The Excuses for Purging Brendan Eich Are the Old Excuses for Firing Gays

Prop 8 was a constitutional amendment that removed civil rights from a historically oppressed group. That it has been since overturned is largely to the credit of the activists who opposed it before, during, and after it passed.

I can understand this position as well. However, it seems dangerous for us to have a society where we have to be constantly be "saying the right things" or punitive actions are to be taken against us. This does not sound like a free society. Granted, as CEO of Mozilla, he is not in the same position as a typical private citizen, but the principles should still apply. "In radical opposition to some of the most important cultural aims" could just as well be rewritten as "Having political views we don't like."

There is pressure to not have beliefs and practice that are harmful to others. You are free to believe and say whatever you like, but if what you believe and say is "black and white people should not intermarry" or "muslims should be rounded up into internment camps" you are going to face heavy consequences. If you feel you must walk on eggshells because of your views on gay marriage, you may be out of sync with social norms, just as segregationists were in the 60s and proponents of criminalization of homosexuality are today.

"Political views we don't like" - political "views" in the form of many dollars that were intended to and successfully deprived a group of a civil right, and "we" in the form of a vocal, nonviolent nonmajority speaking out online. If you think that doesn't sound like a free society, I think you may not very familiar with what actual non-free societies look like.

Second, you deny that there is anything incomplete about your framework, and then you pull in hate speech - which 1) it was by no means clear that you had intended to include (adding "unless hate speech" seems to me a materially different position than without it, and real people probably hold both versions), and 2) it is not entirely clear that Prop 8 shouldn't be considered an example of hate speech (though context being what it was, it is entirely clear that we shouldn't be prosecuting people retroactively for it).

"There is no societal problem with propositions which are constitutionally untenable."

There is no inherent societal problem by virtue of a proposition being constitutionally untenable. Many constitutionally untenable actions entail a tremendous societal problem, though - consider the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII. Many would consider temporarily depriving a class of people of rights they'd previously been afforded "a societal problem". In many cases, I think they're clearly correct. Here, I think they're correct but somewhat less clearly (partly due to proximity).

'No, there was a problem with your straw man. Remove that, and you'll find that your position reduces to, "Society should not tolerate speech from people who are wrong." The problem is how such a thing would be adjudicated.

There's a problem with your framework. You don't see the solution because your position is effectively against free speech. You are only for speech you personally label as "tolerant." In a truly free society, one must be free to be wrong. That's the only way it can work.'

First, it should be clearly noted that no one is calling for criminal penalties. These things are adjudicated by individuals deciding who they are and are not comfortable dealing with.

Second, I didn't propose a framework. You'd made an assertion, and I was trying to get at the lines you were drawing around that assertion.

Third, in a free society, you deal with the consequences of your actions - including speech. It's worth noting that this is why capabilities for anonymous speech are so important. There are some consequences we should clearly be going out of our way to preclude; governmental retribution is antithetical to free speech, violence needs to be prevented, &c. But "I said something people don't like, therefore they don't like me as much, therefore they prefer to do business with someone else" is an entirely unavoidable consequence of a free society - the alternative is to force people to do business they don't want to do.

Finally, again, there was no straw-man, and granting that introducing the notion of hate speech solves the issue (of which I'm skeptical) there was a flaw in the framework you'd laid out: the lack of mention of hate speech as an exception.

Your definition of "civil" and mine are not the same. I find it intensely uncivil to try to strip marriage rights from multiple friends of mine. I do not find it uncivil to say "this dude's a jerk and I won't give him money"--as I said in a cousin post, I don't go to my corner store because the owner's a jerk, this is not materially different to me.

> As the OP suggests, this sounds suspiciously like the viewpoint used to justify driving gays, blacks, etc. out of society. "Oh, I'm just exercising my freedom of association." It didn't justify those people — why are you so sure it justifies you?

You can't choose to be Not Black. You can't choose to be Not Gender Dysphoric. You can choose to be Not Bigot. The line of demarcation is super, super obvious from where I stand.

> You're punishing him for his viewpoint, not stopping him from "hurting people you love," which he wasn't doing.

Have you looked at his donation records? He has a pattern of backing politicians who are notable in their "culture war" self-presentation, who make a point of speaking about how terrible homosexuals are. Pat Buchanan. Thomas McClintock. Linda Smith. Proposition 8. (He didn't even live in Smith's state, let alone her district, when he chose to give her money. That speaks loudly to me.)

Donating money to anti-gay causes and anti-gay politicians is very much, by my lights, an action. Many of them. And don't mistake me: they're actions he is completely within his rights to take! But the same thing that gives him the right to do that frees me from the obligation to enrich him by using the product of the organization he leads. And I do not choose to undertake that obligation for him.

Second: Is he being harassed at home? Is he getting swatted? Are people throwing rocks through his windows? Then those people should be arrested, because that's a crime. But quitting your job because you can't deal with people who are pissed off over your desire to hurt people is not something I will shed tears over.

This is no different from refusing to patronize the corner store near me because the owner's a jerk. Neither he nor Eich are entitled to my business.