[f154hfds]

The statement gave two reasons I can see for moving the venue, both were related to recent law changes in Florida:

> Florida no longer represents the safe and family-friendly destination we envisioned when we first selected the location.

> we feel a strong moral and ethical obligation to ensure that the location of GopherCon aligns with the values of our community.

The latter justification leads me to ask: how do we ascertain what our community values are? Why do these particular values weigh more than others?

[orwin]

I think "protect the weak, engage/debate the strong" is worth way more than the reverse, for no reason, it is just an moral intuition.

Another way of thinking this is utilitarian: non-queer people will not be target of violence by armed (or even unarmed drunk) people in Nevada or California, while the LGBTQ community is at a greater risk of being the target of violence in TX or FL. So having the local governement pushing the "don't say gay" bill, and announcing it that strongly (only heard of it because of the Disney debacle) to me can only be a kind of "virtue signalling", the kind of virtue being: all against LGBTQ+ people.

[edit: forgot conclusion] thus for utilitatian purpose, it is better to have the convention in state where violences against marginalized communities present in tech are the lowest, or at least don't seems state-sanctioned.

[f154hfds]

> I think "protect the weak, engage/debate the strong" is worth way more than the reverse, for no reason, it is just an moral intuition.

Totally agree. Though you didn't answer my question, how do we figure out what our _community_ values are? Those are individual values. For example, I would say that a 16w fetus is weaker than the woman who carries it whereas you might say the 16w fetus's rights aren't important because it is unborn. How do we tell as a community which of these contradictory views wins out for the purposes of... location for a tech conference?

I agree that weakness usually poses a risk to rights. In theory the weakness of a community is irrelevant to their rights, their rights should be protected regardless, but I see your point. The problem is that the Florida bill is about elementary education restrictions on sex education, it isn't "against" LGBTQ people and can't be because they aren't referenced explicitly or implicitly in the bill [1].

[1] https://www.npr.org/2022/03/28/1089221657/dont-say-gay-flori...

[orwin]

> The problem is that the Florida bill is about elementary education restrictions on sex education, it isn't "against" LGBTQ people

Exactly, this is the issue! Like the indentured workers laws weren't against black people in theory because they weren't referenced implicitly in the bill. Still, 90% of indentured servant were black, and was seen by the ex-slaveowners (or any person with power in the South) as a permission to push black workers into "crimes" (like vagrancy and other dangerous crimes like not having a job or saying a profanity).

RAW doesn't really matter, not in the US at least, especially this kind of law which won't have any impact except maybe on school library (and that's an issue we can discuss this if you want, but if it bans the "guide to sexual zizi", which helped A LOT of shy preteens, including me, it should just die imo, especially when porn today is that much easier to access). The only thing this law does seems to be virtue-signalling "we don't like gays here, like you, people who vote for us".

This is how people outside the US understand this law. I mean, i've talked less than a week ago to an hungarian (i was in portugal, weird settings and all) who told us he wanted his president to pass the same "anti-gay in school law" to prevent children from "turning gay". So its not only opponents of this law that saw it this way, it is how it has been pitched to everyone.

What that law actually say is irrelevent here, don't you agree? It's how the average citizen perceive the law that matter, and if anti-LGBTQ people (mis)understand this law as a pass from the local government to beat up gays, it makes the state more dangerous. So to avoid for conferences.

So we basically agree

[f154hfds]

The law in question is about restrictions around sex education. If I understand what you're saying, restricting these curricula leads to discrimination against LGBTQ people. This implies that LGBTQ people have some disproportionate need to talk about sexuality with young children which isn't a good look from my perspective.

> What that law actually say is irrelevent here, don't you agree?

No, I think the opposite is true. Just because a group of activists make up a slogan for a piece of legislation doesn't change what that legislation is, and the wording of the legislation is indeed the actual power behind the law. Any violence or discrimination that stems from any law is abhorrent and unconstitutional.

> if anti-LGBTQ people (mis)understand this law as a pass from the local government to beat up gays, it makes the state more dangerous. So to avoid for conferences.

Agreed, and if it indeed is dangerous culturally that is a much deeper problem than legislation and won't be fixed by legislation (all of that is already illegal).

[mcphage]

> The latter justification leads me to ask: how do we ascertain what our community values are?

Well, talk to your community and find out. Ask them what matters to them, what they think is important, how they want the world to change.