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Comment by mikestew | Hacker News Reader

Just the CEO? Who else shall we burn at the stake? Mary, the office manager, goes to church every Sunday. How did she vote? John over in mobile dev is a devout Muslim, I'll bet he doesn't take kindly to such things as gay marriage. Time to start scanning through those campaign contribution records for Prop 8 and seeing if a JOIN on the employee database gives us any results.

I've always held to the idea that my job is to make my manager look good. I don't know that mouthing off on twitter such that Ars Technica picks it up is fitting to that philosophy.

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Thank you for posting this.

It's insane that there's this witch-hunt over someone's personal views, and the fact that this outlandish behaviour is actually supported and applauded by people.

If anything this just gives more credence to the 'gay agenda' conspiracies that up until fairly recently no one took seriously...

Because equal marriage is really, really important. When gay people are not accepted in society opposing something that would improve that greatly is a bad thing to do

Why?

Marriage has always been about community and religion, in many countries people never bother registering it with the government. In some countries like Canada, common-law partners get the same benefits as married partners.

Personally, I'd be all for doing away with the entire government institution of marriage, and simply have 'civil unions' for all, with each community and religion being able to decide for themselves what 'marriage' means.

> Marriage has always been about community and religion, in many countries people never bother registering it with the government.

At least in Europe, that's pretty much backwards -- marriage has always been about property, and, it was fairly late that the Church even got involved at all, and the Church getting deeply involved in governing marriage was largely a trend that happened as the Church deepened its involvement in government more generally.

Yes I forgot. For some cultures in some time periods women were property that was traded from father to husband, in exchange for goods, and marriage was the contract that finalized the transfer of property. Especially for the higher classes that had a significant amount of property.

In some religions at least marriage signified a bond between two people, and not merely a transfer of property. My views are shaped somewhat by the fact that in Orthodox Christianity (the type I'm most familiar with), marriage isn't a transfer of property, and the bride isn't 'given' from father to husband. It's an equal arrangement. Whereas in Islam and 'western' Christianity the bride is 'given', much like property.

> For some cultures in some time periods women were property that was traded from father to husband, in exchange for goods, and marriage was the contract that finalized the transfer of property.

I wasn't talking about women as property, though that's also a factor in some cases (which undermines the whole "traditional marriage" as a good thing argument.) I was talking about marriage being about property arrangements, not the parties being property.

It hasn't always been about religion, possibly community though.

Doing away with government marriages if it was for everyone. At the moment it is important because it has tax benefits and not having it equal makes gay people seem like second class citizens.

in other words, witch-hunt is ok if you support the cause?

Not if I support the cause but if the cause is right.

This is also not a witch-hunt. I honestly cannot believe that people are so apathetic about equality

Marriage equality is important, but a society in which we're able to go to work, do ours jobs and bracket our concerns about the personal lives of our coworkers and bosses is more important than any immediate social issue in the present. It's the foundational principle of living in a pluralistic society.

No, it really doesn't.

There are sensible people on this thread trying to argue that Brendan Eich shouldn't be forced to resign because of his private political views, and there are idiots like you using words like 'witch-hunt' and talking about the 'gay agenda' (what, you think they have a committee somewhere drawing up a hit-list?). I sincerely doubt that you are trying constructively to help here.

Silly you for thinking there was an agenda.

In the UK, the Labour (political party) Gay Rights Manifesto of 1985 said,

"A socialist society would supersede the family household... Gay people and children should have the right to live together... It follows from what we have already said that we favour the abolition of the age of consent."

There's a huge difference between holding general religious beliefs and contributing financially to a political movement specifically pursuing institutional discrimination of a large class of Americans.

I'm a little troubled by the chilling effects that career and public opinion can have on political expression, but it's hard to generate sympathy for blatantly unconstitutional, horrendously discriminatory forms of political expression.

Philosophically what's the difference between financially supporting a political cause and voting for leaders which support that cause?

The intent behind a financial contribution (or any other sort of contribution to a campaign) is to amplify one's vote by getting others to join in.

What makes this case so interesting is that the campaign in question is so specifically wrong. If it were for a candidate or party who has some questionable views, I'd feel inappropriate holding it against someone, but I'm not aware of any saving graces for Prop 8.

The Catholic Church works very hard to supress gay marriage everywhere in the world, and has done a lot more harm to our society than Prop 8 ever would have. The Catholic Church is supported by tithes from their members, which are generally required.

By this same logic, should they not be arguing for the firing of every Catholic employee, who ostensibly spend 10% of their income received from the company to the same end?

1. The Roman Catholic Church does not require tithes from its members. I'm not sure any part of it ever has.

2. No one is saying that every employee who does as Eich did should be fired. Some people are saying that someone who has done as Eich did shouldn't be CEO of Mozilla.

So, a Catholic who actively tithes, should not be allowed to be CEO of Mozilla? What about a Lutheran that actively tithes? Both of these organizations work directly to prevent gay marriage, and that money goes to amplifying that cause.

It's plausibly deniable that you're contributing tithes specifically to take rights away from gays. It's hard to deny that if you're contributing to Prop 8.

I would make the argument that contributing the Catholic church is far worse for homosexuals, children, women, and the planet than Prop 8 ever could be. But then again, that's why I don't go around making check lists of appropriate contributions for everyone in my company around me...

The ELCA doesn't actively attempt to prevent gay marriage. They permit ordination of gays an lesbians, the NALC (a group that split from the ELCA specifically over this issue) and the LCMS (which split earlier) don't.

What I'm saying is that not all Lutheran denominations work directly to prevent gay marriage.

You're wrong on two points:

a) Contributing financially to many religious institutions is explicitly financing groups who opposed gay marriage, and is an activity than many religious people undertake.

b) Advocating for something that in some views is unconstitutional is a constitutionally protected activity. The practice itself may be unconstitutional (I certainly think so), however, the political advocacy itself is not.

a) When you fund "mormonism" or whatever, there is a lot of plausible deniability that you're not a bigot, as this is a huge population of people doing a mix of things, mostly good. In contrast, when you specifically fund Prop 8, you need a really good excuse.

b) Advocating for something that is purely prejudicial and hateful is deserving of censure.

As I said, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about holding people accountable for their political views in general, but I do have some rationale for leaning toward censure in this particular case.

Yes, the solution to all the ills of the world is to censor people who (society|the majority|intortus) decides are purely "prejudicial and hateful", because that will clearly make politics better and less oppressive!

I don't even agree with these people, but people who express views like yours - that we should censor views we find distasteful so they can't even be discussed openly - make it really hard to comfortably take a stand against them.

I'm not for censorship, even of views I find extremely distasteful, and don't advocating punishing people merely for holding or articulating them.

Is there any evidence he's done anything besides be part of the political process, such as discriminate in the running of the nonprofit?

*Edit to fix typo.

Government benefits should only be tied to civil unions. The government should get the hell out of marriage and couples can determine if they want to consider themselves married.

I would never say that changing the definition of marriage is blatantly unconstitutional. The constitution says nothing about the right of two people of the same sex getting married nor does it say anything about traditional marriage. You could argue equal protection under the law, but as it stands a heterosexual man and a homosexual are both legally not permitted to marry a man. Blatantly is absolutely the wrong word to use.

Also, your insinuation that religious people should not use their deeply held beliefs to influence the societies in which they live is disturbing. You have a vote and they have a vote.

> There's a huge difference between holding general religious beliefs and contributing financially...

So, you can believe whatever you want, as long as you don't act on your beliefs?

> ... to a political movement specifically pursuing institutional discrimination of a large class of Americans.

Prop 8 was proposed by the voters of California, it would not have had direct ramifications on the rest of the US.

> ... blatantly unconstitutional...

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/27/us/politics/supreme-court-...

The last big ruling by the SCOTUS on gay marriage came down to a 5-4 vote. The supreme court justices are not amateurs at enforcing the US Constitution. That it was 5-4 is a good sign that the issue is hard to argue one way or the other from the constitution.

EDIT: typo

Yes, Mary the office manager, she claims to be a Christian but I've always suspected her of being a witch. Burn her! Drown her! Do both!

But whatever you do, don't go near John, because I hear he gets upset over cartoons and he might react violently rather than meekly accepting punishment like a good Christian.

If you're sick of the political correctness and need a good laugh, watch this short piece by British aethist comedian Pat Condell, 'How gay is Islam?'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLbltj-tD1Y

Why is it that for some people political correctness - something which tries to make people respect one another more and be nice - is the devil.

You have the right to say almost whatever you want. That doesn't mean you fucking should, does it? There's a big difference between the two

Because for some people political correctness is about lying to make others feel good.

Well when the thing they are lying about is a view which is harmful then I see no problem.

You've heard of the chilling effect, right? I would say insisting on being politically correct in all things or you're not fit to run a company would qualify as censorship.

The comparison between the CEO (and therefore the public face) of a non-profit organization and Mary the office manager is so absurd it's ridiculous. When your actions impact more people, you get put under a harsher spotlight. I'm not sure why that's a difficult concept to grasp.

Mary and John aren't the CEO. There was disappointment over Brendan Eich's position on gay marriage when he was CTO, but I don't think anyone was calling for him to resign, and even now I'm not sure anyone is calling for Eich to leave Mozilla. CEO is the ultimate leadership role, and if you are gay or have gay friends, having someone in that role who does not believe in gay marriage hurts.

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