[MrZongle2]

Would we have the same controversy if Brendan voted Tea Party (but only privately)? If he were against abortion? If he didn't believe NASA needed a bigger budget (or that it did, if you lean the other way)?

Yes. Yes. Yes.

This is America in 2014. If somebody holds a politically incorrect position, they must be destroyed: their employer must be named, shamed, and pressured to fire that person. If that person runs a company, that company must be destroyed: it must be boycotted, attacked with FUD, and besmirched.

It's not right, but that's apparently what our culture has descended to.

Am I wrong? Many of the responses here on HN and elsewhere online about this topic over the last 24 hours indicate that I am not.

[azinman2]

You are wrong.

There's personal beliefs and then there's giving financial support to crush someone else's. That puts things on a different scale. Abortion in the examples would probably be the closest, but the most 'understandable' part of that is at least it involves termination of life, which is by itself controversial. Prop 8 was about materially preventing families from officially forming. That puts it in a different league of just hatred/bigotry.

A CEO IS the public face of an organization. And that organization, Mozilla, is one whose principal aim is to create an open and transparent substrate for the exchange of ideas and services. That is at odds with his own past actions.

The products and services a company creates is reflective of the people inside of it. His actions have made it difficult for LGBT members to join his organization (and possibly anyone else who is sensitive to such issues). This is ESPECIALLY true for anyone who will routinely be interacting with him. The lack of minorities in tech is already a big problem, and reducing that likelihood at one of the few principal stalwarts of the Internet is a missed opportunity.

[scott_karana]

> There's personal beliefs and then there's giving financial support to crush someone else's.

So is the alternative to hold a personal belief, and not ever do anything about it? (Not that I support this particular example.)

Sometimes vital personal beliefs are in conflict, and to do nothing could be dangerous.

Freedom of speech vs freedom of religion conflicts, such as are seen in parts of Europe, are a great example: neither side has been able to reconcile without "crushing" part of the other side's view. And yet both views are obviously important, with a lot of validity.

[thescribe]

You know what we call someone who has personal beliefs but doesn't act on them? Hypocritical.

[azinman2]

Pretty sure that's not the definition.

[mindcrime]

t's not right, but that's apparently what our culture has descended to.

I hope my startup one day becomes successful enough that I have to care about people calling me out in public for my political beliefs.

I'd love for the mob of whiney hipster-wannabe pseudo-leftist statist-hypocrite-idiots to try and "shame" me for saying that government is damage that should be routed around, and for saying that taxation is theft.

Am I wrong? Many of the responses here on HN and elsewhere online about this topic over the last 24 hours indicate that I am not.

Yes and no. I think you're more right than wrong, but it is important for all of us to be aware of the ways in which we create echo chambers around our own positions. "Online" encompasses a LOT of different kinds of thinking, but most of us (I believe) spend most of our online time in communities, and on sites, which are mostly populated with people who share a lot of our own beliefs. And we tend to assume that "The Internet" agrees with us, even when somebody with diametrically opposing views may feel exactly the same way.

IOW, don't mistake the "HN majority" or the "/r/politics majority" or the "/b/ majority", etc., as being representative of the real world.

[macu]

Sounds right to me. For a nation with the rights of the individual as a core value, all this "insisting on ideological uniformity" [1] should sound the alarm that perhaps our cultural movements are trending off track. I find it disturbing that some of the most hysterical and demanding responses to the presence of "the other" are actually coming from within the gay community.

[1]: https://brendaneich.com/2012/04/community-and-diversity/