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Comment by pvnick | Hacker News Reader

Really unfortunate that this happened to someone as nice and competent as Eich. His leadership would have held amazing things for Mozilla, the open web, javascript, rust, all of it. Instead he got targetted by an intollerant lynch mob that felt it had to strong-arm someone with views they didn't agree with. Sure, you could say it's a human rights issue. But ask yourself, would you consider it reasonable for Christians to target some arbitrary CEO who donated some money to planned parenthood several years ago, since that person was violating the human rights of infant children? And then for that CEO to step down in shame for because their respect for human life was in question? Of course not, that would be silly.

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> But ask yourself, would you consider it reasonable for Christians to target some arbitrary CEO who donated some money to planned parenthood several years ago

You do realize this kind of thing actually happens, right? The right wing of american politics is an avid user of and believer in boycotts.

Personally, I have no issue with this. No company is entitled to a person's money, and if they make their public face about politics they accept the consequences, both good and bad, of doing that. And it really is worth noting that there are often positive consequences of doing it as well. Even for causes I disagree with. Chick-Fil-A probably came out a bit ahead, if anything, since their presence was stronger in markets that supported them.

Likewise, Disney openly supporting gay rights through Gay Days at Disneyland and making sure their insurance supports gay employees' families have had both positive and negative impacts.

This faux-freedom argument, where people aren't entitled to decide how their own money is spent but the richest and most powerful are entitled to do whatever they want with theirs without any fear of consequence is just a ridiculous double standard.

"The right wing of american politics is an avid user of and believer in boycotts."

Which companies have they boycotted? The recent organized calls for boycotts include Chick-Fil-A, Mozilla, Walmart, McDonald's, etc. I haven't seen the right calling for a boycott of companies that supported gay marriage initiatives. Seems like the left is more into boycotts than the right.

There is an ongoing conservative boycott of the Girl Scouts of America: http://cookiecott.com/

and in response...

http://monsantoboycott.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Family_Association#Boy...

and in response...

http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/boycotts/boycottslist.aspx

This doesn't look like a response to me, since I never said that the left doesn't use boycotts. They're a common political tool and have been for a very very long time.

I was asked for some examples of right wing boycotts and I came up with just one organization that has organized a bunch of them. I did not have to dig deep to find it and I dug no further than that at this very moment, but they are not rare or hard to find.

This person's response seems a bit… asymmetric anyway. Boycotting Girl Scout cookies because of personally-held beliefs about abortions on one hand.

Boycotting Monsanto because of pesticide injuries, gmo, funding opposition to gmo labeling, franken crops, etc. isn't even a matter of opinion.

This is like boycotting Ellen DeGeneres' show because she's gay, vs boycotting Chris Brown albums because he beat Rhianna.

> Personally, I have no issue with this.

I agree that people have the right to push for companies to select officers that meet their criteria. But things like the OkCupid stunt are less respectable IMHO.

Is that really the way we want to see the Internet going? Visit a website where the web client is technically perfectly capable of displaying the page, but was associated with someone of the wrong political ideology, and so they get a nag page instead?

There is no clean exit to that logic; shouldn't OkCupid have banned JavaScript at the same time then? Shouldn't they put up nag messages to people visiting from IPs that resolve to a Republican National Committee host?

And if you do the things above, when does it become a net neutrality issue?

The beautiful thing is that you are free to boycott or speak against OKCupid for this all you want. You could even write your own browser that puts up a nag screen if you go to OKCupid.

Whether or not OKCupid did the right thing here (they certainly got some press out of it), it certainly wasn't bad for the internet as a whole.

> You could even write your own browser that puts up a nag screen if you go to OKCupid.

The scary thing about HN is that you might actually be serious that people should "simply write a web browser" to enforce correct political ideology...

But there now seems to be a police on moral thought. If someone dares to speak against an opinion that the left holds dearly, they're now subjected to having their careers and lives ruined. Don't you think this stifles alternative thought?

No, there are no thought police. There are, however, consequences among your social peers and professional colleagues for public statements. There is no reasonable free speech protection you can put in place to change this.

Throughout history, groups have always sought to stifle alternative thought. The moral difference is in the tactics they use, which have ranged from censorship to violence and bribery to peaceful protest and civil disobedience. I, for one, prefer and even encourage peaceful public outcry of this sort. Say what you want, but if your customers (users, friends, coworkers) don't like it they don't have to buy from you. In fact, they probably feel a moral obligation not to. This doesn't only happen on the left - remember the Million Moms (or whoever) boycotting JC Penny for using Ellen as a spokeswoman?

> No company is entitled to a person's money, and if they make their public face about politics they accept the consequences

I think Eich was chosen for his technical contributions (e.g. the creation of Javascript), not because he donated $1000 to a political campaign a few years back. There was no indication whatsoever that he was about to use his his new influence or Mozilla's money to advance political causes. In Chick-Fil-A's case it was at least possible to imagine that eating there would increase the owner's wealth, which would then go towards politics. But any fears about Mozilla promoting an anti-gay agenda under Eich seem unfounded at best.

I'm sure he was, and that's an ok (but not perfect) argument for when he was appointed CTO, and that's probably at least partly why the similar reaction then didn't gain anywhere near the same traction.

But as CEO you are a representative of much more than your technical contributions. You are the face of the company.

You do realize this kind of thing actually happens, right? The right wing of american politics is an avid user of and believer in boycotts.

Let me introduce you to my neighbor down the street, the Rev. Jesse Jackson. His entire power structure is based upon leveraging boycotts as a means to an end. Each side is more than willing to play the victim game.

It's a little like this being 1969 and Eich, having grown up in the Deep South, admits giving donations to a Proposition to stop interracial marriage. You could rationalize it by saying it's happening at a time of very rapidly changing social views on what's normal and that he's from the South and that he's not against blacks per se. He just doesn't think it's a good idea they breed with whites. But it's still wrong.

I have no sympathy for Eich as he's a fully grown adult who works in one of the more open minded industries in one of the most liberal parts of the US and he actively wants to lead people. A great leader has to be tolerant of a wide range of social and cultural POV. He demonstrated he's not very tolerant. Bad sign.

If that part of the country was really as liberal as you seem to think, Prop 8 wouldn't have been passed by a majority of voters.

It could be 99% of the voters that supported it. It's still objectively morally wrong, just like Jim Crow laws were.

@jiojk542: it's morally wrong because it denies equal treatment under the law (tax benefits, government benefit benefits, survivor benefits absent a will, etc) to law abiding people. You are the one creating a false equivalency. People that would like to deny same-sex marriage are free to not marry someone of the same sex. Their freedom is not being curtailed. The same is not true the other way around. That wikipedia link is patronizing, unimpressive, and unconvincing. edit: the only "impingement" on the freedom on the anti same-sex marriage side is they must tolerate the presence of people the do not approve of. Such is the burden of a democratic, pluralistic society.

@LordKano - I literally do not understand your point. This is about the civil recognition of a personal relationship. A justice of the peace "marriage" has no religious meaning, nor does a marriage ceremony performed in a church have any civil component absent a marriage license. There are religions that allow same-sex marriage ceremonies. Are they "immoral" religions? Is it a violation of the 1rst amendment (vs the 14th) to not permit the civil recognition of those religious rituals? My point is denying an individual's right (not a privilege) on this is de facto immoral, regardless of your feelings about that individuals choice, if it does not cause demonstrable and direct harm to others.

@NeonVice - A marriage is a religion thing. A civil union is a government thing, which is currently and inconveniently also call "marriage". Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, and atheist heterosexual couples can have government marriages even though they may have nothing in common with Christian marriages ideals. Nobody is forcing any church/synagogue/mosque/etc to perform a marriage ceremony of any kind they do not want to.

With those 3 replies, I will waste no more words on this damn topic.

Again... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_balance

And why is it "objectively" morally wrong? Who gets to decide this? There is no scientific consensus on the causes of homosexuality.

One of the primary objections to Prop 8 was that we can't legislate morality.

Or is it that only your morality should be eligible for codification in the law?

Of course we can, we do it all the time. What are you defining as "morality that we can't legislate?"

A homosexual male could not marry a man and also a heterosexual male could not marry a man. They are both equally treated under the law. What you want is to codify attraction into the law. Government should get the hell out of marriage and instead only deal in civil unions. Individuals can decide if they are married or not.

> objectively morally wrong

I wonder how the conservatives, or the taliban, or communists, or ... call their version of "objectively morally wrong". Oh wait ... probably exactly the same.

> There are religions that allow same-sex marriage ceremonies

Are those religions "objectively morally right", or should all their adherents be fired from their jobs ? Or maybe all the other religions ? Atheists perhaps ? Come on, who do we fire ? Who do we burn ? Do tell.

> With those 3 replies, I will waste no more words on this damn topic.

Exactly, you advocate firing people for their political views, and you've gotten your way. Remind to refuse any job offer or business opportunity or cooperation I ever get from you. Let's not pretend that this makes you anything but a bigot and a total asshole.

The difference, obviously, is that Prop 8 denies rights to some people and does not affect anyone else, aside from offending them.

I don't understand your point about my comment about religions that permit same sex marriage. I think it's pretty obvious I was trying to say that morals can differ and in a pluralistic society, we err on the side of permitting individual freedom. Same-sex couples should not have to live by certain interpretations of the Talmud. Charismatic/Evangelist Christians should not be compelled to use birth control. Sikhs/Muslims/LDS members should be permitted to wear religiously significant clothing. Is that controversial?

Finally, I have actually defended Eich's promotion at some length in non-HN forums. I believe that Mozilla stands for privacy protection and the highest quality open/free software. In that regard, his viewpoints/goals and mine are very close. As strongly and fundamentally as I disagree with him on other subjects, I felt his leadership would be beneficial to Mozilla. I regret he was forced out, I think it was a bad decision.

Now, that being said, don't worry about turning down a job offer from me. I can disagree civilly, but you've called me a bigot and an asshole, and I am done with you.

You seem to have rethought your position on this, your previous post defended the firing of Mozilla's CEO based on his political opinion.

I am glad that you consider that wrong and I just misread you, or you changed your opinion for the better.

Remember that it was passed with the help of a large amount of money from an out-of-state conservative "religious" organization.

I mean the Bay Area which is a pocket of about 8 million mostly liberal folks.

Found this: "Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California, passed with more than 52% of the vote statewide. In the four most populous Silicon Valley area counties, it received just under 38% of the vote. The measure was later overturned by the courts."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_balance

Sexual orientation does not equal race. Scientists have never isolated a gay gene. There are no definitive causes of homosexuality. His opinion of homosexuality as a choice is as scientifically valid as your belief that it's innate. Why is he wrong and you right?

Worried enough about posting this that you'd create a new account so that people don't see this connected to whatever your long-term identity is?

Don't you see? If anyone decides to say an unpopular opinion that offends the left, their lives and careers would probably be ruined. Doesn't that stifle conversation? How is that a good thing?

If sexual orientation is a choice, then why aren't there throngs of "straight" male scientists choosing to be gay for a while, fucking a bunch of dudes, enjoying it (that's the key part), then writing papers on it?

It doesn't matter if it's a choice or not. Can Eich claim that he didn't have a choice about his political activity?

"A great leader has to be tolerant of a wide range of social and cultural POV."

First of all, it was made very clear in all the articles on him that he has never shown any mistreatment of anyone because of their sexual preference. It seems that his intolerance isn't in question. If you want to put that quote on anyone, I'd aim it at the leaders of OKCupid. The hypocrisy is so stupid.

I'm not sure what to tell you if your starting position is his this is not about his tolerance.

You and many like you keep saying he lost his job over 'unpopular views others didn't agree with'. The sort of thing, as Brendan Eich says, you can leave at the door when you come to work. But it isn't as if Brendan Eich lost his job because he went out for beers with a few co-workers and, in an unguarded moment' said something like 'you know what, that that whole marriage between people of the same gender just doesn't square with my religious faith'.

I wonder if people like you are familiar with what California Proposition 8 was. California courts had already ruled that same-sex marriages were valid under the California constitution and such marriages were already taking place. Prop 8, funded in part by out-of-state conservative religious groups, sought to modify the constitution to define marriage as solely between a man and a woman. That is what Brendan Eich was for and that's what he supported with his money - the legal imposition of a specific belief on a historically discriminated-against minority. It's certainly his right to do so but it's hardly compatible with holding the top leadership and representative position at Mozilla. If you were the leader of a Catholic charity but expressed strong pro-choice views, you'd probably have trouble holding onto your position as well.

As a meta point, speaking of discriminated minorities, you should probably avoid calling people who, however vocally, express views different than yours on the internet a 'lynch mob'.

> California courts had already ruled that same-sex marriages were valid under the California constitution [...]

Actually, it was the other way around. They had ruled that prohibiting same-sex marriage was invalid under the California constitution.

Yep, you're right, I lazied out on looking it up before typing. Inexplicably, someone downvoted you, to boot.

Religious fundamentalists target the rest of us all the time. That is the problem here, not the other way around.

It's exactly this hateful, viciously intolerant attitude Eich represents ("someone nice"? seriously?). There's nothing silly about not wanting anything to do with people like that, or the organisations they represent.

And that's all people have done: stated, in various ways, they wanted nothing to do with Eich.

Which doesn't even come close to Eich's agenda of denying people equal rights simply because of how they were born.

I find it beyond comprehension that someone like Eich is being portrayed as the victim here, or that we should simply accept having active bigots as leaders, CEO's, employers or business partners.

The protesters aren't the lynch mob. Eich and his kind are.

Yes its unfortunate that Mozilla is going to miss out on Eich's contributions. But ultimately the result here shows that the benefits however great they may have been didn't outweigh the costs of his beleifs alienating the community Mozilla is built upon.

Its not intolerant to not want to work under the leadership of someone who has worked to do you and others you care about active harm.

Can you clarify something for me : are you a democrat or a republican ? And which of those 2 groups should be fired from their jobs ?

Any religions that perhaps should see all their members fired ? Which ones ?

Do tell.

I never advocated firing anyone actually including eich, but right or wrong employers certainly have the right to fire someone for their outside of work activities if its interfering with their ability to do their job. There are only very narrow protections for protected classes here.

Everyone has the right to free speech in this country which is great, but free speech does not come with any assurance that there will not be consequences. You have no right to be free from criticism. You have no right to expect your employer to keep you on if you're damaging their business by generating bad press. I think this fundamental misunderstanding of free speech often drives these sort of "its intolerant of you to not tolerate my intolerant speech" sort of comments.

Free speech comes with a great responsibility - accept the consequences of your speech.

> an intollerant lynch mob

People have a right to not be murdered. They do not have a right to be the CEO of a company.

A group of people can say whatever they like, and if it puts sufficient pressure on a company that company can choose whether to act. What specific part of what happened here would you like to ban?

He didn't say or even insinuate that one has a right to be CEO of anything nor that any kind of speech should be banned.

A "lynch mob" is a pejorative term because it refers to a group of people who deprive another person of both their right to a fair trial, and subsequently their right to not be murdered (it also carries connotations of innocence, and a mob looking for a victim that fits a particular preconceived profile).

Banning speech is reductio ad absurdum of arguments that what happened to Eich should be somehow prevented. Because that's all that happened -- people making choices about what products to use, and talking to other people about that choice.

Well neither did he say or imply that it should be prevented, so again you're being fallacious here.

> But ask yourself, would you consider it reasonable for Christians to target some arbitrary CEO who donated some money to planned parenthood several years ago

Well, the US still can't have an an openly atheist president. So, yeah, I can imagine.

Would you support a business led by, say, a known member of the KKK?

I'm not asking to be inflammatory, nor am I comparing Eich's views to that. I've seen a number of statements like yours as the main counterargument to the criticism of Eich as CEO, and I'm genuinely curious whether the argument is, "anything goes, and personal values have no place in business", or, "I don't think gay marriage is an important enough issue to warrant this level of criticism", or something else.

And yet, his views are totally liberal relative to the views you find in some Muslim countries, where homosexuals are sentenced to death or are just killed outright. Why aren't you focused on that, instead of worrying about the definition of marriage for the time being? Aren't there much larger fish to fry?

I do sort of feel as though this was a "fish in the barrel" target that people are feeling good about. Yes, everything small matters in large numbers, but I don't think this is really much to show in terms of LGBT rights progress. It has the veneer of the armchair activism you see on Tumblr.

"would you consider it reasonable for Christians to target some arbitrary CEO who donated some money to planned parenthood several years ago"

Do you mean exactly how they (Family Research Council in these cases) did with the Girl Scouts, Coca Cola, or Starbucks? I mean, that's just off the top of my head.

Instead he got targetted by an intollerant lynch mob that felt it had to strong-arm someone with views they didn't agree with

Stop being so dramatic; this was not a lynch mob, it was a bunch of rightly pissed-off people, including many members of the open web community, who were angered that somebody who had been actively trying to strip their civil rights had been promoted to the head of an organisation which explicitly talks about the importance of diversity in the community.

It is really super difficult to reasonably say that objecting to someone's intolerance is in itself intolerance.

But conservatives who support traditional marriage (and civil unions with the same rights as marriage) are not welcome in the club, right? How is that appreciating a diversity of thought?

They're not welcome to the club when they're taking actions to strip the rights of another individual. Opinions are one thing, concrete actions are another.

> Opinions are one thing, concrete actions are another.

Where's the line? Donating $100,000? Donating $1,000? Donating $5? Voting? Discussing your opinion? Setting your facebook profile? Telling someone when they ask? Not answering when they ask?

The donation wasn't for a public information campaign to encourage gay people not to marry. If was for a law to force them not to. That's the difference.

You know, if Erich had stated "Hey, I'm not pro gay-marriage, but I'm really behind equal civil partnerships that offer all the same rights" then the backlash would be much milder. But there is a vanishingly small number of people who hold that opinion, because it's pretty ludicrous (boils down to 'this word is so important that it must not be changed, despite the fact that I don't object at all to equality')

So. You're conceding that there would still be a backlash.

> would you consider it reasonable...

For people to speak with their wallet? Yeah. For people to speak up if they disagree? Yes. For people to speak up if they agree? Sure.

I'm for freedom of speech. Thinking that people can't speak up would go against that belief. Now, granted, if I speak up, I need to be accountable for what I say. Freedom of speech is guaranteed by the government. It doesn't mean you get to silence your critics.

> Of course not, that would be silly.

Why do you think people using their freedom to speak silly?

I'm also curious if you held the same beliefs when the CEO of GoDaddy killed an elephant, and there was the public outcry over that.

You compare the situation with a group targeting an 'arbitrary CEO' for making a donation several years back for planned parenthood. I would actually understand this, if the arbitrary CEO was leading a company associated with a pro-life church, with most members having anti-abortion stance. Although the CEO is certainly entitled to his views, I would not think he would be fit to lead a company if those publicly known views are actually in strong disagreement with the pro-life church's following.

Now, replace planned parenthood with "Prop 8", pro-life church with "inclusive open source community" and anti-abortion with "pro LGBT-rights".

yeah he had great views such as making firefox technically relevant (through rust, through asmjs, through multiprocessing, etc) and looking at mozilla's real value (users trust mozilla)

except, that 2nd point became an issue with him ceo, too. sad.

No, it's not unfortunate at all, you idiot. Anyone who harbours hateful beliefs is not A Nice Person, nor should they be anywhere near a position of leadership.

Since you obviously need assistance with your flawed thinking, you can start by recognising that your argument would hold identical merit and positioning were he a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

The issue isn't about rights. I wish everyone would recognize it's about privileges and equal treatment. The benefits [of a government recognized marriage] (tax breaks, visitations, spousal benefits, etc.) are all privileges. How can you tell? Because with the stroke of a pen all those things could be revoked by the government.

Sure, but equal access to those privileges is a civil right.

Everyone has equal access. Every person is allowed to marry one other person of a different sex.

I get it. People don't like the "of a different sex" in there and they have the right to appeal to have that removed. I'm more in favor with getting rid of marriage privileges all together... why burden single people?

UPDATE: To the downvoter, am I wrong or do you just disagree? Please clarify by commenting.

> Everyone has equal access. Every person is allowed to marry one other person of a different sex.

Which discriminates by sex the same way that "every person is allowed to marry one person of the same race" discriminates by race.

> I'm more in favor with getting rid of marriage privileges all together... why burden single people?

How does the option to marry burden people who choose not to exercise that option?

Thank you for commenting. I still say access is equal. It doesn't discriminate based on sex, it discriminates based on preference. It seems there are two camps that disagrees whether its acceptable or not to discriminate by that.

(Update: your point about race is great and forcing me to rethink my stance by the way.)

What is the purpose of marriage benefits? How does having them benefit society enough that government wishes to recognize it? I'd guess its to encourage offspring in order to continue future prosperity. I'm proposing we step back and ask, what's the purpose of recognizing marriages? What are we trying to incentivize and is it working?

Rather than blindly extending things perhaps we should consider repealing or scaling them back? Look at the war on drugs, we thought banning marijuana would be beneficial, we're now questioning that.

The second point of burden pertains mostly to giving tax breaks to married couples.

I still say access is equal.

I don't want to be mean, but this logic is just faulty. You can define any discrimination as equality if you shuffle the terms around.

Think instead about marriage equality meaning equality for couples, rather than individuals. The proposal is that a same-sex couple should have the same rights as an opposite-sex couple. Discrimination is based on the collective gender of the couple.

> What is the purpose of marriage benefits?

Largely, to: (1) simplify life for people who want to do a fairly common thing, establishing a fairly comprehensive mutual support partnership, and (2) encourage people to do that thing, and thereby reduce the chance of becoming a public burden.

> The second point of burden pertains mostly to giving tax breaks to married couples.

The "break" is mostly (roughly) treating married couples as if their combine income were earned equally split between the two, on the premise that the lower earning member of the couple is making sacrifices to enable the higher-earning member to earn their wage (for couples of roughly equal income, there is no tax break [1].)

[1] And, potentially, its worse than just "no break": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_penalty

Except that marriage is recognised as a human right, both internationally and by the USA. Any specific benefits, obviously, are not rights, but the ability to be married is agreed to be a human right.

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

> Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

You got a person fired for his political views. Let's not pretend Brendan Eich violated human rights, he did not.

You did.

I'm making my sites just outright refuse mozilla's browsers.

Can you please understand that coming from a country where political cleansings of companies and government departments are normal that you will see a VERY strong reaction against this.

> Let's not pretend Brendan Eich violated human rights, he did not.

He argued for, and donated money towards a campaign for, the violation of my human rights. I'm sorry that I got angry about that and exercised my rights to freedom of speech and freedom of association?

> I'm making my sites just outright refuse mozilla's browsers.

You're well within your right to do that. I'll point out that now you're in the same position as I was; you're boycotting Mozilla because it doesn't match your political views.

Will the people who tried to boycott Mozilla over Brendan Eich's appointment also refuse to use any of his creations?

If OkCupid said that they were planning to stop using Javascript because of his views I would have respected them a lot more than simply vilifying someone for their private personal donations to causes they believe in.

To summarize the real issue here: if we stopped using a company's products just because we disagree with the personal views of its founders, leaders or employees, we wouldn't use any products at all. This event worries me because it makes freedom of speech effectively irrelevant.

> lynch mob

I like to think of them as "firing squads", because they aim to get people fired.

"Sure, you could say it's a human rights issue."

Are you sure you don't want to give this possibility a little more weight? Maybe a lot more weight? I mean, what if it is a human rights issue?

Of course not, that would be silly.

It would not be "silly" for Christians to target people for being pro-choice. That would be right in line with being Christian.

Um. Yes, I would be upset if your proposed scenario happened (and similar things do happen). But these two scenarios are not quite alike, are they, considering in one case the person is doing something I believe is wrong, and in the other case something I believe is right, or at the very least acceptable.

Getting together to force the dismissal of a person from a position of power based on their views is not automatically bad or good. It is bad or good depending on what the views are. Homophobic views are bad; it is good to get people dismissed from power based on those views. A woman's right to choose is good; getting people dismissed from power based on that view is bad.

So what your saying is as long as the angry mob agrees with you then its ok, but if they disagree with you then they are wrong.

If by "angry mob" you mean "the broad moral view of society," yep, that is what I'm saying. If your morality disagrees with society's to a great enough degree, it is right, for the purposes of this discussion, that you be removed from power.

(Caveat: as a moral descriptivist I should point out that I believe there is not really any such thing as "right" or "wrong," just what people like and don't like. But, as shorthand, I use the same words other people use.)

Lets not forget that he supported "the broad moral view of society", as evidenced by a popular vote at the time. I'll agree that the "broad moral view" has switched, and turn about is fair play. Let us punish the new minority.

Ah, but he has a choice to be in that minority. He could work on his empathy, examine his beliefs, and come to the correct conclusion (that two people having equal protection for their sexual preferences will hurt him in no way). All he needed to do to avoid this situation was right wrong beliefs, and publicly acknowledge the same, the same way he previously publicly embraced those beliefs. Those in whose oppression he assisted have no such option, as you cannot, at least according to current science, examine your sexual preferences and change them.

> He could work on his empathy, examine his beliefs, and come to the correct conclusion

Yeah, if he keeps looking and examining what's wrong with him he will eventually see that there really are five lights. I mean, that's all it takes right? We simply choose what to believe as it's convenient to us?

No . . . I was talking about coming to the right belief, not the convenient one. Not sure where you got that from . . .

And I was talking about how convenient it must be to simply choose to believe something different.

As far as "five lights", I suggest viewing "Chain of Command" from Star Trek: The Next Generation, which has a famous scene that riffs off of Orwell's 1984.

Fair enough. To be honest, I was in the majority with Brendan Eich at that time (although not in California), based on sincere beliefs. And I am now in the majority with you and others in being all for marriage equality and viewing it as a civil rights issue. But because of where I am now and where I have been, I feel empathy with those struggling to sort out their feelings or that are still on the other side. Most people who I know who were or are still against gay marriage aren't "homophobic" or hold have any problem with gays, they just don't view marriage as a civil right, like the civil rights of 60's, since marriage has always been a man and woman thing since the institution was invented. And while I may disagree with them, it doesn't matter to me in the larger context, and I still willing to love these people and I don't think they're bigots worthy of my contempt unless they prove to be so beyond this single issue. I respect that this is where I differ from many of you, who, this single issue is enough for you to hate someone or wish for nothing but evil upon them. And I'm not talking about the figures at the forefront of the anti-gay-rights movement, but the every day people I know who may be more conservative than I and besides an occasional vote or even a donation that differs from mine, that is only a small part of who they are.

Oh, I can hardly claim any real moral superiority. I was a Christian fundamentalist as recently as 2006. Apparently zealots for one team often end up being zealots on the other side when they change their mind.

I do not hate Brendan Eich. I do think he purchased what he is receiving, though.

I would hardly call 52% for vs 47% against, a "broad moral view".

I think we're up to 59% pro as of now, with broad demographic trends pointing toward further shrinkage of the anti-group above and beyond the natural attrition that comes from it no longer being comfortable to express bigoted views.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_of_same-sex_marr...

This is an issue where public opinion is changing quickly, as it often does when oppression becomes recognized as oppression. I'd recommend taking the limit of the function as yr->2020.

Considering this whole discussion is over a law that the majority of California voters supported, the argument against Eich is even weaker, even though I disagree with his stance.

The majority of Californians probably don't support the law- it passed a referendum. Moreover, the critical partnerships for Mozilla are with people who heavily oppose it.

Even so, he's not exactly in the extremist minority that many here are implying.

He's saying the opposite of that. A position that discriminates against minorities is not symmetric with one that does not. Personal convictions that discriminate against minorities are noxious. It's OK to condemn those kind of views.

Of course this produces the paradox of being intolerant of intolerance. Like most paradoxes it's not a problem in practice.

You say that the two situations are not alike, because you believe is wrong, and the other is right.

...

So I suppose we should all judge everyone's actions based on what you believe? Since, obviously everyone has their opinions, but those who have opinions other than yours are wrong.

That is not a fair or reasonable way to interpret what I said. The personal pronouns I used are obvious stand-ins for large swathes of society whose view agree with mine.

Ah, right. So we should just go with what most people believe. Mob rule. Of course.

You might find it surprising that a number of people on the other side of this issue would agree with you. They know they're right, so everyone should just agree with them.

That's not exactly a scalable approach to social issues.

"But these two scenarios are not quite alike, are they, considering in one case the person is doing something I believe is wrong [...]"

Double standards for tactics is the subject of this rather long article by someone more articulate about it than I am:

http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/02/23/in-favor-of-niceness-co...

This opinion is deeply disconcerting to me. I think our society needs to be very cautious in drawing the line between "acceptable" and "unacceptable" views. Plenty of people have views I disagree with, but which I still consider within the realm of "acceptability". If people don't have a right to reasonable private opinions, the political majority can wave around stories like this one as an incentive to prevent minorities from speaking up.

If Eich had actively spoken out hatefully against gay people, I would agree that his resignation would be warranted. But he has done nothing of the sort, and committed in a blog post to equality at Mozilla. I think Mozilla's actions smell like a hasty overreaction which sets a dangerous precedent.

> If people don't have a right to reasonable private opinions

I question the assumption that this opinion: "gay people ought not be allowed to marry" is a reasonable one. I'll accept common, but I don't agree that it's reasonable.

Also, he does still have the right to that opinion. He just doesn't have the right to express it free of consequences.

Also, he didn't hold that opinion privately. He held it publicly (by donating money to support its enforcement via the law).

If people don't have a right to reasonable private opinions

Define reasonable.

The fact that you can't demonstrates why this argument is baseless. "Reasonableness" is decided by social desires, ultimately, and that's exactly what happened in this case.

Thanks you for writing that comment! I'm mostly on the side that disagrees with you, but you've expressed your position beautifully and I can only wish that everyone expressed their positions in the same way. In particular, this seems to be the central point of the whole discussion:

> Getting together to force the dismissal of a person from a position of power based on their views is not automatically bad or good. It is bad or good depending on what the views are.

It's just so delightfully free from rationalization! Where other left-leaning folks pretend to use some abstract rules that apply to both sides equally, and make up bogus "fundamental differences" between positions that outrage the left and positions that outrage the right, you say outright that you're going to use your moral judgment on a case-by-case basis. That might be right or wrong, but at least we can have a sensible discussion about it.

So, even though I believe that forcing Eich to step down was wrong, I urge everyone to upvote the parent :-)

The whole category of moral non-cognitivist beliefs is a really freeing way to look at the world. A lot of things make sense that just don't under other frameworks. I'm a true novice in this area, but that's how I see it.

Yeah, I agree it feels liberating. Though I prefer the broader label of "non-realist", because "non-cognitivist" seems too restrictive.

For example, if you think mankind might someday create an AI that would satisfy the preferences of humans, then you need these preferences to be expressible mathematically, as some kind of utility function. If you're a non-realist, you're okay with that, as long as the utility function is specific to humans (i.e. the utility functions of human-built AI and alien-built AI don't have to be the same). But if you're also a non-cognitivist, then you're in a difficult spot, because obviously one can make true and false statements about a mathematical function. Does that make sense?

(Disclaimer - I'm a Google engineer as well, and also pretty active on lesswrong.com which has covered these issues in much detail.)

Thanks for pointing me in a direction to make my terminology more accurate. (Sincere.)

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