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Comment by nefasti | Hacker News Reader

Being against gay marriage is not free speech, it's plain and simple hate, don't try to flip the table like that.

This faux outrage over one man's views, which were hardly extremist given they were shared by 7 million Californians in a vote, has robbed Mozilla of its co-founder. Who the hell is Hampton Catlin to call a boycott? I doubt anyone had even heard of him or his software company.

Message to Hampton Catlin and Michael Lintorn Catlin: if you want to make a brave stand for gay rights, why don't you start protesting outside a mosque or an embassy where under Islam the penalty for simply being gay is DEATH ?

[1] Goodbye, Firefox Marketplace: http://www.teamrarebit.com/blog/2014/03/24/goodbye_firefox_m...

[2] Five Reasons Eich Should Step Down: http://www.teamrarebit.com/blog/2014/03/28/five-reasons-eich...

[3] A Sad Victory: http://www.teamrarebit.com/blog/2014/04/03/a-sad-victory/

Most of the people I know who are against gay marriage (yes, I know some such people) aren't against gay people being considered married by the state. Civil unions, and most other forms of marriage ceremony, are A-OK with them.

People against gay marriage are, as far as I'm aware, really just against gay people being considered married by the (Christian) church, because--in their opinion--Christianity has a specific definition of "marriage", and gay marriage doesn't qualify.

It seems to just be a bunch of people talking past one-another. Each group sees their definition of "marriage" ("marriage" as in "legally considered together", or "marriage" as in "accepted as a couple by your local congregation") as the only one that actually matters, and so obviously that's the one their opponents are arguing about as well.

Was Prop 8 about the Christian definition of marriage? It wasn't, it was about the LEGAL government regulated institution of marriage. Marriages by the way pre-date Christianity.

It isn't two groups talking past each other, it is one group trying to get their religious values instituted as government regulations.

Letting a same sex couple get marriage by a judge, in a courthouse doesn't do anything to harm the internal religious definition of marriage... it is the government regulated one.

I am all for banning marriage as a government institution and only having civil unions. Hell don't even call them civil unions, call them flipflapadingdongs if you want, but as long as they are done by government they must be equal, playing name games is BS.

Donating and voting for prop 8, and therefore not in favor of redefining their "institution of marriage" (ignorant as that may be on their part) is not plain and simple hate, it's clear that you didn't even bother to read the blog post if you're willing to trivialize this issue like that. Even if you don't respect Brendan's beliefs, beliefs that I certainly don't respect, please stop trying to turn this into a black and white, "tolerant" vs "bigot" issue.

At some point, all sorts of horrible "opinions" where just that -- opinions. Society shifts and those opinions become unacceptable and revolting. The political landscape has shifted a lot in 6 years, and being against marriage equality is rapidly becoming akin to being a racist or sexist, based on broad public opinion.

I look at it from a practicality standpoint: abolishing the state-recognized marriage institution and just leaving religions to squabble amongst each other while moving everyone to civil partnerships for the benefits is impractical. So marriage is going to have to be redefined, whether they like it or not.

Plain and simple "hate"? Have you considered the idea that they are trying to defend what they consider a social institution as important -to them- as "property" is for you? Or "money"?

Because it may be so and not hate.

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