Hacker News Reader

Comment by muyuu | Hacker News Reader

All my life I've considered these goons talking about "evil homosexual lobby" and "reactionary liberals" to be basically wacko mad bigots. For the first time I find myself thinking there might be something to that.

When you find that your movement excuses means like lynching ("consequences" to your opinions and your freedom of speech) and persecution as long as they help your goals, then maybe your movement has lost the plot. I'm seeing truly scary comments that would have made McCarthyists cringe. In an environment where I'd never have expected them.

View on HN

Lynching? Please. There's no legal right to be a CEO. Nobody's bringing this guy up in front of a congressional committee. He exercised his constitutional right to donate money, and everyone else exercised their constitutional right to criticize a public figure.

You'll see truly scary comments anywhere and everywhere on the Internet. If you judge every movement by its most extreme, unhinged elements, then there are exactly zero sane or wholesome movements.

It's disgusting what these people did to Brendan.

The guardians of the moral high ground and the champions of liberty and tolerance can't even stand next to someone with a different opinion about a specific subject. They are the same people that demand some guy to be fired because he made some joke on the radio, they paint themselves as happy all inclusive and kind fellas but are the worst kind of human being there is, highly educated, militant behaviour and not a single ounce of self evaluation.

How pathetic is this society when someone is persecuted because he chooses the "wrong" side, so of course he has to "pay".

Adding to the tragedy, many of these mindless souls don't have a clue who Brendan Eich is and the fundamental role he played in the last 20+ years. Ironically, many of them partly owe their careers to the man they just demanded to get fired.

Finally, this is a really dark day for Mozilla, Brendan was a HUGE part of Mozilla both in technical and cultural terms, in the next few years we will feel the consequences.

Even if he was just a regular guy, this is a tremendous injustice committed by the "always right" purest of the pure.

Wait, what? This is the fault of the "evil homosexual lobby" and "reactionary liberals?"

The guy's a bigot. (Unless he's made a statement disavowing his contribution in some way.) Being against equal rights for gay folks is being a bigot. Sorry.

If you don't want to catch shit for being a bigot when you're placed in a position of public power and trust, don't act like a bigot. Or give money to bigoted causes.

Make no mistake. What happened here is the strongest point one could have against full disclosure and transparency in the electoral system.

What we are seeing here is a person being harshly punished for his campaign donations. Basically for his political opinion (and an opinion that passed with a strong majority in California to boot).

This is enormously destructive for democracy. It's McCarthyism of the highest level. Both the fact and its staunch defence by many in the forums.

Never had the gay community been casted so intolerant before, or not that I know of, at least.

Is there a "McCarthyism" version of Godwin's law? Seems like that needs a name.

Anyway: I'm unclear why it's inappropriate to pass judgment on people based on their political speech.

Also, you're playing that trick with the word "intolerance" that people sometimes play... There's "racial and sexual intolerance," which should be weeded out. It has no place in our society. But there are all sorts of "intolerances" which are great! For example: We should be intolerant of things which drag people down and ruin lives. Disease. Scientific illiteracy. Lack of the freedom to marry whomever one wishes. Bigotry.

A campaign donation is not political speech. It's public by law. A law that now shows clear conflicts if the internet mobs are going to be after people based on them.

The ways you are defending are the textbook definition of bigotry. I agree that they shouldn't have a place in society.

Campaign donations are not a political opinion, they are political speech. You have freedom of speech in that the government cannot prohibit your speaking. You do not have a right to immunity from the consequences of your speaking.

As someone else put it once, taking a political position publicly takes a certain amount of civic courage. I am in complete disagreement with everything you say, which I consider alarmist, apologist, and simply wrong.

Never had the gay community been casted so intolerant before, or not that I know of, at least.

Why would the gay community ever be tolerant of someone who supports anti-gay legislature? I mean, come on, it seems pretty rational for LGBT supporters to be intolerant of individuals who want to prevent them from having the same legal rights as heterosexuals. It's not as if there is some reasonable excuse to oppose gay marriage, this whole thing exploded because the position is unambiguously indefensible. That doesn't mean it's the worst thing in the world, you just come off as a petty asshole when you try to prevent people from living their lives in a way that has absolutely no affect on your own life whatsoever.

That's your opinion, and that's fine. The problem starts when people start rallying active boycott on a person because his opinion is different. It's particularly delicate when it's a prop campaing donation (a prop that passed in California, by the way, so maybe it's not just a bunch of wackos).

The problem starts when people start rallying active boycott on a person because his opinion is different.

Why is that a problem? People have the right to boycott whatever they want, it's really one of the only peaceful and effective forms of dissent available to ordinary citizens. That "difference of opinion" manifested itself as a financial contribution to an anti-gay cause, what kind of reaction would you expect from those who were exclusively targeted by said law?

a prop that passed in California, by the way, so maybe it's not just a bunch of wackos

And then it was overturned by the supreme court as unconstitutional, so maybe it is "just a bunch of wackos". Either way, I don't think the fact that a law passes lends any credibility to the substance of the law. To quote the court:

DOMA’s unusual deviation from the usual tradition of recognizing and accepting state definitions of marriage here operates to deprive same-sex couples of the benefits and responsibilities that come with the federal recognition of their marriages. This is strong evidence of a law having the purpose and effect of disapproval of that class. The avowed purpose and practical effect of the law here in question are to impose a disadvantage, a separate status, and so a stigma upon all who enter into same-sex marriages made lawful by the unquestioned authority of the States.

In other words, the only practical effect of the law is to disparage and stigmatize homosexuals.

What? Just as Eich had a right to dislike homosexuals, everyone in the world has a right to dislike bigots. Unfortunately for bigots, it's a lot harder to defend that position.

Being against equal rights for gay folks is being a bigot. Sorry.

Actually, voting for Prop 8 does not in any way meet the threshold test of "bigot". To qualify as a bigot, you have to have an "unreasonable" intolerance of others perspectives. Merely taking a good faith position on the opposite side of an(y) issue does not evidence "biggotry". Just the opposite: by proposing that any opposition to your ideas is insensible, you define yourself as a bigot.

Now, step back. Every civil right in the US is codified in law. Every law was wirtten by human beings with mistakes, errors, omissions, and horse-trades. Every law put on the books in the US is at some level "impure" and "ugly".

The types of civil rights involving prop 8 are like the civil rights act of 1965, and the OSHA and Employment laws passed than creat "protected classes". That is to say, these civil rights are voted on by the public. They do not exist in the Constitution. If they did, we would not have to pass laws called "civil rights act of xxx".

The point of all this is that every law needs a debate. Every law needs to be (imperfectly) written. To have votes you need to have opposing views aired to test different options. Just like working in business. YOu cannot be an effective leader if you dis-allow all debate.

But that's what being a bigot is. That's what you are saying you are by proclaiming all people who disagree with you are unreasonable. That is not a teneble position: its logically false. The other side of the issue may be wrong, but only in very rare cases would it ever be "unreasonavle".

Propo 8 may have been wrong, but to assume that each and every single person in the majority of voters who voted it into law was "unreasonable" is absurd. Some? Perhaps, but you could never justfy the inference without specific knowledge (which in this case is not on the public record).

Mozilla's actions today will have a chilling effect on free speech. Make no doubt about it. Every piece of software you use online capable of tracking your political views is now fair game. There is no reason to treat public information as distinct from private information, if your standard is as you've laid it out.

It's so easy to put a label on someone isn't it? It makes you more comfortable when attacking him because it's the word and the concept, it's not a person any more right?

> Being against equal rights for gay folks is being a bigot.

Supporting traditional marriage does not mean opposing equal rights for gay folks. Traditional marriage permits a gay person to marry someone of the opposite sex (which makes no sense to a supporter of modern pseudomarriage).

The key thing is that traditional marriage isn't about finding temporary emotional fulfilment, while modern pseudomarriage is. Modern pseudomarriage is a convenience, a way to find some companionship and engage in sexual activity while receiving some economic benefits, not an incubator for the formation of a family and a bloodline.

That poor Mr. Eich, "lynched" by the mob. Well, not really lynched, he's still alive. But they beat him up pretty good! Oh, actually, he's fine. But his livelihood is destroyed and he'll never work in the industry again. Scratch that, apparently he has enough funds to take vacations while he decides what to do next. But hey, he doesn't get to be CEO of a big company! How terrible.

The injustice done to Mr. Eich is minor. He hasn't been killed or injured. He hasn't been blacklisted. He lost his job, in an industry where the average worker has to fight off recruiters with a stick, let alone someone like him.

Yes, there are consequences for your opinions when you become the public face of a large company, especially when that company is founded on some set of principles besides "make money". Those terrifying consequences involve not getting to be CEO anymore, and that's it. Big shock.

That's a really interesting definition of "lynching".

Hey, you can say and think whatever you want... but be careful of the "consequences". You are free... but be very afraid that we might find that you think the wrong thing.

This school of thought is being defended across tech forums. Appalling.

Are you saying we shouldn't be careful of the consequences of our words and deeds?

edit since i can't respond to myself: and here is an interesting definition of "fascism."

I'm saying that publicly rallying for the persecution of someone based on a prop donation shouldn't be encouraged or defended in any way. It's pure fascism.

Oh yea, because having to step down from a company is like going to jail, or hell, not being able to see your dying significant other because you aren't allowed to marry. Yep he was definitely persecuted.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com