Brendan Eich becomes Mozilla CEO
brendaneich.com
brendaneich.com
Civil society is in real trouble if we can't agree to leave passionate debates like these in the political sphere.
The idea that you can have a "political sphere" and then a sterile world outside that is free of politics is just totally bizarre to me. I can't even begin to imagine what that would look like or how it would work.
I think part of the problem is that it's become an identity thing. That's been intentional on the part of political campaign strategists, since it helps them.
It's distressing to see how successful their self-interested manipulation has been.
I'm talking about this in broad terms, not any specific issue, and certainly not just this one. And it's both sides of the issues, not merely one party or the other.
It's the most insidious kind of marketing there is.
Do you never talk about politics with people who's views you disagree with? Is that just out of fear of offending them? What the hell do you talk about, the weather?
My general approach is to be glad I pissed those people off, because I now know to never associate with them again.
This might be harder in, say, Texas.
The fact that it seems alien to people to be able to do that indicates something has gone deeply, deeply wrong with politics.
There are neighborhoods which are fairly uniform in their political leanings where politics is commonly discussed, mostly in the "us-vs-them, go us, evil them" way; pretty reminiscent of some religions, actually. There are families like that too.
There are other neighborhoods, and families, where having that sort of discussion all the time would mostly serve to make people upset at each other, precisely because it would so quickly devolve into an "us-vs-them" argument but with both sides represented. People generally handle this by either being miserable and fighting all the time or by agreeing to disagree and moving on with all the many other aspects of life that don't involve Federal government intervention. Does it really seem bizarre to you that people would pick the latter over the former?
> Do you never talk about politics with people who's views you disagree with?
It depends on the views, the person, and what the point would be. Generally talking about positions people decided on with their brains is worthwhile. Talking about positions people decided on with their guts is less likely to be so. Figuring out which is which can be hard.
> What the hell do you talk about, the weather?
Well, some people handle this by self-segregating in echo chambers and then "discussing politics". ;)
For me personally, I do talk to people about the weather, books I or they have read recently, local politics, parenting, food.... National politics is pretty far down the list of things that are interesting to talk about with most people I end up talking to.
All I've seen is a donation to a bigoted cause (which is disappointing), and then a matter-of-fact public statement that Mozilla's mission is bigger than any one person and their political beliefs, and that he's only willing to discuss this issue in more private channels, which seems totally fair.
Anti-miscegenation laws were deemed constitutional in the United States until 1967 when the SCOTUS ruled on the aptly named Loving v. Virginia. Today, this case is cited as precedent for overturning gay marriage bans across the United States.
Please explain why you believe that this is a false equivalence.
It's a false equivalence because being a black person in the civil-right-era South isn't the same as being gay in California. Maybe they're both unpleasant experiences, but they're different both in kind and degree. Furthermore, there's no analog to "race mixing" (the real "crime" in interracial marriage) in the debate about gay marriage.
Lumping current proponents of traditional marriage in with the likes of George Wallace is akin to breaking Godwin's Law and only serves to inhibit understanding, not promote it. This only undermines the inclusive ideals that gay marriage supporters claim to advocate.
Secondly (and note that I'm switching off RV numbers from California and onto nationwide numbers without any reference to voter registration), 52% of Americans nationwide supported the legalization of gay marriage last year[2].
[A] large chunk of one of the most progressive states
in the U.S.
Maybe they're both unpleasant experiences, but
they're different both in kind and degree.
Furthermore, there's no analog to "race mixing"
(the real "crime" in interracial marriage) in
the debate about gay marriage.
Lumping current proponents of traditional marriage in
with the likes of George Wallace is akin to breaking
Godwin's Law and only serves to inhibit understanding,
not promote it. This only undermines the inclusive
ideals that gay marriage supporters claim to advocate.
You still haven't explained why you think gay marriage is bad.
[1] http://www.gallup.com/poll/163697/approve-marriage-blacks-wh...
[2] http://www.gallup.com/poll/163730/back-law-legalize-gay-marr...
By definition, not allowing homosexual marriage is discriminatory, as are any limits on who may be married, no matter how just the reason. The only non-discriminatory view is to get government out of the whole business of marriage (a view that seems more and more like the best compromise). If inclusiveness is the ultimate goal here, then silencing critics by equating them to obviously terrible people is hypocritical. Otherwise, people should be honest and admit that inclusiveness isn't the goal, imposing a different worldview is.
Reasons for traditional marriage:
1. I find a Burkean argument against rapid experimentation in our social fabric to be convincing, especially considering the ill effects of rapid social change in the U.S. in the 20th century and up to now.
2. Accidental pregnancy is a big problem. Creating mechanisms for heterosexual couples to pair of permanently, with compatible mates, is in the interest of society. This is especially true in the age of large social programs and the always-increasing extramarital birthrate, which is overwhelmingly due to unplanned pregnancies.
3. Defining marriage as a purely expressive act or as a bag of goodies is to miss a sine qua non of the institution: promotion of healthy, stable families. Families are much more spontaneous than we give them credit for, especially in the fertile ground of a heterosexual relationship. Ensuring smart pairings and then a permanence for those relationships is in the interest of everyone.
4. I believe that a family splitting itself up is much more costly than we want to admit. I believe difficulty in splitting up is a feature of good marriage tradition and law.
5. I we have already been trying to remedy the ills caused by broken homes with little success. I am not confident that a combination of birth control, social programs, education, etc. will solve this problem because we have been trying this for decades.
To be clear, I'm not opposed to people expressing themselves. If two men want to call each other husband until they die, that's their right. I'm not opposed to figuring a way to simply bestow inheritance rights or power of attorney. Or to address the other practical hurdles of that lifestyle.
But how do homosexual unions undermine traditional marriage? They don't, really, but that's not the issue here. The issue is an opposition to special privileges for straight couples (traditional marriage). Otherwise, we would be talking about civil unions or something (I'm sure some readers winced when I used the phrase civil union, which is the point). This is not about freedom; it's about acceptance. It's not just about rights and outcomes, it's about equal benefits and equal treatment.
So my view, that straight sexual partners are fundamentally different, is incompatible with the goals of current court cases and legislation involving homosexual rights. I'm coming around to the hope that we can get government out of the regulating marriage business altogether and support families in other ways (child tax credits? some sort of earned income tax multiplier for families?).
In the meantime, having government reduce marriage to simply another expression of love or a package of rights is something I will actively oppose. The stakes are too high and the damage is already being felt.
The only non-discriminatory view is to
get government out of the whole business
of marriage
I think that marriage, despite its fraught history in the context of the Christian church, should be explicitly removed from government and handed over to other parties who may partake of it if they feel so inclined. I would much rather skip the whole marriage thing given the option.
So… the government should do the exact same thing but call it something else because reasons?
> I would much rather skip the whole marriage thing given the option.
You have it, nobody will force you to marry if you don't want to.
I believe the case for homosexual marriage is incomplete in this way.
And another: a man and a simulated anime character want to get married, but there's a law forbidding it. Would you say that's against artificial intelligence, japanese animation or both?
And your second example is obviously discriminatory and against AIs. I assume the only reason you'd write such a line is because a sentient AI doesn't exist yet?
So stop complaining that people arguing for marriage equality are making you tired by pointing out that you're no better than bigots who argue against mixed race marriage. People's right to marry the partner they love trumps your right not to be tired of making weak unconvincing arguments. You are not the victim here.
Also note that I never made an argument for or against gay marriage, I simply argued that your argument itself is faulty. People seem to be incapable of distinguishing between the two. Perhaps I'm a rare breed, but I will argue against bad arguments for a conclusion I agree with.
You guys are losing people by attempting to hitch the gay rights wagon onto the civil rights wagon. One does not immediately follow from the other.
When there's a big group of people who are obviously anti-gay, and an intertwined group who claims that they aren't anti-gay at all, but instead just happen to have a shifting array of horseshit reasons for acting anti-gay, Occam starts whispering in my ear.
edit: To illustrate the relevance, the main criticism I heard from Prop 8's opponents was exactly this. It wasn't the usual references to Sodom & Gomorrah or that kind of thing.
I can't say I've ever seen such a proposal, the proposals I've seen[0] painstakingly carved a niche for exactly this[1].
It also has nothing to do with the case at hand, Prop 8 was not "specifically allow religious offices to not officiate in same-sex marriages if they don't want to", it was to add "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." to the state constitution following a mayor licensing purely civil same-sex marriage under the Equal Protection clause in defiance of Proposition 22 (the same as above as a law rather than a constitutional amendment).
[0] for legalising same-sex marriage, rather than legal challenges to laws going the opposite way
[1] and even if/when they don't, churches are allowed to discriminate in refusal of employment and services. They are specifically exempt from the Civil Rights Act 1964's Title VII for instance, and when the Gulnare Free Will Baptist Church voted to refuse service and recognition to mixed-race couples in 2011 it was completely legal.
'bit more complex. Private businesses wouldn't be protected if they refused to participate in a mixed-race or a muslim wedding — and could always be sued either way — but I guess the exact result would depend on sexual orientation being a protected class.
Public accomodations ("workplace and facilities that serve the general public") are covered under Title II. Sexual orientation isn't a federally protected class under title II, but it can be protected at the state level, it is in Colorado (since 2008) where a couple successfully sued a bakery for refusal to sell a wedding cake (Craig v. Masterpiece Cakeshop).
In such states, or if sexual orientation ever becomes a federal protected class under title II, businesses will not be able to refuse service based on it, just as they can't based on "race, color, religion or national origin".
The proprietors in question clearly stated they would sell a birthday cake to a gay couple. They wouldn't, however, sell them a wedding cake.
A better analogy would be whether a Muslim bakery could be forced to produce communion wafers. Or whether a baker would otherwise be forced to produce a cake containing speech he or she didn't agree with ("Happy Abortion!" or "Happy Bris!").
In my view, this issue is complex only because the position of the business owners in question is being elided.
No, it is a terrible analogy: a muslim bakery wouldn't usually produce communion wafers. The bakery in question did usually produce wedding cakes[0], and refused to provide a usual service on grounds of sexual orientation (the bakery had no problem providing a wedding cake for a pair of dogs when asked).
> In my view, this issue is complex only because the position of the business owners in question is being elided.
The business owners repeatedly made their position clear: they had a strict policy against selling wedding cakes to same-sex couples based on their "reading of the Word of God." Their position is illegal in Colorado.
[0] and wedding cakes were available for sampling
This attitude is certainly part of the reason that gay marriage has faced such opposition. Banning the expression of one group of people for the sake of advocating the freedom of expression of another[1] is not a winning argument.
[1] Not that marriage is only an act of expression.
They can express whatever the fuck they want, what they can not do is discriminate against a protected class. It's been that way for the last 50 years. Don't like that? Don't be a public accommodation.
> This attitude is certainly part of the reason that gay marriage has faced such opposition.
No, that's just an excuse for the underlying bigotry. As it was back in the 60s.
Worse yet, there isn't even a good reason to hold such a stance.
I don't know if that's the case for Eich, but it is at least a counter-example to your claim.
That's a really bad position to hold, too.
The way you've phrased it specifically makes it look like the stance is targeting gays. That's disingenuous.
Here's another phrasing: "Governments should not be involved in marriage. Increasing their involvement in marriage will only make matters worse."
This is clearly not anti-gay. This is a sufficient counter-example to your claim even if you think it's a "bad position" to hold. (I don't think it's a great position to hold either. I don't think governments should be involved in marriage, but I'm pragmatic about it and think they should open the doors to whatever kind of cohabitation people want. This includes polyamory.)
Basically what I'm saying is that being against State privileged gay marriage doesn't have to be anti-gay. It can be anti-State. I grant that most people who advocate from this position are hypocrites and are probably using it to mask more sinister motivations, but that doesn't make this reasoning invalid.
I don't hold that viewpoint. I was merely demonstrating that one can be against gay marriage without being anti-gay.
> "nah, fuck those people"
Uh, no. I'm not doing it to those people. Government is.
Virtually every law regulating social behaviors (whether it's created or repealed) requires oppressing some class of people. In the case of State privileged marriage, it oppresses everyone who can't or won't marry but still want benefits only available to married persons.
You can, and given your posting I am sure will, continue to represent otherwise. You are unconvincing, and somebody who votes, or donates money, in the method of your stated position is an asshole. Because making the perfect the enemy of the good and ignoring that you hurt people in the process is wrong.
1) Don't care what consenting individuals do.
2) Want the power and influence of the State reduced.
Others are less tolerable of pragmatism and do not support any expansion of State power. This has absolutely nothing to do with sexual orientation and is easily applied consistently.
Moreover, libertarians are very unlikely to even acknowledge marriage as a right. It's only meaningful in our society as a "right" precisely because governments grant special privileges to married couples. This discriminates against ALL unmarried people---not just gays.
If governments weren't involved in marriage, ALL of this would be a non-issue. People could choose to celebrate or signify their union in whichever manner they choose. To an anti-State ideologue, claiming that "well governments are involved so you might as just give them more power" is just a non-starter.
I get that participating in a lynch mob can be fun. But my only point here is that there are legitimate arguments for the other side that don't require bigotry. (Since other commenters were claiming this to be impossible.) This is an inconvenient fact for a lynch mob acting on limited information.
My problem is that no one is actually trying to remove government from all marriages, as this argument would seem to imply. This argument is only used to defend removing gay rights, as with Prop 8.
As with many of my preferred policies, I am sickened by the other people who support it. They do exist though, and they are in office.
While I think this is a perfectly rational position, I'm dubious that it's a very good basis for opposing gay marriage rights.
I've noticed that libertarians and leftists both tend toward a passionate hatred of compromise and "half-measures," and this reasoning strikes me as one of those cases. If you really don't think the State should be involved in marriage at all, then you don't want the state recognizing gay marriage because you don't want it to recognize any marriage. But on a practical level, that's not going to happen any time soon. Extending gay marriage rights arguably reduces the State's ability to dictate who can and can't be married and thus increases individual freedom. Isn't that clearly preferable from a libertarian standpoint?
But to succinctly answer your question; no I don't think it is unequivocally libertarian. But it depends on who you talk to.
> I've noticed that libertarians and leftists both tend toward a passionate hatred of compromise and "half-measures," and this reasoning strikes me as one of those cases.
You mean compromise with respect to the expansion of the State. This is usually the distinction between a moderate and a radical.
> I'm dubious that it's a very good basis for opposing gay marriage rights.
Here's the problem: you're presupposing that marriage is a right.
I appreciate that marriage (along with a myriad of other things) is listed as a right in the UDHR, but that really isn't why gays---or others like polyamorous cohabitants---want marriage in the first place. They want it because of State granted privileges bestowed upon married couples. Those aren't rights.
Unfortunately, some of those privileges restrict the rights of all unmarried persons. Particularly with respect to hospital visitation. Everyone---including unmarried people---should be allowed to control such things about their lives.
Other privileges include tax breaks and the like. I won't go down that road...
With that said, you're basically telling me that I oppose something that I don't think even exists in the first place. To me, rights are much more fundamental than constructs like marriage.
The problem is that the debate is framed in terms of gay marriage. One's position against marriage in general can subsume one's position on gay marriage. But the lynch mob lacks perspective and can only imagine that being against gay marriage means being against gays.
Once you finally recognize that, "oh gee whiz, yeah, being against marriage in general is cool, but still, you aren't pragmatic enough for me."
OK. Now we're done. Before I was a bigot. But now I'm just not being pragmatic. That isn't a lynchable offense. So, we good now? (Not talking to you specifically, but in general.)
Disclaimer: I don't vote and don't contribute to any political causes/campaigns because there are none that exclusively support voluntary interaction. If someone put a gun to my head and told me to vote, I'd vote in favor of more egalitarian laws every time.
Sorry for being a windbag, but in this kind of topic, it's just way too easy to take short responses that aren't precise in bad faith.
This makes no sense to me. When gay marriage is legal in all 50 states, the total number of extant marriages will increase by no more than a few percent. It seems, at the least, incredibly churlish to me to want to deny gay people the right to marry the consenting single adult of their choice just because you think it's unfair that marriage carries privileges. In short, your beef is mostly with straight people, but you're willing to take it out on the gays anyway, just because they're politically weaker. I can't see this as a principled stance.
And for the record, I agree that some of said privileges should be available to single people as well, like control over hospital visitation. I just think this is a completely orthogonal issue to gay marriage.
> In short, your beef is mostly with straight people
No. It's very much not with straight people. It's with the State. The State is the one suppressing people (not just gays) by giving special privileges to a preferred class of people.
> but you're willing to take it out on the gays anyway, just because they're politically weaker.
Uh, no, I'm not... This is exactly why I don't vote and don't contribute to political campaigns.
> And for the record, I agree that some of said privileges should be available to single people as well, like control over hospital visitation. I just think this is a completely orthogonal issue to gay marriage.
Then you haven't appreciated what it means to be against the State's involvement with marriage.
Against State privileged marriage => against all forms of State privileged marriage.
Once again, my point remains the same: being against State privileged marriage (and therefore State privileged gay marriage) does not make one a bigot. This runs contrary to what the lynch mob would like to assume.
> No. It's very much not with straight people. It's with the State.
But the State is made of people. And most of the people who support, and benefit from, those special privileges are straight.
> I don't vote and don't contribute to political campaigns.
Okay -- I can understand neutrality. I just can't see your argument as supporting a position of active opposition to gay marriage.
> you haven't appreciated what it means to be against the State's involvement with marriage
Well, I was indicating that I didn't completely disagree with you about it. I certainly don't completely agree, either.
> being against State privileged marriage (and therefore State privileged gay marriage) does not make one a bigot
No. But opposing gay marriage more than you oppose straight marriage does.
Eich donated to Prop. 8. There's no way this makes sense as an expression of uniform opposition to all State-privileged marriage.
I think chipotle_coyote put it very well. Allowing gay marriage reduces the State's involvement in marriage. Presumably the number of actual marriages will increase slightly, but that is because a restriction on them has been removed.
Governments have a monopoly on the use of legitimized coercion. Individuals don't.
The biggest trick governments have ever pulled is convincing everyone that the people is the same as the State. Sorry, but I don't buy it.
> I just can't see your argument as supporting a position of active opposition to gay marriage.
I don't know how to make this any simpler: Opposition of State privileged marriage implies opposition of State privileged gay marriage.
> No. But opposing gay marriage more than you oppose straight marriage does.
Nowhere have I implied or advocated this. The very crux of my argument is that you don't oppose or support one form of State privileged marriage over another.
> Eich donated to Prop. 8. There's no way this makes sense as an expression of uniform opposition to all State-privileged marriage.
The balance of probability supports this conclusion, but it is by no means guaranteed. This is precisely what my argument shows.
> I think chipotle_coyote put it very well. Allowing gay marriage reduces the State's involvement in marriage. Presumably the number of actual marriages will increase slightly, but that is because a restriction on them has been removed.
From the point of view of someone who is against State privileged marriage, this is ass backwards. It's not removing restrictions---it's granting privilege to a larger class of people (at the expense of those without that privilege).
You can rephrase this stuff however you want, but it doesn't change the very simple fact that being against State privileged marriage---and therefore State privileged gay marriage---doesn't make you bigot.
This is a cynical and short-sighted view.
It is cynical because it sees civil rights as a zero-sum game.
It is short-sighted for a closely related reason. Most opponents of gay marriage don't even want to draw a distinction between the religious institution of marriage and the civil institution. In their minds, marriage is divinely ordained, and its earthly recognition in the law is completely natural. "The family" -- meaning their particular conception of what families should be -- is all but sacred.
The gay marriage movement chips away at this belief system in several ways. First, it gives people reason to distinguish between religious and civil marriage; to see that whatever their personal religious beliefs may be, the law is about civil marriage. Also, it presents a picture of marriage as a human creation, rather than divinely ordained. It brings people into contact with unfamiliar family structures. And it makes ideas acceptable or at least debatable that previously were generally rejected. You can see this already with the debate over poly marriage.
In short, if you want to start a singles' rights movement, you should support gay marriage, because emotionally it is moving society in the direction you want, even if it is not yet doing that structurally.
You still haven't really addressed my central point, which is that one can be against gay marriage without being anti-gay.
> This is a cynical and short-sighted view. It is cynical because it sees civil rights as a zero-sum game.
I'm not talking about civil rights. You are. I've consistently used the phrase State privileged marriage. I use that instead of just "marriage" to specifically mark privileges that are given to some and held back from others. This isn't zero-sum. People who can check all the boxes get a marriage license plus special privileges. Nobody else can.
> In short, if you want to start a singles' rights movement
Now you're taking my comments in bad faith. Singles' rights? What is that? Do singles have special rights that other people don't have?
Sure, singles lose out on State privileged marriage. But so do couples that aren't married. And so do polyamorous cohabitants.
Ah, but that doesn't paint me as a selfish asshole, so it's not as catchy of an insult. I get it now.
> because emotionally it is moving society in the direction you want, even if it is not yet doing that structurally.
No. I would like society to move in the direction where it doesn't have to exude unquantifiable amounts of effort just to get government to permit them to associate in any way they want.
Your direction is just more of the same: "Oh government, can you pretty please let us make decisions for ourselves?"
A) Alcohol. Let's suppose I say that "people under 18|21 should not be allowed to purchase alcohol." This technically counts as restricting alcohol but it doesn't mean I am anti-alcohol. It just means I think that below a certain age threshold, the balance of costs/benefits for alcohol availability land in the negative.
B) Patent laws. If I support laws restricting the ability of patent trolls to be their trolly selves, it doesn't mean I am opposed to patents as a whole. If anything I could value patents so much that I don't want this edge case of software patent trolling to fester and undermine the public's confidence in the patent system as a whole.
Of course you are right that in many (if not most) cases, an attempt to restrict a phenomenon is just a more politically feasible step towards a total ban by someone who is 'anti'-that phenomenon. But it is at least logically possible for one to restrict [X] while not being wholly anti-[X]
For the record I am 100% in favor of marriage equality and have been that way since I was old enough to hold my own opinions.
However, it is not as bigoted as say, funding a measure against protecting gays from workplace discrimination. Marriage has a long history in our society as being between a man and a woman to provide a legal and social framework for raising biological children (generally speaking). They receive privileges in return for doing something socially beneficial. You could argue that gay marriages generally don't do the same and that it's not worth re-engineering society to make that change. Marriage is also heavily intertwined with our Judeo-Christian background as a country, so people feel as if changing the term violates their religious rights. The government really shouldn't be involved with religion, but people still feel this way nonetheless.
Personally I see no trouble in letting two people who love one another and want to form a family unit from marrying. It's their own business.
I do see a problem with trying to blacklist or shout down people who have political views that aren't socially acceptable. People who are against things like unchecked immigration or affirmative action are often tarred as bigots. Abortion is considered a human rights issue by people on both sides of the debate. As long as someone doesn't act in a discriminatory fashion at work, I'm not concerned with their personal political views so much.
Edit: I stand corrected, and learned something today.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_R...
Article 16.
(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution. (2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses. (3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.
It seems the UN is against gay marriage so that's where the next witch hunt should go
Chief Justice Earl Warren writing for the majority in Loving v. Virginia:
"Marriage is one of the 'basic civil rights of man,' fundamental to our very existence and survival"
And that's how they overturned the laws against interracial marriage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia#Decision
[0]: OK, someone did while I was getting that citation. The link's still valuable, though.
Eich apparently does not believe that I deserve the same rights that he does, but if he is a champion of other values I hold, does that mean I should write him off entirely?
While I might prefer someone in a position like his to share all my political views, that's not really feasible. The ones that are relevant to his position as CEO of Mozilla are his views on privacy, software freedom, etc.
It's especially relevant to note that this is a donation he made "privately" as an individual (it's public due to financing laws, but it's not the same as (e.g.) giving the keynote address at a NOM event.)
I happen to disagree with his views on Proposition 8, but unless they translate into discrimination in the workplace (which is an addressable problem in itself), I might be willing to support his work in one field while separating myself from his personal viewpoints in another field.
However, he is now CEO. Imagine just how many people he'd alienate inside Mozilla by basically saying "I don't think you should have the same rights as me".
This is not just another political topic, no matter how people would like to frame it that way. This is about treating people the same. You can still think that homosexuality is wrong and support gay marriage. But someone who goes so far as to say no to gay marriage is basically saying they view that group of people as less than another group of people and should have less rights.
This is unacceptable.
C'mon. In 2004 and 2008, with this very much a live issue, something north of 90% of American voters voted for a presidential candidate who professed to be against gay marriage. You are getting and will continue to get the social change you want, but it's crazy to ostracize someone for having the same political view as 2008 candidate Barack Obama. Try to be graceful and persuasive.
Last example: ooh Putin, you're going to face costs for these shenanigans!
Because that sounds like horseshit to me. That gay people can now get married in some minority of American states is progress, sure. But I'm not seeing why that means people, gay or straight, can't call a bigoted action a bigoted action. If somebody is obligated to be graceful and persuasive here, surely that's Eich, who started this out by doing something a lot of his employees find obviously hostile.
edit: as i reread this an hour later i can't help but feel more strongly. i was originally laughing at the ignorance on display but it's probably more harmful than funny.
"...people in any group or project of significant size and diversity will not agree on many crucial issues unrelated to the group or project." ... "Not only is insisting on ideological uniformity impractical, it is counter-productive..."
this sounds like a defense out of American History X.
An equally plausible read would be "Eich belongs to a religion that holds marriage as a core tenet and was encouraged by his pastor to donate along with the rest of the congregation. He actually wants gays to have equal rights and believes treating gays well is the right course for any business entity, but his personal religious beliefs — which he keeps strictly separate from his official duties — have certain hooks in the word 'marriage'."
Fun fact: Many churches were actually telling their congregants that without Prop. 8, the state would require their church to perform gay marriages, and that they should vote for Prop. 8 if they wanted their church's religious freedom to remain intact.
If he was misled on this topic, all he has to do is say, "Hey, I was wrong: I thought this was about free speech, but it turned out that wasn't the case. I had also confused the notions of religious and civil marriage. Mea culpa. I fully support the subsequent court decisions recognizing that all my employees have the right to be married to the partner of their choice."
Instead, he's chosen to stonewall. Which means that the most plausible reading is that he still believes in what Prop 8 was plainly trying to do: strip civil rights from gay people.
I'm not saying that it was all because of the flat-out lies like the state forcing gay marriages on churches, either. I was just giving that as an example of how hard churches worked to tie Prop. 8 with being a good religious person. Not everyone who supported it did so because they personally have it in for gay people.
Either way, I think he owes an explanation to the gay people he will soon be managing, and to Mozilla's many gay and gay-allied business partners and donors. Like it or not, the CEO personally represents the organization. His saying, "Gosh, my reasons for oppressing gay people are personal and complex," doesn't wash with me, and it surely won't with a lot of other people.
Obama was for same-sex marriage in 1996, "undecided" in 1998, opposed in 2004 and 2008, and for it again in 2012.
Unambiguously.
Obama's position was cowardly, but pretty much every knowledgeable Democrat and Republican believed and knew that he was just cynically posturing. He was a supporter of gay marriage in 1994, for Christ's sake. How many social liberals went through the past two decades and became less supportive of gay marriage? Only to switch their mind three years later?
Trust me, I'd be the first to point out that there's a whole lot to criticize Obama for in all of this. But believing he's a homophobe instead of a cynical liar is a bridge too far.
At the time he changed his public stance, a majority of Americans favored same-sex marriage.
Seems coherent.
Of course you wouldn't, so don't try to excuse it in this case.
I moved to MA a decade ago. I wasn't sure what to expect with the legalization of gay marriage. (I support gay rights, voted in favor of gay marriage, have gay friends and family, etc., just like everybody else. The only reason I thought about it was because I had young children.) Answer: not much changed. No big deal. I didn't have to explain anything to my young children- turns out the kids worked it out for themselves.
But having a boss who's ignorant and afraid? Maybe of you? That's some bad news.
So I'd say, give him a chance. Think of the win if he is convinced to change his mind.
Or they just think the practice of government marriage-sanctioning should be scrapped altogether, rather than extending the privilege to one more politically-popular group and pretending that you're ending discrimination.
Even if you hold the position you stated and wanted that change, we can't deny someone rights in the current system for some future better situation. There is an immediate and real world problem that needs to be addressed while you strive to implement your preferred system.
Part of the reason there is a push for gay marriage is because the alternatives (civil partnerships, "DIY" marriages using contracts) and they've failed to provide the necessary protections for couples in the way marriage rights seem to.
There is a compelling societal need to be able to say "here are people who are in an intimate, long-term trusting relationship for the purposes of decision making, finance, tax and so on".
I wish you luck in your campaign to find a compelling and convincing political and intellectual argument for something that would serve the social goods that marriage does and would effectively replace marriage for gay and straight couples. Until then, I'd quite like to be able to get married to someone of the gender I'm actually attracted to. (And as of Saturday, I will be able to, thanks to the marriage laws in England changing.)
And yeah, making this argument widely compelling is going to take a lot more than luck. Immediate short-term realities tend to dominate over long-term abstract ideals.
Or they just think the practice of government marriage-sanctioning should be scrapped altogether, rather than extending the privilege to one more politically-popular group and pretending that you're ending discrimination.
From my perspective, gay marriage petitioners seemingly wish to have a world where people have to beg the government for the ability associate in a certain manner.
Gay marriage petitioners are asking the government to remove a restriction - just not as many restrictions as you'd like.
Gays and straights are treated the same - both are free to marry people of the opposite sex. Gays may prefer not to do that, but they do have the legal right.
As for finding your preferences are not legally favored, that happens to lots of people. I prefer to have no fixed address, which is NOT a legally favorable preference to have (try opening a bank account, etc). I prefer not to buy insurance covering procedures I will never need [1].
Are laws preventing me from satisfying my preferences on these matters all unacceptable? If Eich favored Obamacare or "Know Your Customer" banking laws, would that also be unacceptable?
[1] Supposing that I lived in the US.
If your actual opinion is merely "gays are on my team, therefore I support them", that's fine. But don't couch it in abstract principles like "treating people the same.
The purpose of civil marriage is mainly to promote families. That being the way we insure the continuance of our society down the ages. Some people make their families in a way that is perfectly fine on outcome measures, but other people find squicky. My view, one with which the courts are agreeing, is that "eeew" is not a rational basis for excluding those people from the institution of marriage, because the 14th amendment demands (and our sense of natural justice requires) that people be equal before the law.
Of course, I am also on team gay, because I have gay friends and gay family members. And also because I'm not a bigoted asshole. But happily, it fits in with my "treating people the same" bias, one I have carefully considered, so this one hasn't required a lot of extra thinking. And since this bias is conveniently baked into American jurisprudence already, I'm looking forward to this working itself out over the next decade or so as the "eeew" brigade dies off.
And I'll add that I have no obligation to provide justifications for views that I don't hold, like the kookily put one in your first sentence. If you'd like to keep putting yourself forth as a pillar of rational discussion, I'd suggest you stick to holding people to account only for what they've said, not the things you imagine while getting freaked out about gay sex.
As for your "treating people the same" bias, which people get treated the same? Gay people? People who prefer to marry their brother/sister? People who prefer not to buy health insurance? You haven't addressed this at all.
I have no idea why you believe I'm "freaked out" about gay sex. I really don't care what private acts consenting people choose to do. I just don't understand how one draws a line between gay sex and, for example, non-reproductive incest or unlicensed medicine. Nor do I understand how subsidizing preferences for straight marriage are illegitimate, but subsidizing preferences for immobility are legitimate.
You've certainly provided no such justification - it's not as if the 14'th amendment says sex preferences are protected, but risk preferences are not.
Clearly you haven't thought things through well enough to provide any explanation, so I'm signing off. Enjoy the moral posturing.
Yep, blacks and whites are treated the same — both are free to marry in their race. Blacks may prefer not to do that, but they do have the legal right.
That some state of affairs X in a family is best for children is not an argument that not-X should be forbidden.
Children do better if they have rich parents, who can afford to buy them a wide variety of toys, give them a better education, buy them private tutors and books and plenty of other resources to give them a head-start in life. That doesn't mean that the rest of society shouldn't be allowed to raise children even though those children will be raised in a suboptimal fashion.
If - and it is a big, complex, still-being-debated-by-social-scientists type of if - parenting by opposite-sex biological parents is the gold standard, that doesn't mean that people who still get to silver or bronze shouldn't also be able to parent.
The only thing that makes me at all uncomfortable about it is the possibility that it sets a norm where it is considered prejudiced and discriminatory to even ask the question of whether same-sex couples are the best for children.
For example, it is pretty well accepted that having two parents is better for children than just one (all else being equal; abusive two-parent relationships are obviously worse). No one would argue that single parenting should be illegal. But it's not taboo to say that having two parents is probably better for kids than having just one. (Though of course many people have superstar single parents and turn out great.)
Likewise I would never argue that gay parenting should be illegal. I just don't want to see it become an ostracizable offense to ask the question, without agenda, of whether same-sex parent situations are the best for kids.
For some strange reason, nobody wants to discuss polygamous marriages, and whether they should be legal or not. It would be the height of hypocrisy to support gay marriage but not allow multiple consenting adults to form a similar union. Yet to even raise the issue invites ridicule.
Another thing, I've often heard gay people use the derogatory term "breeders" to slur heterosexual couples with children. Why is this ok? Why doesn't anyone stand up and say this is wrong?
To me this is not hypocritical, because I do not see a contingent of people saying "we are living in healthy polygamous de facto marriages and wish to have the state recognize them." I don't think you can reason about this in a logical vacuum, it's about observing what actually happens in reality.
> Another thing, I've often heard gay people use the derogatory term "breeders" to slur heterosexual couples with children.
I've only ever heard this term used in fun. Any term used in a genuinely derogatory way is not ok by me.
So the minority should not have any civil rights?
In the US there are currently two different TV shows both featuring a man and his five "wives" and all their kids, and they all seem well adjusted and happy. Yet the law does not allow the man to be married to all of them. One of them has been fighting this stuff in court in Utah.
Why do people support gay marriage but not polygamous marriage? Why aren't there activists on street corners handing out leaflets and asking for donations to help minorities in Utah?
There is obviously some kind of double standard going on here and I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that it is simply human nature at work. Gay people who want to get married only care about their own situation and are simply not interested in polygamous marriages.
So it is somewhat hypocritical to expect the majority, who are not gay, to care about gay marriage when the debate is not truly about civil rights, because if it were, the campaign would also be fighting for the rights of polygamous families.
I'd like to see the discussion take place and not be dismissed out-of-hand.
I said nothing of the sort. Maybe the reason you are not seeing the discussion you want is because you put people on the defensive by misinterpreting their words.
Maybe I misunderstood what you were saying, but I think my point still stands: that the marriage equality campaign is not really about equality for everybody because it does not include minority* groups like polygamists.
*Although in many cultures polygamy was the norm for hundreds and thousands of years and only recently been banned.
Good so far.
> it was somehow okay to ignore them because they were so insignificant.
It's not about "ignoring" anybody because of their "insignificance." It's about legislating around what is healthy, on the whole.
I haven't done a lot of research into polygamy, but my sense based on the little I have been exposed to suggests to me that in many cases where it occurs it is, in practice, an unhealthy power dynamic.
A good comparison for this is the age of consent. Sexual relationships with minors are illegal because in many/most cases they involve an unhealthy power dynamic. Now there are exceptions (and the rules are pretty arbitrary in that a 17/18 year old couple is a completely different thing than a 15/30 year old couple). But on the whole this is good and important.
Now I could be completely off on my understanding of polygamy in practice. But I have a lot more information about what LGBT relationships are like in real life and therefore feel far more conviction that they are healthy and should be fully accepted. Show me people in healthy polygamous relationships who want to see them state-recognized and I am open to changing my mind.
The "healthyness" of them is important, not only to protect vulnerable people from unhealthy power dynamics, but because if legalized, the state would need to become involved in all sorts of questions like what happens when a polygamous marriage is dissolved. What if just one person leaves? How does custody/property work in all of these cases? What if there are disagreements about power of attorney among remaining spouses when one spouse is in the hospital? The legal aspects of marriage get complicated quickly when there are more than two participants. Unless society has a good understanding of what these polygamous relationships mean and how they function, it would be pretty hard for the courts to decide what is "fair" in these difficult cases.
These are the reasons I don't think you can reason about this in a logical vacuum. You can't just extrapolate and say "well if you can marry one man, the stat is being unjust if you can't also marry two." Life and laws aren't a logic puzzle. They are based on our understanding of the human condition and our ideals about a fair/just society.
It's not okay. It's mean and wrong and people shouldn't be mean about straight people.
> Why doesn't anyone stand up and say this is wrong?
I'm sitting down: I hope that is okay.
I would love to see these studies. I'll look into this a bit more, but do you have any you particularly recommend?
EDIT: I don't support either position (on gay marriage and interracial marriage). I'm just pointing out that there is a parallel in the reasoning of those who oppose gay couples and interracial couples from the angle of the children they'll raise.
Interracial couples will raise children that believe interracial marriages are OK and will be less likely seek a mate and marry strictly within their race.
But I guess moral posturing/bullying is more fun than careful thought, so have at it.
Blacks and whites are treated the same - both are free to marry people of the same race. Some may prefer not to do that, but they do have the legal right.
I'm simply trying to square the standard left wing position that the government can and should regulate anything on the slightest pretext with the other standard left wing position that the government has no right to regulate gay sex. But somehow, in spite of regulation of gay sex being illegitimate, regulation of incest or polygamy is still perfectly legitimate.
Note that I'm attempting to reason from first principles here, not appeal to consequences.
You can demonize me all you want, but it's not a substitute for carefully thinking through your views. I imagine it's more fun though, and less risky - after all, careful thought can result in discovering you are wrong about something.
If sexual orientation is not a preference, is it genetic and if so, what happens if scientists can screen for it?
Suppose appetite for risk is genetic - does that mean we should stop saying "risk preferences" and (as a matter of civil rights) must stop legally favoring certain choices regarding risk?
Yes, your preference to have no fixed address is exactly the same as someone's genetic disposition about the gender they are attracted to. Having no fixed address likely enables negative effects like fraud. Same sex marriage likely enables… what, exactly?
How can you not see this is exactly the same argument as inter-racial marriage?
If you believe there is no fundamental principle preventing the state from regulating same sex marriage and the state merely needs a rational basis to do so, here is a very simple one. It incentivizes bisexuals to lean straight, thereby reducing the amount of gay sex and the transmission of STDs.
Note that I don't subscribe to the reasoning I just stated - that's just standard left wing political theory (which I don't agree with) applied to a scenario that left wing types refuse to apply it to.
That is a totally sociopathic argument, and you know it, and it makes you an asshole for having the nerve to make it.
I don't believe this is sampling bias on my part; in fact, I thought that was exactly the position on gay marriage taken up by both Obama and McCain in 2008, I specifically remember there was some debate or joint interview or something where Obama opened by strongly asserting that gay people deserve all the same rights, and McCain opened by strongly asserting that he doesn't believe in "redefining marriage", and they proceed to find that they completely agree with each other.
While I do not agree with Eich's views, framing the argument this way accomplishes nothing but fanning the fires. It makes one side feel oppressed and the other attacked. It puts everyone into a defensive mode rather focusing on the real issues. At worst it is manipulative at best it is close minded.
The Mozilla community is governed by participation guidelines that state: "support for exclusionary practices must not be carried into Mozilla activities," and "support for exclusionary practices in non-Mozilla activities should not be expressed in Mozilla spaces."
http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/parti...
UPDATE: In a meeting with Mozilla staff this morning, Brendan reiterated that he was involved in the creation of that code of conduct, and supports it 100%. He also specifically said that he should be held accountable to it, and that it's important for those in positions of power to be accountable to those with less power.
The current state of things shows that he didn't feel like this needs to be addressed by himself.
What are staff going to do if they don't like the answers? Quit? Strike?
But when they've taken a public position that implies they consider some employees to be less equal than others, yes.
Anything should of "I was wrong" implies he is not fit to lead a diverse organization.
If he feels the climate change is a real danger to humanity, won't he make Mozilla more environmentally friendly?
If he feels health care should be a basic right, won't he improve health benefits at Mozilla?
If he feels marijuana should be legal, won't he be less likely to do drug tests for employees?
Every big political issue affects real lives. Why is no one asking how Brendan Eich feels about climate change, health care and marijuana before deciding if he is fit for the job?
I'm not trying to support either side on homosexual marriage. I just think we need to ask the question: Why is someone an extreme, irrational, homophobic bigot (all quotes from this HN thread) if they give money to a political cause opposing it but we don't even care how they feel about health care, or climate change, or marijuana, or abortion, or really just about any other political issue that affects people's lives?
Why is no one asking how Brendan Eich feels about climate change, health care and marijuana before deciding if he is fit for the job?
Also, many wrongs don't make a right. It's a large and common fallacy to suggest there's anything incorrect about questioning his views on human rights simply because his views on (for example) the environment haven't been questioned.
Of course from what I can tell, he also hasn't spoken publicly about the particular issue at hand, except to the extent that people asked him direct questions about it based on the abovementioned public list of donations.
I agree that the issue of climate change is a complete non-sequitur here, though.
You have no idea whether he's funded those causes.
What I said is that even if you feel his non-Prop 8 views are (in your opinion) underexamined, that doesn't change the fact that it's correct to question his actions and views regarding Prop 8.
JohnBooty seems to think that the donation was a purposeful public statement, and in particular that the goal of the donation was to make said public statement, which is why there is no public information on any other political donations that Brendan might have made. I was pointing out that there is no information on other things simply because there hasn't been the same level of scrutiny, and that Brendan wasn't exactly going out of his way to speak out in public about his views on this issue (which is why 4 years passed between him making the donation and anyone noticing it). How you got from that to what you think I was "implying" is a bit beyond me.
The CEO, particularly of a non-profit that seeks volunteers, is more than just another employee. He's the public face of the organization. So taking a public position which alienates many of the very people the organization needs in order for it to achieve its goals, goes directly to his fitness for the job.
2. Actively rallying against same-sex marriage shows a level of commitment above just a general disproval of the idea. "I will vote against it" is a weaker position than, "I will put money into making sure that it doesn't happen."
3. Issues like the environment, and health care, while important, aren't discriminatory towards specific groups of people. Would you rather that health care and environmental-sustainability were solved issues, but discrimination wasn't?
4. Do you feel that people who only ask about (e.g.) health care issues are implicitly accepting of discrimination?
While health care and environment issues may affect the poor more than the rich, someone's views on either topic don't necessarily translate to "I don't like poor people and want to restrict their rights" in the same way that financially rallying against gay marriage does translates into expressing specific views about a specific group of people.
And yes, systematically violating someone's 14th Amendment rights is map-treatment writ large.
Short answer: none, if somebody disagrees with them.
This is another sign of our increasingly polarized (and politicized) society.
If Eich supported Prop 8 in California, then clearly he's a homophobic tool of the Koch Brothers.
If Eich opposed Prop 8, then clearly he's a leftist degenerate and tool of George Soros.
I'd like to propose an addition to Shakespeare's list: after the lawyers, we go after the damn partisans.
If Eich supported Prop 8 in California, then clearly he's a homophobic tool of the Koch Brothers.
If Eich opposed Prop 8, then clearly he's a leftist degenerate and tool of George Soros.
If he were publicly in favor of warrantless wiretapping, he'd be catching even more crap about it from the tech community, yet the tech community is even further out of step from mainstream society on that issue.
Apparently it does matter to quite a few people here. If the community represents society as a whole, then it is a serious issue. If the community does not, then this is a tempest in a teapot.
If it were really about expressing disappointment, then the work would have been done the last time(s) this was hashed out.
Bringing it up at the time he's receiving the office carries a clear implication: support for prop 8 should be a mark against considering someone for high profile positions like this or should perhaps outright disqualify them.
For whatever it's worth, I'd somehow missed this news about Brandon Eich the first time around.
I'd think the "plural" on times would cover the answer to that question, on the level you're asking, anyway.
More to the point, yes, there are limits to what a financial contribution to prop 8 implies that thoughtful people will recognize. One of them might be bound to what an action taken 5 years ago would imply about positions today.
> For whatever it's worth, I'd somehow missed this news about Brandon Eich the first time around.
Clearly, you have been long and deeply engaged in the relevant topics.
The Koch Brothers have given money to support gay marriage. If you intend to slander people at least be truthful on what they support or don't support.
I posted two typical positions held by partisans on either end of the political spectrum. Neither did I represent as my opinion, and definitely not as fact.
Why did you latch on to one of these positions? Aren't you equally outraged about the "leftist degenerate and tool of George Soros" position as well?
Did it occur to you that perhaps if I was posting two diametrically opposing viewpoints, I was making a larger point and not simply spouting my personal beliefs?
Have the downvotes proven my point?
Making larger points doesn't give one license to misrepresent the view of people in such a contentious issue. I'm sure if someone attributed that belief to you as part of a larger point, you would feel a bit slighted.
> Have the downvotes proven my point?
I cannot down vote you, and I don't know what the down voters found about your post that lead them to take their action. Perhaps they will comment also.
Have not the Koch brothers been slandered in the media and in fact on the floor of the Senate? Have they not been made into the Great Conservative Boogeyman?
As for "homophobic": the first post in the thread contains the following phrase: "I guess 2 years is long enough for most people to have forgotten the brief storm about his homophobic political activities."
Do you mean to tell me that nobody would ever take such a position as I stated?
oh for the love of words, your example was: "If Eich supported Prop 8 in California, then clearly he's a homophobic tool of the Koch Brothers."
So, you made the association of "homophobic tool" to "Koch Brothers" indicating that they have such tools. Your example directly attributed beliefs to the Koch Brothers that they do not hold and actually oppose with money. This would be misrepresentation.
"Have not the Koch brothers been slandered in the media and in fact on the floor of the Senate? Have they not been made into the Great Conservative Boogeyman?"
Yes, they have been slandered on the Senate floor. That doesn't give you a free pass to commit the same slander. Adding to the pile is not a commendable activity.
"Do you mean to tell me that nobody would ever take such a position as I stated?"
It seems that plenty of people like to attribute to people things they do not actually believe. It is quite common in politics. It is still slander.
In the future I shall try to make the effort of being very direct and to the point so as to avoid any confusion. This, hopefully, will alleviate the concerns of the literal-minded, the humorless, and the partisan.
He ACTIVELY contributed to a political campaign who's goal was discriminate against a particular group of people. This is a civil rights issue, it has nothing to do with politics, or beliefs.
There are political issues, then there are civil rights issues.
Perhaps you meant "No interest in compelling citizens to give amounts of money to the insurance industry for no change in service and no interest in verbally opposing marijuana criminalization while refusing to exercise one's right to pardon every marijuana offender in the nation?"
I personally am all for gay marriage, but I have many friends and family members who fall into the group I'm talking about here. They don't want to see gay people put out at all; they just aren't ready to strip the word "marriage" of the religious associations it holds for them.
They haven't been to Vegas, have they?
* I suppose that doesn't hold for the abolish-all-marriage or separate-legal-and-religious-marriage folks.
(I'm not saying that everyone who supported Prop. 8 is this way either. Some of them really are hateful folk — but not all of them. What I'm saying is just that if you think everyone who supported Prop. 8 did so because they are spiteful toward gays, you are painting with way too broad a brush. It's a diverse bunch.)
You seem to be trying very hard to make pro-gay marriage arguments (and not succeeding at all, I should add), but you're arguing with people who agree with you on the political issue. I'm trying to help explain the phenomenon, which may provide a stepping stone to figuring out how to best convince people like chc's friends and family.
I've given up trying to convince people like chc's friends and family.
I don't know. Are they? I'm not really abreast of Las Vegas politics.
> I've given up trying to convince people like chc's friends and family.
What are you hoping to achieve with this conversation, then? Moral high ground?
"One can not do right in one area of life whilst he is occupied in
doing wrong in another. Life is one indivisible whole."
- Ghandi
A homophobic CEO could run an oil company just fine. It's much harder to do that for Mozilla, where brand, community, and ethos is a much bigger point of differentiation than the products themselves.
A demand for someone who is right in all areas is how you get the blandest of all people in politics: they dare not utter an actual opinion lest the media snatch it up and hang them with it. So they say absolutely nothing with a whole lot of words.
I'd rather see actual humans in positions of power, struggles with life and all.
Being right in all areas of life is a personal and cultural struggle, a never-ending pursuit of an elusive destination. That much is obvious. Still, some people are further along on this path than others, and one would hope that these would be the people who occupy positions of power.
Among other things, this is a hypocrisy issue. It has been unironically stated elsewhere in these comments that it is good to be intolerant of intolerance.
That can actually true, but it is hypocritical to be intolerant in the name of inclusiveness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
The tolerance paradox arises from a problem that a tolerant person might be antagonistic toward intolerance, hence intolerant of it. The tolerant individual would then be by definition intolerant of intolerance.
Michael Walzer asks "Should we tolerate the intolerant?" He notes that most minority religious groups who are the beneficiaries of tolerance are themselves intolerant, at least in some respects. In a tolerant regime, such people may learn to tolerate, or at least to behave "as if they possessed this virtue". Philosopher Karl Popper asserted, in The Open Society and Its Enemies Vol. 1, that we are warranted in refusing to tolerate intolerance. Philosopher John Rawls concludes in A Theory of Justice that a just society must tolerate the intolerant, for otherwise, the society would then itself be intolerant, and thus unjust. However, Rawls also insists, like Popper, that society has a reasonable right of self-preservation that supersedes the principle of tolerance: "While an intolerant sect does not itself have title to complain of intolerance, its freedom should be restricted only when the tolerant sincerely and with reason believe that their own security and that of the institutions of liberty are in danger."
If only this could have been the last word on this issue. I salute you, 'chimeracoder, for your fairness and rationality.
Was the recently-mooted "comment pre-approval" process delayed for some reason? If any HN comment thread could be rescued by that, surely this is one.
Personally I think the company's ethos is consistent with NOT suppressing freedom of speech or political expression.
That does not mean that everything you say should be void of consequence in the realm of public opinion. I for one am glad that Brendan Eich was allowed to make this donation. Now I know that he stands for a position I view as indefensible, and I can choose to remain far away from him and the company he now leads.
Edit: Clearly I touched a nerve - before the hate mail comes in, I should clarify that I don't oppose gay marriage. I support the elimination of government sponsored marriage all together.
[1] where by "rational" I mean justifiable with facts and statistics to back it up.
If government ditched the word "marriage" and said you can designate a person you "cohabit" with for purposes of taxes, benefits, etc, how many of those folks would be against designating someone of the same gender? Those people I'd call "homophobic".
> marriage vows did not have to be exchanged in a church, nor was a priest's presence required. A couple could exchange consent anywhere, anytime.
For the first quarter of the common era, the church was split between trying to get the church involved in marriages (e.g. Tertullian recommending that christians "request marriage from their priest") and recommending eternal celibacy and virginity. Augustine and Isodore of Seville developed the sacramentality of Christian marriage (Augustine at least still taught that virginity remained superior).
The official catholic declaration of marriage as a sacrament (and thus declaration of the takeover) was actually political: it was made at the Council of Verona in 1184 as part of the case against Cathars, who held that marriage and procreation were evil.
The case for marriage belonging to religions is "it's been that way for as long as I've lived". Previously in that category: slavery, illegal abortions, children labour and lots of other awesome company.
A bigger problem, not admitted by the religious side of this debate, is that the legal definition of marriage is what grants many states rights. To some extent that some states would have to rewrite their constitutions to no longer honor marriage as an institution.
I don't think the end game legally would end very well for the people stating that "marriage" is a religious term. It might be in common speech, but given we're talking about granting legal rights its about as relevant as ice cubes to an eskimo. Push this matter too hard and its likely that marriage as a legal term or definition goes away entirely.
I'm all for it but pushing the religious points too far will only cause more issues for those fighting via that angle. (no i'm not a lawyer)
... the donation does not in itself constitute evidence of animosity. Those asserting this are not providing a reasoned argument, rather they are labeling dissenters to cast them out of polite society. To such assertions, I can only respond: “no”.
There are other reasons for opposing things, religious reasons for example. Not saying they're well thought out or even remotely valid, but thinking in such a black and white manner isn't beneficial to decent conversation.
Latent effects of refusing marriage like lack of insurance coverage leading to preventable deaths would be a much better match though. And to that, I still believe conversation is a better tool than outright condemnation & intolerance.
Preventing a family from getting married is harm. It is at the very least expensive in time and money. But it also puts children at substantial risk. See the recent decision on the Michigan Marriage Amendment for more on that: http://www.freep.com/assets/freep/pdf/C4220110321.PDF
Should having "decent conversation" be the goal?
Because I prioritise not being discriminated against by my government because of my sexual orientation slightly higher than having a decent conversation.
If you're honest with yourself, you recognize all of this language about rationality as rhetoric in a culture war in which you're attempting to shift cultural norms.
I'm for gay marriage.
When people say that gay people are not to marry their partners, that is discrimination under the legal system, entirely ignoring any cultural aspects.
It's the "Tradition and Morality" section.
Stuff like this is why the secret ballot exists.
Their position makes even less sense than the other one, the creation of stable family units, and thus the provision of legal and financial advantages to these units trough official recognition of them is usually considered a social good, and the government "being involved" as the provider of the aforementioned advantages is sensible.
Edit: Or get divorced for that matter - divorce laws enforced by government (which only exist because it licenses marriages in the first place) have a big impact on who gets divorced.
So the tax-provided incentives are clearly not sufficient to compensate for this decline, and I really doubt they contribute significantly in most cases.
http://www.nber.org/c7282.pdf http://www.nber.org/chapters/c3683 http://www.nber.org/papers/w7510
It's also what my Public Economics professor said back in the day in college... and he was a smart dude.
Also, you're ignoring most of the argument - it's not just about the tax incentive - it's about all of the incentives that government licensed marriage creates. Re-read my prior comments throughout this whole discussion if you don't know what I mean.
It is? First off, the fact that a policy has been put in place is no evidence that it actually works (see also "trickle down economics" and "abstinence-based sex programs"). Secondly, it's difficult to argue about the purpose of the incentives outside of a historical context. The best I've been able to find is regarding the tax part of the incentives: http://www.ncpa.org/pub/bg145?pg=2 It does not appear to be part of a nefarious plot to get more people married.
> you're welcome to read papers that are tangentially related and prove the the point of how strongly influenced by economics/finances marriages are
After skimming the papers, my understanding is that they demonstrate that for a number of women, the social condition of their prospective husband is a huge motivational factor. That is fine and well, but what does it have to do with the state? I'm sure you could find the same studies regarding unmarried couples. I haven't found any mention of government incentives in them, but I may have overlooked something.
> Also, you're ignoring most of the argument - it's not just about the tax incentive - it's about all of the incentives that government licensed marriage creates. Re-read my prior comments throughout this whole discussion if you don't know what I mean.
You are correct that I focused on the tax incentives, as I see that as the most visible of the government-provided incentives. Let's look at the other benefits you list:
> (taxes, pensions, medical benefits) and implicit (encouraging a social construct through government enforcement of licenses and contracts)
I'm not aware of any pension-related advantage of married couples where I live, and there is certainly no medical benefits in a land of socialized healthcare. Is this a US thing? As for the implicit benefits, I'm not entirely clear on what you mean. Are you objecting to the existence of a legal framework formalizing the rights of each party?
But that's a completely useless and unproductive argument to make in the context of the fight being underway, let alone making it while fighting on the other side.
Think of having sex with 12 years old girls - there is nothing irrational in it (it was normal and legal a few hundred years ago), why we keep it forbidden now?
Similarly it is not legal to merry 4 woman (or man). Why? Where is rationality in forbidding this. In fact rational is the opposite - it would be good to have spare wife or husband, just in case of death or ilness.
Since the beginning of the Industrial Age, we've lengthened human childhood. Because people have more to learn today before they can be productive adults in society, the period of your life that is "youth" is longer, and the age where we consider a person mature enough to be fully responsible for their own body is older now.
12 year olds used to be adults, now they're children.
> Similarly it is not legal to merry 4 woman (or man). Why? Where is rationality in forbidding this. In fact rational is the opposite - it would be good to have spare wife or husband, just in case of death or ilness.
If there was complete gender equality and polygamy was as common as polyandry, it would be probably be fine. In reality, polygamy is historically dramatically more common than wives with multiple husbands.
If you take as a given a roughly 50/50 distribution between men and women (and relatively even proportions of homosexuals), that means widespread polygamy causes a large number of men for whom there are no wives available. If one person has five wives, it means there are four men out there with none.
That has a destabilizing effect on society. It's best for everyone if the possibility of finding a mate is not hampered in that way.
Socially, we've delayed the age when youngsters achieve self-sufficiency, start working, etc; but instead of prolonging "youth" currently our habits (most likely due to food industry) have achieved earlier age of puberty than before; biologically those kids are maturing sooner for having kids of their own.
Yup, same as anyone who opposes interracial marriage is racist.
There's not a minimum threshold of bigotry. You don't get to say "How bigoted can I be without people calling me a bigot? ...I can't be bigoted at all?!? That's not fair!"
People may simple be bigoted towards gay marriage, but hold no strong opinion on the individuals themselves. That this is a possible stance is self-evident given the current legal situation.
If their specific bigotry is homophobic, why would they not be conflatable?
I mean people may simple be bigoted towards interracial marriage, but hold no strong opinion on the individuals themselves. That this is a possible stance is self-evident given the current legal situation. (and apparently not at all racist)
If you oppose equal civil rights for group X, you are bigoted against group X. There are certainly different degrees of bigots--I'd much rather deal with someone who favors most civil rights other than interracial marriage than someone who thinks black people were better off as slaves--but they are all still bigots.
How do you feel about abortion? If you're against it, then you are seen as bigoted against women's right to their own body. If you're for it, then you're seen as bigoted against the rights of unborn children to not be murdered.
And even if you could think that way, you shouldn't. Why not? Read http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html for why I don't want to put such mental blinders on.
Contrast this with the gay marriage debate. There is no conflict. Gay marriage does not affect its opponents in any capacity. A married gay couple does not infringe on anybody else's right to be married. Opposition to gay marriage is completely arbitrary and rooted in discrimination in all cases, there just isn't any reason why one should care, and even less of a reason why the government should take that judgement into consideration. Any religious, traditional, or cultural opposition to gay marriage is completely moot since marriage is not even real thing, it's simply a legal status with the same name as a historical tradition.
Therefore I'm against a blanket, "You're not allowed any trace of bigotry." Strongly against it. It limits people's ability to think.
Now I can see you responding that this example has nothing to do with gay marriage. So let me give a real example tying that one.
My opinion is that homophobia ties to the uncanny valley (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley for what THAT is) which is the feeling of revulsion that virtually all of us have for the "almost human". (Different people having different definitions of "almost".) Having broached the topic, we can discuss emotional reactions to other races, disabled people, various disfigurements, and the ways in which horror movies play on the natural phenomena.
But wait, what can of worms did I just open? I suggested a connection between widespread homophobia and an innate phenomena that causes the vast majority of humans to feel revulsion under the right circumstances. And it is a pretty strong revulsion - seeing that which you dislike will, like it or not, be about as palatable as stepping in a pile of shit. This really does affect others. (If you argue that it affects others because they are bigots, I can't disagree...but a lot of people are so affected.)
Pretty much everyone who I've really had the conversation with has wound up realizing at some point that there is stuff which they personally respond with revulsion. And some of that stuff results in their having trouble not discriminating. You can try to consciously try not to act on that revulsion, which usually leads to an overreaction and reverse discrimination. But the roots of at least some sorts of bigotry are something that seems to be built in to pretty much all of us - certainly me included.
But if you've conceptualized anyone who has any trace of bigotry as unequivocally bad, then this is not a conversation that you're able to have. Because at some point you're going to have to face ways that you resemble people you don't like.
And THAT is an example of why I don't want the mental blinders that keep me from even trying to think about homophobic people in terms that are more sophisticated than, "They are awful people."
(For the record, I am straight, I am not homophobic, and I voted against prop 8. Also my sister has some gay friends who wish I'd reconsider the "straight" bit...)
So what? The veracity of scientific studies is not at issue here. My point is that unlike the abortion debate, there are no muddy waters in play here. It's unequivocally wrong to deny homosexual couples the same legal rights as heterosexual couples, there is just no other reason beyond bigotry to deny them the freedom to be married. I'm not saying that we should hunt down all the bigots, I'm saying that bigotry alone is not a satisfactory justification for any position and is easily rejected as such.
But wait, what can of worms did I just open? I suggested a connection between widespread homophobia and an innate phenomena that causes the vast majority of humans to feel revulsion under the right circumstances. And it is a pretty strong revulsion
Ok... Perhaps that's a possible explanation, it's also a completely irreverent one. I am revolted by the sight of individuals who put 4 inch gauges in their ears, but that personal disgust doesn't justify an attack on their right to start a consensual legal relationship with another consenting adult. My disgust doesn't matter. Their relationship is none of my business. Laws against gay marriage are in a similar vein to sodomy laws, namely, a bunch of hateful, entitled, "revolted" traditionalists who want to leverage the force of the government to prevent consenting adults from living their lives in a way that affects nobody but themselves. It's simply wrong. There are no two ways about it, nobody gains anything by keeping homosexuals away from marriage, it's only purpose is to deliberately deny homosexual couples the satisfaction of inclusion in a legally recognized institution.
Furthermore what you are stating is your personal opinion that a sense of revulsion and disgust is not a valid source of moral opinions. But now you're opening another can of worms. Preliminary results from brain research have identified 5 different subsystems in our brain that underly opinions that get called "moral". Those 5 systems are:
1. Recognition of suffering in others.
2. Reciprocity (the golden rule).
3. Hierarchy (respect for elders, power systems, etc).
4. Coalitionary bonding (loyalty to your group, patriotism, etc).
5. Purity (praising cleanliness, viewing things as gross).
In general liberal moral systems tend to focus on the first 2 and conservative moral systems tend to focus on the last 3. As much as you think that revulsion and disgust are not proper bases for moral opinions, most of the world disagrees with you. And if you want to live in a democracy, you're going to have to live with results that you don't like. Furthermore no amount of complaining on your part is going to change this inconvenient truth.
Yes,like anyone who opposed civil rights for blacks was racist.
Or interracial marriages, since that's much closer to the issue.
To take it even further, what if someone thought that the civil war was not (primarily) about the rights of African slaves, but rather a proxy for a rivalry between two political factions? Does the Union treatment of Native Americans suggest they were overflowing with humanitarian sentiment when it came to dealing with non-WASP peoples in general?
It's important to ask such questions, because the Union of the 1800's, and the political supporters of the civil rights movements of the 1900's, could have in fact been harmful to the very people they were claiming to help, because helping them was never their true goal. I am not saying that such people were consciously manipulative, rather it was simply easy for them to use the cause of others as a justification for actions that benefited themselves.
Likewise, could it be that Mr. Eich was not against the rights of homosexual people, but rather attempting to resist another political faction's attempt to control the moral narrative? Based upon his own statements, as well as the statements by those who have worked with him who are homosexual, I see no indication of malice. Furthermore, since he has been with Mozilla since the beginning, it would stand to reason that if he had a significant opposition to the organizations policies, he would have left long ago.
It is plastered everywhere as a superficial emotional argument but it is logically baseless and, worse, it is hijacking the compassion people rightfully have for the suffering of black people in order to push a particular agenda. It's shameful.
Of course, I expect to be downvoted because I know that in our current society all opinions and preferences should be held in the highest regard, except those you disagree with and especially those that appeal to an objective morality.
It even got its very own parable:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_unforgiving_serv...
HN's stupid anti-flame wankery won't let me respond to you, but the point of this parable in this context is that a person caught a break, then immediately turned around and oppressed someone less fortunate. Based on the way you seem to be parsing things, I honestly don't expect you to get this.
Since you brought it up, the parable you cited is a parable about forgiving people, not bigotry or oppression. A better parable about bigotry is The Good Samaritan [1]. It's not common knowledge, but the Samaritans were an ethnic underclass. The story is the answer to the question "Who is my neighbor?"
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Good_Samaritan
I guess, what I'm saying is, I don't follow your logic on the lack of equivalence. Please explain.
This is a big fucking deal.
His private donations as an individual have nothing to do with necessarily creating hostile workplace environments.
Edit: A more descriptive link: http://tim.dreamwidth.org/1761874.html
I don't see why such content would belong on a company-sponsored blog, but claiming some guy who wants his country to not redefine "marriage" when they already offer civil unions to all is a member of a violent hate group is a bit much.
So "how much will this influence your role as CEO, as the prime manager of all those people?" is a valid question he has to answer to - and well.
So even if it is not directly creating a hostile work environment, it does seems to be encouraging one.
The board that elected him ultimately holds more power. On a different note if you knew Brandan you'd know that he would never steer the company in such a direction. My only regret is that he will likely resign after his turn at the throne is over. Hopefully he will choose to stick around as a board member.
As one of the single people that gay activists are willing to throw under the bus as long as they get what they want, I don't see any reason to support them.
If everything were the same, the term "single mother" wouldn't carry an special meaning.
Point being, the outcomes of straight marriages will inevitably include more children, so it's in the interest of the State to make sure sexually-active heterosexuals marry, marry well, and stay married. There may be other goals to consider, but I'm a bit surprised that biology and human nature haven't come up in this discussion yet, especially considering recent trends in the extramarital birth rate.
(Unless this is a dictionary attack where you're over-parsing "homophobic" as something other than "anti-gay" in some odd quest to prove a meaningless point, in which case, get on with your pedant self.)
I don't agree with Eich's views, but simply focusing on that aspect of him isn't the strongest of bases upon which to judge him.
That's not to say this belief isn't indicative of the rest of Eich's values, but automatically assuming he isn't a decent human being because of it just seems premature without any other evidence.
The free market will decide.
That says nothing about his ability to make money, but Mozilla is a non-profit exercise.
well first of all, it's not pedantic to point out that that word is being abused. second, we're not dealing with "anti-gay", but with "anti-gay marriage" - which, as has been pointed out, was the mainstream position for most of America until just a few years ago, and the mainstream position for both Democratic and Republican candidates until even more recently.
Which is a distinction without a difference.
For many who are opposed to prop 8 1c crosses the line.
I'll recommend anything that doesn't give him more.
Lucky thing, his kind would be laughed at in Sweden. "Removing peoples civil liberties? Preposterous".
As such, I believe that making a person who has contributed to fight against these goals the leader of your corporation is a terrible decision that will lead me to no longer recommend any of your products, even if that means recommending non-free software. You're welcome to disagree with that view, but I don't see how it's stupid.
I agree, which is why I want people to have control over how they do their computing, which, by the way does affect LGBT issues: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/02/digital-freedom-lgbt-i...
The people who make censorware often automatically include anything LGBT-related as porn.
Here in the UK, O2 filters the Wikipedia articles on 'gay', 'lesbian' and 'transgender' under the "Lifestyles" category—the very term that homophobes use!
LGBT campaigning sites and safe sex sites have been filtered on corporate and state-owned wifi connections as pornography. And the UK government's plan to try and introduce on-by-default internet filtering will lead to LGBT teenagers not able to look up safe sex information online when said information gets miscategorised by the censorware manufacturers as 'porn'.
Not to mention, the censorware that automatically alerts the 'concerned' parents running it as to what little Jimmy is doing on the Internet - that's going to potentially out kids to their parents and put them at risk of being made homeless by their fundamentalist nutjob parents.
As a closeted gay teenager, I'm really fucking glad to have grown up in an era where the internet for me was uncensored precisely because having access to a resource that had information - and, yes, porn - that showed being gay as normal, healthy and okay was a refreshing, sanity-inducing change from the rest of society that didn't.
"While the Firefox source code from the Mozilla project is free software, they distribute and recommend non-free software as plug-ins and addons."
If you disagree with B.E. then be an example to him of what you hope to achieve: mutual tolerance. Hounding does not achieve anything except increasing animosity all round.
That's the most unfactual thing I've heard in a long time.
- Saying people in favor of abortion are for legalized murder, and not hiring them because of that
- Saying people opposed to abortion oppress women, and not hiring them because of that
- Saying people who support raising taxes are for legalized robbery, and not hiring them because of that
- Saying people who oppose more relaxed immigration laws are racist, and not hiring them because of that
The list could go on, but the point stands. You can always characterize your political opponent as some sort of monster. But you never should.
The parallels you offer are missing the point, because none of them suggest a CEO has an irrational bias against a significant fraction of his employees. This donation, though, does. Unless Eich has convincingly apologized and demonstrated different views, you have to bet that a lot of people in the San Francisco office and elsewhere are wondering, "Given that my new boss may have an irrational bias against me, is this going to affect my benefits, my chance at promotion, or my working climate?"
That's entirely material to his position as CEO. Mozilla is competing with the world's top tech companies for talent, and their main advantage is a clear belief that they're doing good. Anything that taints that could make hiring harder.
If people don't want to work for Mozilla because of Eich, fantastic. They can form their own foundation and work on Iceweasel. Everybody gets what they want.
Perhaps the actual reasoning of the court might be convincing, but in this case, the reasoning was, "there is no rational basis", which reads more like an admission of ignorance than anything else.
When court after court finds that there is no rational basis to these laws after carefully examining every rationale offered by proponents, I think it's reasonable for gay people to conclude that promoters of those laws are irrationally biased against them. Especially those promoters unwilling to offer any other explanation.
It's really a loophole in the referendum system, and if California is serious about the referendum, they need to give standing to some groups to give them the right to defend their initiatives in court.
Even if you were right, that wouldn't be the case for the Michigan case I linked upthread, where state officials stood firmly behind keeping gay people from marriage.
"The Supreme Court decided the case on the basis of lack of standing."
...meaning the proponents weren't allowed to defend it in court.
I've already stated my feelings about the ruling in the Michigan. In fact, I have deep misgivings about the kind of research presented in that case on both sides, especially when it comes to making policy decisions.
It's true that the Supreme Court wasn't interesting in hearing from them again, but there is absolutely nothing to suggest that if they had, it would have turned out as anything different than their disastrous showing in federal court. Remember, they were going to the Supreme Court seeking appeal, which means they don't get to re-litigate the whole thing, just to raise questions about particular points of law. The findings of fact would stand, and as far as facts went, they had nothing.
I'm not arguing that Eich should or should not have the job. I don't have enough data to say. But I am saying that apparently having an irrational bias against gay people is legitimately problematic for gay employees, and is therefore material in considering his fitness for CEO in a way that isn't true for other political views.
"Similar Parallels"
No, there is a looooong gradient along which the issues you mention (and issues like homophobia) can be placed. Society moves in a certain direction - if you graph public attitude towards homosexuals, there is a clear trend. Similar graphs can be drawn for abortion, womens rights and immigration reform.
On the other hand, directly equating "raising taxes" with robbery sits at a very steady equilibrium of whoever currently uses that sort of logic to kill arguments. Most recently (ie. past couple of years), it is mostly being picked up by the libertarian mindset which is in turn utilized by the more mainstream political right in the US.
We all make choices and our combined choices influence how that graph progresses, but you can directly compare an individuals position with the median position in society. Removing or blocking people from powerful positions when they seem to be too removed from that median is a fundamentally and democratically sound mechanic.
52% of Californians voted for Prop 8 in 2008. But: Had you asked 10, 25, 50, 100 years before that, what would the outcome have been? Draw a graph along that line through 2008 and you can track the development of public opinion.
You're basically making the "be on the right side of history" argument, but you presume to much. For example public opinion on abortion has been roughly flat for fifty years.
Maybe in the US, but internationally is another matter entirely.
Also: I'm not agreeing with your wording of "blacklisting people for political views". I do, however, think that the higher your potential impact on society, the higher the scrutiny towards the outlier nature of some of your opinions should be.
In other words: The further up an employee in a company or a politician in the respective political field moves on their ladder, the more is it justified to hold them closer to the standard set by median public opinion on certain matters.
Attitudes toward homosexuality in ancient Greece, for example, were pretty liberal. They were also really different from anything we have today, such that it defies putting it anywhere on a spectrum that modern folks would be familiar with.
Society moves in many directions, often simultaneously, and we should be careful not to confuse the movement of the last century or so with either inevitability or rightness.
(I personally think that consenting adults should be allowed to have whatever sort of sex and marriage they feel like, I just object to the idea that there's a clear trend on the issue overall.)
As they were in India. That's why it's usually more instructive to look at the median, rather than the outliers.
Furthermore: It's debatable to what extent it makes sense to include historical timeframes on which we have lacking or inconclusive data.
All in all, it sounds like you're agreeing with me: it's wrong to claim a trend.
Just because half the population is still dragging their heels about the latest oppressed group to get this kind of attention, like they always do, does not mean that there's anything special or more complicated about this case. It's still privileged people being asses to less privileged people for as long as they can possibly get away with. Like they always do. Imagine if people could be accepting in the general case, without being dragged to it?
Sure, all of your examples point in the same direction, because you chose examples that point in that direction. There are plenty of examples to be had of the opposite direction.
We happen to be in a locale, both in space and time, where there's a strong trend towards more inclusion and more rights. But if you expand out to the planet and the long term, I simply don't see the trend. Things get better in some times and places, and worse in others, and overall we just sort of oscillate around.
I'm undecided, but leaning towards seeing a trend (yes, even with historical uncertainties). I'm absolutely willing, though, to attest that to the fact that I'm seeing a trend that would suit me.
Slavery was once a political opinion. Women's suffrage as well. There are many other more extreme examples from abroad.
Calling a position political doesn't absolve its owner from consequences.
I think in the Bay Area, opposing gay marriage has crossed over, and is no longer simply a political opinion upon which decent people may disagree.
So....what shall be done with the people who have been deemed indecent?
Rounded up, perhaps? Subjected to re-education?
Edit: A downvote for asking a question? Really? Is the answer that terrifying?
We're talking about changing normative group positions in a complex society that has delegated huge swaths of norm policing to immensely powerful institutions.
So, shame is one way. You have to make it shameful in the first place - and then you still have to change the institutions.
Never? People should be judged by how qualified they are, not what their political views are. Even if I was hiring a vocal neo-nazi I would try to not let that effect my decision.
These are the decisions that lead to corporations acting greedy and caring only about their bottom line. We should not be promoting this way of thinking. Some things are more important. The more someone's actions can impact other people, the more they should be judged by their character.
I think in America the issue hasn't crossed over yet, but those in favor of gay marriage wish it has, because it's always nice to be on the superior side, and makes the argument much easier when you can just call your opponent a few names to send them scurrying away. Essentially, those who agree with gay marriage ran out of patience with those who disagree. I think on 'live' political issues like the gay marriage debate, this is bad.
I also think those against gay marriage would do better if making an honest argument about their reasoning. For example: "Gay marriage is morally wrong in my opinion, and I believe the government should legislate on moral sexual issues." It's legitimate to think a government can and should have the authority to legislate on moral issues.
I'm not saying that such a suit would win, but this issue definitely falls under the category of "public statements to be careful of making if one is going to be in a decision-making position".
You can say "I think that all people should be treated equally", but saying "I think that all people people should be treated equally, but those who believe X are unfit to be CEO for a public company" is hypocritical. No matter what X is, and if I agree or disagree with X.
The linked HN discussion from that link in turn has two top comments basically saying "This doesn't matter (as a Mozilla employee" and "This doesn't matter--his technical work is separate from his private life."
So, while it is quite the little tempest in a teapot you're kicking up, I'd like to leave you with a question:
What have you done that puts you in a position to justify your criticism?
As far as the public image of Mozilla, I personally think it is one of being the last free-ish hackers working on the 'Net, and an appointment of the creator of Javascript is directly in line with that.
(Why don't you limit yourself to attacks on the man's work instead of the man? After all, there are parts of JavaScript that can be found to be pretty gay, in any particular meaning of the word you choose. I, for example, find myself giddy every time I get to use functions as arguments to other functions and doing manual application and currying.)
How about in the preferring-the-sexual-and-romantic-company-of-the-same-sex sense?
Because as a gay man and a programmer (admittedly one that greatly dislikes JavaScript), I'm really failing to work out the connection.
:|
(I think I can maaaaybe stretch it to a joke about semi-colon insertion, but honestly that likely is not the way to proceed here.)
I think you could easily look at Mozilla the same way. It's free software, there are tons of alternatives you can use and a lot of you probably already do and this was a personal donation... I hate to say it, but I think a lot of people sort of like to talk support for various issues up a bit more than actually doing things to support them. It's easier to get emotional and post some messages and tweets than it is to actually do something.
Mozilla offers mass-market products. That means that there are many many people who, for example, use Firefox and watch FOX NEWS—and that Mozilla would dearly like for there to be many more of them. I guarantee you that Mozilla doesn't seek, and would be mad to seek, a public image as an organisation that blacklists people for holding mainstream US conservative views.
Secondly, if one accepts the principle of industry blacklisting, and not only against individuals with exceptionally marginal or extreme views, we can assess, for example, the HUAC blacklists in this light. Were they proper and appropriate? If not why not? Perhaps because being a mid-century Stalin apologist is entirely forgiveable but being a Prop. 8 opponent is beyond the pale?
Lincoln knew that Grant's drinking was a problem, but he also knew that Grant was the best man for the job. In fact, he had appointed several other generals before Grant who were "well-rounded" with no obvious flaws, but this grossly backfired because they also had no strengths that stood out. In contrast, the South employed generals who were really really good at a few things(and bad at lots of things), and they gave the North a really hard time despite having inferior numbers and equipment.
If there were any suggestions that his private opinions were impacting Mozilla policy/road-map/work environment whatever then yes this stance does beg the question.
OTOH what this debate is implying is that if there is any hint of disagreement over opinions between adults, then all bets are off and we lose the ability to work together or tolerate that other person as the head of a corporation.
"Sure someone donated a thousand dollars to taking away the basic civil rights of others, no problem. Glad he was being so "christian" in his love of all others, except gays, since we all know they aren't people who deserve rights."
"But man, did you see that guy who made a tweet about how he was offended by this??? This has turned into a Christian hating, bigoted witch hunt!"
edit: I just reread and realised you said "reconsider" and not "consider". Implying you already knew this, sorry.
Here is the blog post in case anyone missed it anyway: http://identity.mozilla.com/post/78873831485/transitioning-p...
and on HN:
Correction: There aren't any more employees being paid to develop Persona. Mozilla is still paying for the infrastructure, and the community (which includes paid employees like myself who want to work on Persona on the side) is still working on it. I actually got a pull request merged just yesterday (my first!). There's also ops/IT staff who will be helping to deploy and respond to service disruptions.
<hope>We could very well find that after Firefox Accounts is up and running that focusing employees back on Persona is the right thing to do.</hope>
Running well? You'll know there are still tough problems next year. No one download 100 MB or 200 MB scripts and assets to play a game. In the past, all such resource rich Flash or Unity Web Player games have failed. No exception.
The relief is Mozilla people actually know this problem (I talked with them at GDC).
AAA games are just too rich to "browse" on the web. People close their browser windows within several seconds. Typical home internet bandwidth is narrower than Blu-ray or DVD-ROM, even in advanced countries. Furthermore, browser cache can't handle big resources. You won't even gain server costs.
Browser gaming may or may not take off, but I really don't see asset-size being the rope with which it hangs itself.
Honestly he's never made any impassioned rants on the subject, never spoken out against gay marriage, never reportedly acted out against any homosexuals in any way. He only made one small donation to what was, at the time, a very popular political campaign.
Maybe he was misguided, or misunderstood the reality of what Proposition 8 would mean. The campaigns were certainly filled with misinformation that suckered in a huge number of Californians. I know we technophiles like to think we're cut from a better cloth than that, but there are days we're just as gullible as the next.
We're all guilty of lapses of morality at some point in our lives. Hopefully we learn from those mistakes. Hopefully Brendan will, as well.
* Eich to be stabbed with a pitchfork
* His family to be threatened
* Protests outside his home
* Harassing phone calls
* A Firefox boycott
* His termination
* His demotion
What the HN comments are doing:
* Quietly acknowledging that the donation happened
I think it's a far cry from a witch hunt.
Wrt to Eich and his donation, I'm on a the fence about it. I don't like mobbing on people, especially on the Internet. Especially when the people concerned have not made their reasons public. On the other hand, upon reading Proposition 8, it's difficult to imagine many other reasons than deep conservatism or homophobia for supporting it.
Ah well. I suppose Brendan will trend very carefully, and he certainly has enough technical credibility that nobody will attack him from this angle. I'll also note that a number of figures popular on HN are more well-known for their amount of wealth than their moral character. Maybe one of his crimes is not being rich enough?
> * Quietly acknowledging that the donation happened
With all due respect, this is not an accurate summary. What many comments including the original comment have been doing is seriously broaching the idea that an anti-Prop. 8 vote is a serious grounds to disqualify someone from being Mozilla CEO. Sometimes a bit coyly, in a "nice car, shame if something happened to it" manner, but that's immaterial.
Calling for:
✔ A Mozilla boycott
✔ His termination
✔ His demotion
How could this possibly ever happen? You'd seriously have to be a complete moron. Here's the complete text:
Section I. Title
This measure shall be known and may be cited as the "California Marriage Protection Act."
Section 2. Article I. Section 7.5 is added to the California Constitution, to read:
Sec. 7.5. Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.
Pretty fucking simple.
The only other one that stands out in my mind is Etsy, though I know there are others I'm missing.
In any case, congratulations are in order. I don't know much about Eich, but I'm a huge fan of the work Mozilla's done. Their focus on privacy and unrestricted software becomes more relevant by the day, so I have high hopes for this change.
State of the art federated authentication is overly complicated by solutions bundling enterprise features such as resource authorization and directory services. These additional features should be factored out since they can be layered.
By contrast, BrowserId's parsimonious take on federated authentication (via an email handle) is refreshing.
I don't think it was because of a lack of belief in Persona and the value of pursuing federated identity. I would guess that it came down to priorities.
Eich shouldn't be able to enter a room without being berated, until he concedes and gives up his bigotry.
Seems somewhat intolerant of different opinions to me
Is what I responded to. If you choose to argue against a strawman, that's your business but I won't have anything to do with the perversion of others' arguments for the sake of making a point.
However, I have significant doubts about the power of constant berration to actually change someones mind - or even make them give up the overt facets of their opinion. Don't you think?
Why?
It's interesting that all announcements play up the interim CEO's involvement in Firefox OS. I have felt for a long time that it's going after the wrong target in Android, and should instead go up against Chrome OS. Will be interesting to see how the priorities change, if at all.
As for proposing an alternative for ChromeOS, I'm mentoring a GSoC project to turn firefox OS into a Desktop Environment (see https://wiki.mozilla.org/Community:SummerOfCode14#Firefox_OS...) which could be a first step in this direction.
Brendan Eich is, though, apparently.
I've known Brendan, I've code-reviewed some super scary changes he was checking in. I've watched him do cartwheels.
He is a very smart guy, one of the few I've met who is clearly superior to me (Hi Guha!). He is also part of a tribe foreign to me, deeply religious computer geeks.
I believe (have no 1st hand knowledge), that Brendan contributed to prop 8 as part of a church drive. His contribution has offended many, but it not part of his core beliefs.
I also believe that he gets Internet's potential more than just about anyone. My passion is open Web, and Brendan leading Mozilla is great news. He knows what really matters, he is passionate, and he will fight for it.
At first I wasn't sure how I felt about this announcement, but then I realized I've actually been quite happy with what Mozilla has been up to for the past year or so, and I imagine that's been under a lot of influence from Eich.
from <https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/03/24/mozilla-leadership-...
I wonder if Jay is actually leaving Mozilla since Li Gong is now the COO.
That being said, I think Brendan is now put on a major test.
If instead Brendan doesn't believe in abortion, would we still have this conversation? The split among pro-live and pro-choice is just as bad as pro-gay and non-gay. And among pro-choice there is a split on what constitutes a good reason to abort and what is not.
A good CEO should ensure the company is sustainable and well. One way is to accept and respect differences. If Mozilla employees think gay workers should receive X benefit that non-gay workers already been receiving and they petition Mozilla and Brendan to take action, Brendan and his team will have to work toward that goal. That's their job (well mostly COO I guess). Otherwise employees will lose faith in the organization and talent will be lost.
If he truly values Mozilla and his hard work at Mozilla, he will not hesitate to make Mozilla more friendly and more open and transparent. But he doesn't have to change his belief to be a CEO. He, in his personal space, at his house, he can do whatever he wants and say whatever he wants.
I don't work for Mozilla and I don't ask around to find out who is gay and who is not. I don't know whether gay workers feel welcome at Mozilla or not. Just saying.
As long as one doesn't affect the other, everyone is entitled to his opinion. That's why we vote on stuff...
...
I can't even. I'm so incredibly disgusted.
And, has everyone here gone insane? Personally I hold Eugenic racist homophobic neo-nazis to a higher regard than those who view forgiveness and moving on as something that should never be done.
So being opposed to gay marriage disqualifies you from being the CEO of a tech company, but not from being President of the United States.
That's a...convenient...position. Just not a rational one.
Personally, I don't think the government (and certainly not the Federal government) has any business being involved with marriage in the first place, other than providing a registry for the contracts and a court system to enforce them.
Nice attempt to shift the goal posts, though.
Giving money to politicians who are against same-sex marriage: bad.
Actually being a politician who's against same-sex marriage: perfectly fine.
Is that really your thesis here?
Donating to Proposition 8? That does.
I want to have an eleutheria@firefox.com account from where I can access the Firefox Cloud with email, docs, pics, chat, apps, games, etc.
That's all I ask for.