side of history, Firefox will automatically uninstall itself. Nothing is more important than the projects moral purity, right?

I think what people are missing most in this debate is that the guy was just hired as CEO. One of the CEO's most important roles is to manage shitstorms.

Whatever your position is on gay marriage, right out of the gate Eich got overwhelmed. He was the one in the position to do something about the shitstorm, and yet it grew rather than diminished.

If you're going to get paid as much as a CEO does, you should be able to finesse difficult PR situations; he clearly couldn't, so it's reasonable that he got axed. The actual topic of the shitstorm doesn't even need to enter into it.

Some folks might think that donating money to an abortion clinic amounts to something just as bad, so it's really all about political beliefs.

It's ridiculous to me that a group that is supposed to be against oppression, bigotry, and bullying, practices exactly this when it involves people with differing beliefs.

It only makes people like Trump even more popular.

Because the differing belief has to do with delegitimizating someone else!!! If the believe was personal like I believe in this god, etc, then it doesn't actually affect someone else. What's not clear?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com