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Comment by alex_lav | Hacker News Reader

> Vasquez further told Reclaim The Net that “Mr. Scharf was ultimately fired for refusing to yield his Catholic beliefs to gender ideology.”

This is a very very generous description of why he was fired. Generous to the fired person.

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As a vegetarian, if I was ordered by a boss to cook (not eat) meat for a work event, I would likewise object, and refuse to yield my vegetarian beliefs to good host ideology.

this is more like your boss ordering lunch for a team, and sending a form with options for meat, vegetarian or other. but rather than selecting vegetarian, you select other and put in a screed about how eating animals is wrong.

If he had refused to put pronouns entirely he probably would have been fired anyway. By doing it this way he at least has a shot of a religious discrimination suit.

I don't think he does, because his religious beliefs are accommodated: as a Catholic who believes God created him as male, he can select "he/him." The pronouns he uses were listed there for him to pick. The form didn't ask him to elaborate; he chose to. He was protesting the existence of the question because it gave other people an option he personally chose not to exercise - protesting that option is like protesting having pork as one of several options for team lunch, vs. just choosing not to have the pork.

This comment says it more concisely than I did: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36301642

> As a vegetarian, if I was ordered by a boss to cook (not eat) meat for a work event

A ridiculous comparison.

> refuse to yield my vegetarian beliefs to good host ideology.

Nobody was asking this person to yield a belief.

Just strawmen all around.

Yes, yes they were. The were asking him to yield a belief that pronouns cannot be chosen by the referent, by making him so choose.

They literally did not. If I ask you your height, are you choosing your height?

But I don't actually want to continue this conversation with you. I appreciate your point of you, I just do not agree with it in any capacity. Best of luck and have a good day.

His point of view is not mine. I'm just not allowing others to strawman the beliefs he stated in the article.

That's a strawman, though. Nobody made him yield anything.

This comment says it better than I did: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36301642

That's fine. He felt a ridiculous way and acted childishly about it, and was fired.

Oh well. Hope he learns from his childish behavior.

Muslims successfully sued grocery stores for having to handle products which are prohibited to Muslims, and the courts instructed their employers that the reasonable accommodation must be made to allow them to work in a place where they wouldn't have to handle such products.

I think for a lot of people stating their pronouns is seen as an act of solidarity with people who use pronouns other than those they were assigned at birth. I think there is a possibility that for Mr Sharf, being asked to state his pronouns too felt for him like he was being asked to show solidarity with a way of thinking that opposed his religious beliefs.

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