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> We should live in a world with correct ideas, full stop.

What a nice world that would be. Are all your ideas correct? How can you know?

I see gay rights as a human rights as well, but I realize that's partially because I learned about it in a context permissive to that interpretation. If someone was raised in a society where they were taught gay people were abominations, and their mind is no longer plastic enough to eliminate that impression, perhaps they're safe as the COO.

At some point, some idea you don't agree with will become central to society's values. Maybe you'll be able to understand why you were wrong, or maybe you won't, but I don't think your job performance will be affected either way. I think political litmus tests for positions should make us all extremely uneasy. Would you accept a job that requires you to swear an oath to protect gay rights? What about the rights of trans* individuals? What about the rights of polygamists? The biblical literalists?

For me, I suppose it depends on what the oath means by 'rights.'

Is disliking gay people to the extent of wanting to deny them rights less important than Mozilla's goals?

I'm curious as to how you came to the conclusion that Eich is an overt homophobe. His intentions are still unclear.

He donated money to prevent gay marriage. It's not really much of a stretch to conclude he's a homophobe. His intentions are pretty transparently obvious.

> homophobe

This is always an interesting word definition to me. Just because someone donated against something, might mean he's against it it, but doesn't mean he's "scared" of it (the definition of "phobia" being "fear").

The equivalence of the two words into it's current meaning has always been interesting to me.

I, too, dislike the "phobe" applied to things - it seems like a dirty bit of rhetoric. But despite the definition, it's pretty clear the meaning of homophobe is someone that dislikes/disapproves of homosexuality.

I know that & get it, but by choosing that word itself, it becomes a loaded & inaccurate word which hurts the argument (because which many anti-gay marriage people can easily refute the accusation by simply saying "that's ridiculous, I'm not scared of gay people").

"I'm not scared of them; I just hate them and don't want them to be married, for no rational reason."

Your response indicates you've likely spent little-to-none meaningful time with any of the people you're attributing words to. Very few people I've met that hold those views would say that's an accurate view of their beliefs (WBC not withstanding, but they're outliers).

I don't think any time I'd spend with those types of people could ever be meaningful.

Honestly, they can say they're "not scared of gay people" all they want, but the actions of a person who would donate their money or time to get same-sex marriage outlawed speak much, much louder than their words.

> I don't think any time I'd spend with those types of people could ever be meaningful.

That's the same attitude you're accusing them of. It's not helpful on either side of the debate.

There's a difference between being scared & disagreeing. Your refusal to acknowledge the difference says more about your desire to perpetuate your viewpoint of them rather than attempt to understand their background. It's one thing to disagree with someone, it's another to refuse to come to the table with them at all in the first place.

I think we could continue to go back & forth all day, but you don't seem very open to the idea of listening to people with opposing viewpoints :).

Not really, I just think you've done a very poor job of equating "a difference of opinion" with "civil rights". And that's really what it boils down to: the anti-same-sex marriage side is just wrong on this one. And wrong opinions don't deserve respect.

> And wrong opinions don't deserve respect.

See that's where we fundamentally disagree. I respect all opinions - even if they're wrong, offensive or I disagree with them completely. That's the whole point of free speech

This is a wrong and dangerous interpretation of free speech. The whole point of free speech is that people are allowed to hold differing opinions and the need to respect their right to /voice/ such opinions. It is NOT about respecting the opinions themselves, and certainly not about giving equal weight or consideration to all opinions.

This latter interpretation is how we get creationists demanding equal time be given to teaching their "theory" in schools. They certainly have a right to not believe in evolution, and even shudder to promote that opinion, but that doesn't mean that opinion isn't stupid and somehow deserves to be given equal standing to evolution in the public sphere.

His intentions are still unclear, despite people calling for clarification. That in itself is a signal.

He could very well know that any clarification, regardless of what is actually expressed, will be turned against him in one way or another, and will be used to further propagate this issue's prominence. Saying less may actually prove to be the quickest way to get an issue like this to blow over.

> Certainly everyone would be all over him if he was promoting racism, right?

Well the line on racism seems to keep getting moved. Everyone got all up in arms about #cancelcolbert recently about something he said out of context.

I'm curious about the urge we feel to protest/boycott everything & making people we disagree with "go away" rather than having difficult discussions with people who hold different viewpoints than us.

I suspect it has to do with the fact that the latter is much more difficult & it often is tough to directly hate someone once you take the time to personally know them.

Every idea you cite as stupid was once believed to be true. Respecting the right of people to make stupid statements makes it much easier for us all to realize someday which of own beliefs are stupid.

But surely making stupid statements or performing harmful actions isn't consequence free? And we should not give equal platforms or "balance" to every statement, should we?

Aristotle believed women had less teeth than men. If someone states that belief now, is it wrong to say "no that's wrong", and then laugh/ignore them?

Making stupid statements and performing harmful actions are vastly different things. Focusing on the former: making stupid statements does have consequences: Others may question the judgement of the person making the statements. For whatever reason, Eich's views haven't raised those questions in those closest to him, perhaps, because they aren't discussed.

If someone stated that men and women have different numbers of teeth, why not encourage an experiment? It's not an absurd statement unless you've gathered evidence or trust the evidence you've read elsewhere.

The challenge in this case is that morality can't be determined objectively without reference to some other framework, which itself is likely subjective. So it doesn't tell us whether Eich can reason or incorporate evidence. He likely formulates his view from a different set of assumptions.

By itself it doesn't tell us if Eich can reason. It certainly provides a very strong hint, though.

"We should live in a world with correct ideas, full stop."

I'm not sure I know which ideas are "correct", but I know this particular idea you've just expressed is terrifying.

Is it? We constantly improve our knowledge and understanding. I don't think it's a stretch to say we don't want invalid ideas (like "homeopathy cures diseases") being accepted as true.

Perhaps my phrasing was off - I didn't mean to imply that other ideas shouldn't exist, just that they should not be accepted as true, nor should every issue be two-sided and seek a balance.

Even so, if we could all agree on basic axioms and goals, I don't think it's too far-fetched to say we'd all like to arrive at correct ideas.

The problem is that a majority of Californians supported Prop 8. Ostracizing over 50% of the state's population is probably unreasonable.

> We should live in a world with correct ideas, full stop.

You would have thoroughly enjoyed living in the USSR.