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by lohankin 3560 days ago
Consider hypothetical situation: suddenly "Brave" browser (referred to below) becomes popular. Will you renew your personal vendetta against Brendan Eich? Because the reasons you cited still apply.
1 comments

I will never use Brave, no matter how popular it becomes.

But yes, I have considered the opposite situation. And indeed, it's happened. It has only been 2-3 years since a majority of Americans have supported gay rights. It used to be that people would boycott over anything remotely supporting them. Most sponsors pulled out after Ellen Degeneres announced she was gay.

The thing with free speech is that it always works both ways. If you truly care about it, you always have to defend those that are indefensible. Yet in this case, supporters of Eich seem to think what he said was okay, but what his protestors said was not.

The people who protested had every bit as much of a right to their speech as Eich did to his. I believe Proposition 8 was a failure of government: that the rights of the minority should never be subjected to popular vote (tyranny of the majority.) But Eich was perfectly within his right to spend his money to say something truly abhorrent. And since freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences, so too did the people using Mozilla have a right to voice their displeasure.