OKCupid CEO Apologizes for Supporting Antigay Candidate
advocate.com
advocate.com
1. Clicking on the OP will force you to watch an obnoxiously, unskippable loud ad about razors and chest-shaving.
2. Sorry, don't think supporting an antigay candidate and a specific antigay law are the same thing. If I voted for Obama because I liked his proposals on health-care, does that mean I also support his wanton drone attacks? If I voted for Mitt Romney because of his tax proposals, does that mean I support...well, his likely use of wanton drone attacks? Now, supporting a candidate specifically for that measure...such as healthcare or tax proposals, that'a s different situation.
But the kicker is this: OKCupid's CEO apologized. I guess to some, that makes him a total flip-flopping hypocrite. With Eich, we have someone who made a donation 6+ years ago and has never sought to give context to it or explain it or give further reflection to it, which means he either holds those anti-gay marriage views just as strongly today, or believes that apologies, or evolving viewpoints is a sign of weakness. Not really strong signs of confidence in a CEO, quite frankly.
(note: I don't think he gets the benefit of the doubt of, "Well, he just doesn't want the government to be in the business of regulating marriage." If that were the case, then why hasn't he simply said that, as other political candidates have done?)
To put it another way: I've worked with people who had less-than-favorable views of Asians, mostly because they had never worked/seen one in real-life (such is small town Midwest). That's OK with me. But if, after working with me, befriending me, and such, they still unapologetically held those opinions? Yeah, that's a different ballpark than simply having a disagreeable belief at some point in the past.
I didn't notice it.
> Sorry, don't think supporting an antigay candidate and a specific antigay law are the same thing.
No, but they are kinda close.
> OKCupid's CEO apologized.
That's definitely the big one. Eich should have done that, and distanced himself from the foolish ideas he held in the past.
That said, I think the call for a Firefox boycott was way over the top, and considering OKCupid's CEO's political support in the past, at least a little hypocritical.
> I don't think he gets the benefit of the doubt of, "Well, he just doesn't want the government to be in the business of regulating marriage." If that were the case, then why hasn't he simply said that, as other political candidates have done?
It's an argument that makes no sense. If he didn't want government to regulate marriage, he wouldn't support a law that regulates marriage (which is what banning gay marriage but allowing straight marriage is: government regulating marriage).
They're kinda close but kinda far as well, supporting an anti-gay candidate may be because
* you have the same views on the subject
* you are not aware of his views (but you can be criticised for lack of due diligence)
* you are aware of his views but support him for other reasons
* you are aware of his views but absolutely don't want the other guy (similar but not identical to 3, you're not supporting a specific candidate so much as supporting anyone other than a candidate)
Of these, only #1 is close to the prop8 situation.
Let's not be dense. They're not even close. It's almost impossible to vet a candidate and figure out his views on each and every position; while with a proposition like prop 8, one just has to read the title to figure out what it's all about.
I take it you didn't bother to study Gov. Romney's position versus the President's current wanton use of drones. Much it seems like your lack of looking at the views the candidate supported by OKCupid's CEO has continually stated.
OKCupid's CEO is a hypocrite who did not apologize prior to throwing stones at other. He only "apologized" under pressure.
If you like someone as a CEO because of their leadership qualities, does it also mean that you support their stance on gay rights, though?
Don't think I've seen Obama apologizing for his past stances on gay marriage. What's the difference again?
Even when Obama was "not in support of gay marriage", he condemned Prop. 8 and similar moves to enshrine prohibition of same-sex marriage in Constitutions -- whereas Brendan Eich donated money to the Prop. 8 campaign.
> So you would vote for the President of the United States when he was not in support of gay marriage, and that's OK, but if the new CEO of Mozilla holds the same stance you will?
I've seen Obama, at a minimum, change his mind very publicly, has never once advocate any change in law or policy hostile to same-sex marriage, and has used the power of his office to direct that the government first stop defending existing statutes hostile to same sex marriage, and then take other substantive steps in support of it.
Meanwhile, Eich said that his donation doesn't prove that is a bigot, but hasn't done anything to indicate that his hostile position has changed.
> What's the difference again?
The fact that their positions in 2008 weren't the same to start with, and that one of them has very publicly moved to a very much more pro same-sex marriage position since then.
IOW, there's pretty much nothing similar at all.
But that's just how I view it.
2008 was a presidential year
2008 prop 8 was on the ballot
He is on record -- in california -- supporting a definition of marriage
that excluded same-sex couples
While speaking to "special interest groups" who supported prop8
=== That is "action" with intent...it is cut and dry.
> 2008 was a presidential year
True
> 2008 prop 8 was on the ballot
True, and Obama is on record in California in 2008 specifically opposing Prop 8 and all similar attempts (Prop 8 wasn't unique) attempts to write a similar defense of marriage into state and federal (there was an active move to do that, too, then) constitutions.
> === That is "action" with intent...it is cut and dry.
Sure, action against the position Eich was for.
The very specific language he used was:
> I’ve stated my opposition to this. I think [Prop 8 is] unnecessary. I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage. But when you start playing around with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who cares about another person, it just seems to me that’s not what America’s about. Usually, our constitutions expand liberties, they don’t contract them.
So:
* he was not personally in favour of gay marriage at the time[0]
* but he was most definitely and unambiguously against constitutionally forbidding it (and enshrining his personal beliefs in constitution), and did call then discriminatory
* as opposed to Eich who was most definitely and unambiguously for constitutionally forbidding it
Not only that, but even at the time Obama was
> “open to the possibility” that his views may be “misguided“
> So he was not in any way neutral on this issue. It is impossible to argue.
That's pretty much the only correct thing in your comment.
[0] and has since reversed his position
This is a correlation/causation fallacy.
But from a cultural perspective, these things do not line up nicely. Do you really believe 7/10 black people are incorrigible bigots? Or is it more likely that they are dis-proportionately orthodox in their view on "word X"? Interestingly, some work Nate Silver did in 2008/2009 on opinions in this area is enlightening. Somthing like 70-80 percent of CA citizens supported the "human rights" element of the argument. But there were something like 10+/-15 percent of people who supported the "other side" because of the parsing of words. Its unlikely, as a result, anyone can conclude much about the personal views and tolerance from votes on these types of laws.
Governor Swartzeneger actually vetoed CA legislation because he felt it was in conflict with the Constitution of CA. {etc}. So this stuff can go on and on, from both sides.
In September 2005, the California legislature passed a bill, A.B. 849, eliminating the gender requirements for marriage now found in Family Code section 300. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill. In his veto message,[14] Schwarzenegger argued that passing a law that would implicitly repeal Section 308.5 required the assent of the electorate (and separately made note of pending court challenges).
There is also a nate silver piece illustrating that Obama's campaign did increase the size of the Prop 8 support in CA. Although while the black support was critical to securing the majority, its not clear Obama's marginal increase in black voter turn-out was 100% of the pivotal votes. But surely this still makes him more culpable on the issue than Eich.
NOt withsatnding that any of this matters, anyways. The laws exist as they do today so this is all an absurd discussion. And better reason to use discretion and tolerance in looking back on these matters rather than preaching intolerance and black and white moral clarity and etc.
________________
[1] And by this I means explicitly supporting "exclusionary" definitions of marriage.
I am not arguing that he was neutral, I am arguing -- as is manifestly and unquestionably the case -- that he was on the opposite side of Eich. He specifically condemned Prop 8 and similar measures.
The fact that that opposition was in spite of the fact that he very publicly stated that he shared some of the moral beliefs that others claimed made support of Prop 8 necessary, if anything, underlines his opposition, rather than mitigates it, as his position was that Prop 8 (and similar measures to enshrine a man-woman definition of marriage in Constitutions) were wrong in the then-current environment even given the moral belief that marriage ought to be between a man and a woman.
Well then your whole case would fall down if you'd ever had one (rather than a gish gallop) since Obama had anti-equality words (retracted since) and pro-equality actions.
I don't know if he formally apologised, but he talked about his own change of heart and he did things and directed his administration towards gay marriage[0]. And even before his final shift, Obama definitely presented supportive stances towards LGBT groups.
And AFAIK he never went and gave money to actively remove LGBT civil rights.
> What's the difference again?
Er… one changed his mind and stance, the other not?
[0] his case is significantly complicated by his support for gay marriage during his original 1996 Illinois Senate run, moving to indecision in 1998, support for civil unions in 2004 (senate) and 2008 (presidential) before snapping back rapidly to support — as early as 2008 he called for the repeal of DOMA, voted against the federal marriage amendment and publicly opposed Prop 8, giving support to "fully equal rights and benefits to same-sex couples under both state and federal law."
70% of blacks people voted for prop 8
This is why it is illegal to litmus test political beliefs under california employment law.
So, somebody has to pick their poison on this.
Its not an easy issue...
And having a CEO that panders to the public opinion is better ... how?
Left hand: Complains that CEOs/politicians don't listen and are out of touch Right hand: Complains that CEOs are pandering
...what?
A specific anti-gay law that stripped existing rights from people, at that. Yeah, it's very different.
But I wouldn't hurry to pile on Hitler before I know if he apologized. What if he had apologized? That really changes things.
To your point - there's also a difference between supporting an issue, versus a candidate.
Here we have two people who have both performed actions which are both indirectly anti-gay. But one is let go due to an apology, and the other wasn't due to no apology.
Apologizing is like a mark-and-sweep garbage collection approach to our past perceived sins.
Accountability (and reference counting) is boring and takes a lot of resources.
So we should just apologize.
BTW, I apologize for everything.
I also sincerely apologize for this post. Forgive me.
I was waiting for Eich to respond to the firestorm with some clarification or a public statement; he did neither other than resigning. That, to me, speaks volumes: he'd rather give up his CEO position than his anti-gay position. So it is best that he resigned and left.
That's a pretty big assumption. You don't know that at all, and you also have no idea what sort of pressure he might have faced from Mozilla's board.
I'm sure that a certain % of individuals who voted for it also supported the institution of civil unions - that would entitle gays to same rights as married couple. But these people care about the name/institution of 'marriage' maintaining its original (m+w) definition.
Therefore I personally would not rush to call support of prop 8 'anti-gay'.
Seriously.
How is supporting someone with views like that, who would then be in a position to change legislation (or not) to support his views better than supporting Prop 8?
Also, if it's not let go due to an apology, why are you giving a reason for letting it go that was straight from the guy's apology?
Seriously.
The guy is a sleaze-bag, who chose to attack an open source browser (with an important role for the future of the internet, and the work of thousands) through his business for the benefit of getting positive PR for his business.
I wonder if Brendan Eich had this mentality, how he'd spin it. "Oh, I apologize, I thought Prop 8 was about supporting the gays, damn. I didn't do my research!".
But he doesn't have this mentality. So he instead chose to abandon the work of his life in order to preserve it, a rather painful action, as his spin-skills and spin-will were insufficient.
It basically means that those of us who are willing to...
1) Attack others for their political actions for PR reasons.
2) Engage in the same type of political actions.
3) Lie they were ignorant about it.
4) Say "sorry" without feeling any guilt.
... have a huge edge on those honest people who just say things as they are, without spinning things.
Damn, no wonder sociopaths are ruling the world, huh?
Donating to a candidate that isn't a single-issue candidate, even one opposed to same-sex marriage, is not the "same type of political action", relative to same-sex marriage or gay rights more generally, as donating to a campaign that is solely about enshrining prohibition of same-sex marriage into a state constitution.
It might be a similar act if it is motivated by the candidates anti-gay or anti-same-sex-marriage views, but in and of itself it isn't the same type of action.
They are all scum. None are fit to have jobs anywhere. It would be better for those who have been leaders of companies, leading them to prosperity, to burn than let them stay - fire them all, everyone. Yes, you too.
Not just Christianity but Judaism or Islam which are even more explicitly anti-gay - logically anyone who is a Jew or Muslim should be targeted next by the social justice witch hunt.
Edit: Many downvotes! Self righteous hypocrites rejoice! You enable anti-gay hate. You disgust me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Community_Church
And i've not been keeping a list or anything, but plenty of churches in my part of the world have rainbow flag stickers on their signs/noticeboards.
I went to watch the local Pride parade a few years ago and was bored by the number of churches marching in the parade. (It's great that you're actively showing your support, but at least put some effort in to do something fun during the parade. Sheesh!)
Homosexual acts are an abomination to God. 18:22 If a man has sex with another man, kill them both. 20:13
Something about wanting their cake and eating it too.
Beside this, my point is that even if people join this church, they have undoubtedly donated money to an anti-gay church in the past, which makes them forever unworthy apparently.
And no, while I've given money to a church, it is not anti-gay, thankyouverymuch.
Additionally, translation difficulties make a lot of sexual concepts tricky to relate to contemporary cultural English (since our modern conceptualization of sex is thankfully quite a bit different from the ancient world).
And anyway this is all moot, because unless you subscribe to Replacement theology (which I'm not familiar with, so do not have an opinion on), very few Christians are part of Israel.
EDIT: Scratch that last paragraph: now that I think about it, Peter's vision in Acts 10 rendered dietary uncleanness and circumcision---part of the Law---null and void even though he was a Jew and so part of Israel. So maybe even Jewish Christians aren't under the Law? I'm not sure, TBH.
As far as I know, homosexuality is mentioned a grand total of 3 times in the entire bible, some of those were arguably a lot more specific than homosexuality in general (like temple prostitution or rape), and none of them from the mouth of Jesus Christ himself.
Compare this to the number of times Jesus himself insists on loving everybody (neighbour, enemy), or argues against wealth.
Don't just cherry pick a few verses from some dark corners, read the entire thing, and understand its context, understand what the core message is. Really, if you listen to some people, you'd think that the bible is all about Genesis 1 and Leviticus, and anything later is pretty much irrelevant (except maybe the Revelations of John).
You're not looking very hard. Churches vary a lot, especially once you start looking outside arch-conservative US. There are churches that have gay vicars. Lots of churches have not had any anti-gay activity. The WBC is not exactly average.
I'm not claiming that nobody in my church is anti-gay. I know of another orthodox reformed church in Amsterdam where some people have objected to a lesbian couple's participation in some sacraments. I don't doubt that in more rural areas, that attitude is more common. But it's not remotely universal.
But I wouldn't even count the more liberal church of the late famous Dutch gay TV presenter and vicar Jos Brink as a "hippy church".
For what it's worth, i'm from Canada.
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/gay/long.htm
Anyone who thinks this book is golden is anti-gay no matter how they spin their politics.
I have yet to find someone like you who who at some point does not admit they are anti-gay. They say they are not, and then you find out they are due to holding two contradictory views at once. Even then you've never given money to any church than ones you know for a fact are 100% not anti-gay, have no one in power who is not anti-gay? That is the parallel.
First... the so called "Old Testament" or Old Covenant (animals being cut in half and god passing through them in a rather creepy passage) was made obsolete by the "New Testament" or New Covenant (i.e. Jesus dying, granting forgiveness to all believers so they could join him in the afterlife). That means all the old prohibitions, from men-laying-with-men to shellfish to mixed fabrics are no longer necessarily valid. "Man was not created for the Law; the Law was created for Man," as Jesus told a Pharisee or Sadducee or one of the other old Jews he upset badly.
Next, looking to the New Testament, you'll find that Jesus never speaks about homosexuality; it's just Paul in his letters to the churches. Paul calls himself a disciple of Jesus and says that he doesn't mean to extend or conflict with Jesus' teachings. A contextual reading of his target audience when he condemns homosexuality (which isn't the word he uses, since that word/concept didn't quite exist yet) shows that he was critiquing the Greek church's practice of pederasty, aka "Platonic love." The reason for Paul's disdain of the practice was that elders were taking advantage of young boys for their own sexual gratification. I don't think there is widespread support for pederasty (or other, more hetero-normative but still frowned upon forms of ephebophilia), but I may be wrong on that count.
In short, not all Christians believe fervently the beliefs you're prescribing to them. Please don't straw man an entire faith because of your own misunderstanding of the beliefs of some.
/not a Christian but raised by them
No, Jesus said himself that all of the old laws still hold true.
http://www.evilbible.com/do_not_ignore_ot.htm
>Please don't straw man an entire faith because of your own misunderstanding of the beliefs of some.
It's hard to read their holy book which they claim is the word of god and not judge them as awful people.
Again my point is that no one knows what money they give or spend is used to fuel anti-gay agenda, and so everyone is unfit. This is where the witch hunt will go.
I'm your hard pressed example that has never given money to a church.
I also support true equality: the complete removal of any government involvement in marriage. All consenting adults should be able to get married without any government permission or regulation. No future group of persons should have to ask the government for permission to exercise the rights that do not belong to the government to begin with. If the government believes it gives you such rights, some future politician will find it all too easy to believe they have a right to revoke them.
> has never given money to a church.
I am doubtful, because even if you managed to never go to any church and never give a cent at any age, you can still give money to churches through institutions which seem secular. The Salvation Army is anti-gay and collects money every year from most popular store fronts. Never given them a cent? Never purchased Purina brand dog food? Never paid for anything related to Exxon? You can't know what money you give to someone or pay for something which which ultimately doesn't fuel anti-gay agenda. That's my point.
No, I've never purchased anything Purina. No, I've never given money to the Salvation Army (not that I agree with your claims, I've never researched their supposed anti-gay position). You might have to dig down to where I buy my shoe laces.
Your position proclaims that if all things apply, then nothing applies (that is your point, right? that everyone is guilty, and thus anyone pointing fingers are just hypocrites). In reality, all actions and beliefs are not created equal. Even in a world of glass houses, some stones are dramatically more destructive than others when thrown.
A very large portion of morality is based on intent + knowledge / awareness. Someone that buys shoe laces from an anti-gay business, while not knowing that fact, is not morally guilty of supporting the anti-gay movement, even if they are financially guilty.
>Your position proclaims that if all things apply, then nothing applies
I'm saying that if it's enough to fired someone over donating to a bill that is anti-gay then it's enough to fire someone for donating over and over and over again to a church which fuels constant anti-gay agenda. Not just Christianity but Judaism or Islam which are even more explicitly anti-gay - logically anyone who is a Jew or Muslim should be targeted next by the social justice witch hunt.
If you buy Purina, you're paying for dog food. If you donate money to a proposition that opposes gay marriage, you are paying for a proposition that opposes gay marriage.
I intentionally avoid Chik-fil-a, The Salvation Army, etc. by choice. However, if someone was pro-LGBT and still chose to eat Chik-fil-a, I don't really care. The only time it would be comparable would be the people who intentionally started eating Chik-fil-a as a show of opposition to the people who were boycotting it.