[zwdr]

The complex part is that a lot of people have a lot of different opinions on it. Now I don't know most of them, because I have no personal interest in it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_marriage has a few...), but dismissing every argument made against same-sex-marriage in one broad swipe is refusing to take every other point of view into consideration.

[zimpenfish]

People have lots of different opinions on things but government hasn't ground to a halt (except when yours does but I don't think that's policy paralysis.)

Saying "there's many sides to the story" is a lame excuse that people (especially politicians) use to avoid making decisions.

[zwdr]

>Saying "there's many sides to the story" is a lame excuse that people (especially politicians) use to avoid making decisions.

That might be true, but it's also true that making decisions based on a strongly opinionated argument led to literal witch hunts. With burning and everything involved. (And OS-flamewars, these are even worse). I guess the best option is to find a healthy balance between choosing a side and considering conflicting points of view.

In this case, I think there are some angles of view that might be contra-marriage but not hateful. That's all I wanted to say– I don't think Eich is a bigot, his reason might be different than the one that a a lot of people placed in his mouth.

[zimpenfish]

I agree with you there - in that I don't think he's a bigot in the general sense of the word - he's misguided (IMHO, natch) in voting for Prop 8 but probably not actually homophobic (he might be - it's not possible to tell from this single action.)

But if you're going to be the CEO of a very public organisation, things like this (or, say, shooting an elephant, hiring hula girls for trade show, using racial epithets, whatever) will bite you badly in the ass and you really need a good narrative beyond "the lurkers[1] support me".

[1] Indonesians