[elishah]

I disagree. Vehemently.

It seems disingenuous to sweep "actively working to deny people civil rights" under the rug of "having an unpopular political opinion."

Partially because this wasn't just a matter of having an opinion; this was an extremely concrete _action._ Even if you want to take the (dubious) stance that people should not be held responsible for their beliefs, surely we should still hold people responsible for their actions?

[d_theorist]

I invite you to imagine the equivalent but reversed scenario. What if Brendan Eich had been contributing money to the pro-gay-marriage campaign and had been forced out by right-wing staff at Mozilla? Would that have been appropriate?

[elishah]

Nope! But that's because extending civil rights more uniformly to more people is a good thing, and selectively denying civil rights is a bad thing.

Any reductive moral framework that abstracts every possible political position into interchangeable spherical cows in a vacuum does a disservice to its users.

[d_theorist]

You think that gay marriage is a good thing, but many people do not.

The two scenarios are precisely symmetrical. The only difference is that the cause on one side is one that you agree with, and on the other side is one that you disagree with.

You cannot decide moral questions by couching them in terms of “rights” and assuming that whichever side “advances rights” must be the correct side. Why? Because you can do that arbitrarily either way and for anything. e.g. “admitting gay marriage denies people the right to live in a society where traditional marriage is protected”.

Now what do you do? Both sides can say their cause is “advancing rights”.

[elishah]

> The two scenarios are precisely symmetrical. The only difference is that the cause on one side is one that you agree with, and on the other side is one that you disagree with.

Yep! That's pretty much what agreeing or disagreeing with something means.

But the reasoning you seem to be proposing is "here is something you agree with and something you disagree with, therefore those two things are interchangeable and you should not favor one over the other."

> Now what do you do? Both sides can say their cause is “advancing rights”.

I exercise human discretion and decide which of those rights is better, more valuable, more important.

In this case, that's not a tough call. Marriage provides a bunch of very concrete mechanical effects, from inheritance to medical decision making to finances to immigration. Whereas some people feeling happy about the fact that some other people can't access those rights is, at best, abstract and intangible.

And you'll also note that some of my previous references were to the uniformity of rights. Generally speaking, making rights more uniformly accessible to all people is better than having rights be selectively, arbitrarily limited to some people.

[d_theorist]

>> The two scenarios are precisely symmetrical. The only difference is that the cause on one side is one that you agree with, and on the other side is one that you disagree with.

>Yep! That's pretty much what agreeing or disagreeing with something means.

Not to me. The difference between us is that I am perfectly happy to work with people who do not share my political viewpoints.

[elishah]

Whereas I feel that Desmond Tutu covered this pretty well already: "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor."