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Comment by echelon | Hacker News Reader

Rhymes with horseshoe theory.

People are willing to let behavior slide when it aligns with their interests, but will call it out when the "other team" does it.

- Copyright abuse of games, movies, commercial software vs open source software

- Censorship of conservative speech vs censorship of liberal speech

- Genocide of one geopolitical entity vs another geopolitical entity

- Separation of church/state with mandated removal of religious symbols from students and government places vs freedom of religion with removal of LGBT symbols from students and government places

- Use of executive branch authority for [liberal goal] vs [conservative goal]

It's the same behavior on both sides, just different groups of people doing it.

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>- Separation of church/state with mandated removal of religious symbols from students and government places vs freedom of religion with removal of LGBT symbols from students and government places

>It's the same behavior on both sides, just different groups of people doing it.

I'm actually curious to understand how you came to the conclusion that non-standard sexual and gender identities are equivalent to a religion to you.

I don't mean to start an argument here, but do you actually believe that endorsing a specific religion is the same as endorsing gay rights?

> I don't mean to start an argument here, but do you actually believe that endorsing a specific religion is the same as endorsing gay rights?

I'm LGBT and agnostic.

Schools banning crosses and the Swiss banning burqa are very similar to the LGBT flag removal in Michigan. It's all censorship to enforce the ideology you agree with.

A free society would do none of these things.

Instead we have two angry sides playing games to anger one another.

I don't follow your logic. We have separation of church and state. Having religious symbols displayed by publicly funded schools violates that principle and favors the displayed religion(s). Protecting everyone's right to religious freedom requires not favoring any specific religions. This is pro first amendment.

An LGBT flag is a symbol of support for people who are not cis and straight. It is not a religious symbol. It is not infringing on any individual's right to practice their own religion. This is pro first amendment.

Banning burqas is oppressing muslim students' right to practice their religion, and is anti first amendment.

I think OP is referring to schools banning students from wearing crosses etc.

The problem is that enforcement is unequal and always seems to benefit the rich over the creators.

If I use Photoshop's 1's and 0's and don't follow Photoshop's rules, I could be bankrupt and thrown onto the streets, dramatically decreasing my life expectancy, or locked up and legally enslaved by Tyson Foods.

If PayPal, an 85 billion dollar market cap figure that has monopolized a large amount of digital commerce, uses our 1's and 0's and don't follow our rules, we're laughed at, because we are not an 85 billion dollar market cap figure.

I expect you understand this on some level.

> - Censorship of conservative speech vs censorship of liberal speech

How so? There are many left aligned websites that remove conservative content, and many conservative websites that remove lefty content, many sites that allow both and many sites that remove both. Perhaps I misunderstood, apologies if so.

Good thing the ends matter more than the means.

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