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Comment by ben336 | Hacker News Reader

Just out of curiousity would you say that voting for Prop 8 would have been equally politically toxic? Since that would eliminate 52% of Californian voters from 2008. I recognize that a donation is different than a vote, but I want to understand the mindset here.

Can you really say that a political opinion that was apparently held by over half of the states voters at the time can disqualify someone from leading a company? Especially since there appears to not be a single other piece of evidence against his character? (seems it would have popped up by now)

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You kind of answer your own question here. Putting money behind an issue amplifies both your voice and the cause's well above and beyond the one-person-one-vote voice everyone gets (or is supposed to get). Everyone does not have an equal ability to contribute to political causes, so those with more ability have more power than those who don't.

And of course there's the fact that in modern democracy your vote is considered a part of your private life. Everyone has the right to keep that basic contribution to civic life out of their personal and business lives. But not for going above and beyond.

So it's really not that he held this political opinion, it is that he used his money to support it, almost certainly in full knowledge that it would be public information that he did so. And now, no matter how many times he says he believes in diversity without really explaining why he supported that cause if so, every gay person he works with knows that he spent $1000 supporting the cause to prevent them from getting married to someone they love. It would be kind of ridiculous if this did not cause friction. It's very difficult to "live and let live" when it's your life people are mucking with.

The issue of whether our political system's dependence on campaign finance seems a bit irrelevant to me on this. He had money and he did something with it that he had power to do.

As for the rest, are you saying the difference is because its public? So hypothetically, supporting prop8 privately would be different and more acceptable than supporting it publicly? Or its not acceptable but he just wouldn't be getting lynched for it?

Just to nitpick a bit, voter turnout was nowhere near 100% in 2008, so no, we can't say that 52% of Californians were toxic in 2008 (not counting LA obviously). The types of donations that went into the pro Prop 8 campaign helped fuel a marketing effort intended to stir up emotions among the anti-gay crowd. That was pretty toxic.

The idea of explicitly enshrining our collective dislike of gay people is also just pretty toxic all by itself, naturally, but that's a slightly different tack.

I said 52% of Californian voters. Obviously things like this skew to extreme opinions. I'm just curious if the people who believe that donating to the cause make Eich untenable as a CEO also believe that the 7million other people who voted for the bill are equally impossible as candidates.

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