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Comment by intortus | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

> 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

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.

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.

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.

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