[briantakita]

> There are two sides to this story, and you seem to be very eager to tell the one and handwave the other for a "why can't we all just get along" platitude.

We should treat people with respect. Not create a sensationalist backlash. Not punish people for having their opinions & being politically active on a gray area.

Most of all, a rational discourse should take place. Not these sensationalist headlines that are designed to manipulate people's unnuanced emotions.

[Karunamon]

I'd say a fundamental portion of respect is not encoding your personal beliefs of other people's personal lives into law.

If you want to make the purely numeric argument, Eich's behavior impacted a hell of a lot more people than the backlash did.

[briantakita]

> Eich's behavior impacted a hell of a lot more people than the backlash did

The backlash affects everybody. It creates a hostile environment where your opinion can cost you your job. That coupled with ever growing levels of transparency means everybody needs to have a politically correct opinion or face consequences.

The ends do not justify the means.

Also, what does firing Eich achieve for the gay rights movement? Nothing. This is revenge politics. This is the dark side.

As Ghandi said: "An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind".

[Karunamon]

>It creates a hostile environment where your opinion can cost you your job.

It would probably already cost you your job to publicly declare (let alone financially support) similar non-equality views of both blacks and women. Why is this so much worse?

Oh no, one more particular flavor of bigotry becomes socially unacceptable. However will I cope. </sarcasm>

>Also, what does firing Eich achieve for the gay rights movement?

An object lession that being bigoted against LGBTs is just as unacceptable and repugnant as being bigoted against blacks or women. Regardless of your position in life. A double standard that I, for one, am glad we are reversing.

[anonbanker]

I'd say the lesson is that, Despite evidence of overwhelming hypocricy amongst one of the biggest and most vocal supporters, LGBTQ's in the valley will form a mob and start boycotts that prove to be just as damaging and counter-productive as anything the conservatives and white power idiots can do.

Another lesson is that if I started a company in the Silicon Valley, released a combination AIDS/Cancer vaccine for free, and used the South Park Redefinition of "Faggot" (referring to insensitive harley motorcycle riders), I would destroy my company and people would boycott the cure for AIDS and Cancer.

Another lesson is that Silicon Valley is just as socially intolerant as Utah, but like most geographically-distinct cases of bigotry, the "lower class" is different. in Mississippi, it's African American crack users. in SV's case, it's anyone not 100% in-step with GLAAD. one is no better than the other.

(disclosure: I'm an lgBtq that thinks that marriage should not be a government institution. if you want tax breaks, incorporate.)

[briantakita]

Eich said he supported equality. He supported taking care of domestic partners. If you have issue with his "support" then have a respectful dialog. If he is wrong, then that will become obvious. Instead, the movement acted like a bully & does not have the moral high ground anymore.

You are conflating the state not recognizing gay marriage with a human rights issue. Not everyone agrees. Besides, the notion of marriage enforces the status quo of monogamy. I think Polyamory should also be recognized with equal benefits. Or better yet, all people should receive the benefits of a married person.

While I agree that there are equality issues with banning gay marriage, I don't think it's a human rights issue. For example, I'm single. Is it a human rights issue that I don't receive the tax benefits of being married? It's unfair, but I wouldn't say my human rights are being violated.

Support for Prop 8 doesn't necessarily mean that person is a bigot. This labeling is irrational & meant to stir up hatred. There are different reasons to support Prop 8. It's a cultural battle. However, ostracizing is a type of bullying. That behavior is wrong & needs to be called out.

I hope we can be respectful toward each other. It was not that long ago where gay rights activists were in the minority and treated with disrespect. We have an opportunity to have a more tolerant society. Let's not miss this opportunity.

[eropple]

> Eich said he supported equality

He gave money to Prop 8, Pat Buchanan, Thomas McClintock, and Linda Smith. His actions make me not believe what he says.

If you want to support equality, you don't give money to people who make "homosexuals are subhuman" a part of their political worldview.

[Karunamon]

>Eich said he supported equality.

His actions show otherwise.

I've said this before here, but I have much less problem with the (small) donation (to a failed cause) than I do his subsequent behavior.

His subsequent hypocrisy proves beyond any reasonable doubt that those views are still very personal and very real to him, regardless of what comes out of his mouth.

One does not abdicate a CEO position, something of great prestige, power, and compensation, on a lark. He was asked, multiple times by multiple people what his true thoughts were and declined to elaborate. He could have just (heartfeltly) apologized. He could have just thrown another $1000 at GLAAD/HRC/etc.

>You are conflating the state not recognizing gay marriage with a human rights issue. Not everyone agrees.

The same could be said of women's suffrage or the equlaity of blacks. The fact that it's a state issue does not preclude it being a human rights issue.

I have skin in this game. I see the behavior of people like Eich as a personal affront to me and people close to me. A proclamation that people like me should remain second class citizens because of some outmoded religious belief.

> However, ostracizing supports makes the ostracizers act like bullies.

Again, how is this any different from publicly announcing your support of some other anti-equality group? How well do you think a CEO would do if it came out that they were donators to Stormfront? I keep hearing this "bullies" line but it doesn't add up.

[Xdes]

>I see the behavior of people like Eich as a personal affront to me and people close to me.

Yet you aren't going to get fired for having expressed those views five years ago. How would you feel if your boss decided to fire you over your personal beliefs, overlooking your professional merits? Do you really want McCarthyism again?

[briantakita]

> His actions show otherwise.

Those who know him say he treated everybody equally. He set policy & a supported a system in Mozilla that promoted equality. His heart is in a decent place. We all have moral blind spots. He has his past. We all need to grow in some areas.

Painting Eich as some "extremist" is disingenuous.

> How well do you think a CEO would do if it came out that they were donators to Stormfront?

Prop 8 had 52% of the vote. It is a mainstream opinion. Stormfront is a fringe group. Eich does not seem to belong to any other extreme group. He just supported a Proposition.

Numbers does not mean morality, however it does indicate that someone is relatively in line with the rest of the population.

I struggle with this because there are things that most people are ok with that suppress rights of those who don't have a voice right now.

Whenever I bring up those issue, I face the risk of ostricization. That is why I oppose ostracizing Eich. That behavior opposes equality & tolerance. It make it "ok" to be kneejerk judgmental.

If there's one thing that we learned from gay rights, black rights, & woman rights, it's we need to be more tolerant as a society. We need to treat everybody with respect.

> He was asked, multiple times by multiple people what his true thoughts were and declined to elaborate.

Over a period of a few days? He did apologize for hurting people.

He obviously felt strongly about this issue. It's coercive to make him change his mind from social pressure. Actually, it probably meant he would have to lie. He chose to not talk about it, as it would have cause more emotional distress. Given his position, he acted in a respectful manner.

> I have skin in this game.

We all do brother or sister :-)

> I see the behavior of people like Eich as a personal affront to me and people close to me

I see public shaming and bullying as a personal affront to me. I've been unfairly bullied online (and offline). The problem with online bullying is the target's motive & the truth does not matter. Only perception matters.

When you damage someone publicly, you are assaulting them. Especially today where things online stick with you forever. There are also emotional consequences to being bullied.

I have some opinions that are not mainstream. I want to be heard without being disrespected.

I want tolerance. Seeing people act like bullies makes be nauseous.

You can't deny how I feel about your opinion, just like I cannot deny how you feel about my opinion. However, if I don't like your opinion about something, it is not right for me to label you as a bigot or some other loaded term.

Let's not hate people. Let's understand that people live within a context. Let's change the context.

[crassus]

There needs to be a Godwin's corollary for invoking racism about discussion of issues not involving racism at all. If you can't reason about a political issue without comparing your opponents to Hitler or slave owners, then you probably have a terrible opinion.

[Karunamon]

An equality fight is an equality fight. The closest parallel to this one were the early/mid 1900's ban on interracial marriage - in fact aside from the personal characteristics being argued about, the concerns are identical.

[dubfan]

> I'd say a fundamental portion of respect is not encoding your personal beliefs of other people's personal lives into law.

I keep seeing this line from gay marriage supporters. I always have to ask, what exactly is the pro-gay-marriage movement about then? It sounds to me like it's exactly what you're describing here.

Disclaimer: I support same-sex marriage.

[Karunamon]

There's a fundamental difference between recognizing that what people do with their lives is their business, and attempting to force them to stop through legislative fiat.

Nobody's forcing you to do or not do anything by allowing marriage equality. The same cannot be said of its opponents.

[dubfan]

See, the anti-gay-marriage crowd doesn't see it that way. Marriage has historically been a religious ceremony, and by legalizing gay marriage we're codifying what opponents view as an assault on their deeply-held religious beliefs. You might say they are wrong, and you're entitled to say that in our free society. Where my problem comes in is when we try to stamp out any opposing view with the trump card of "bigotry". It's a very strong label that kills any meaningful dialogue.

There seems to be this sect of the American left that prescribes that everyone follow the left-wing cultural viewpoint, while claiming to be inclusive and diverse. The cognitive dissonance is palpable.

[Karunamon]

>Marriage has historically been a religious ceremony

This is patently false. Religion does not hold a monopoly of any kind on the concept of matrimony.

There is a massive problem with your view. You think a religious belief holds any legal sway. It does not. Laws based on religious overtones are absolutely forbidden by the supreme law of the land. This might be different in other countries, but here? No law concerning an establishment of religion.

In other words, whether or not a law conflicts with any given religious belief is utterly irrelevant to that law. It should not at any point enter the discussion.

>There seems to be this sect of the American left that prescribes that everyone follow the left-wing cultural viewpoint, while claiming to be inclusive and diverse. The cognitive dissonance is palpable.

Yada yada being intolerant of intolerance is actually intolerance.

[hackinthebochs]

>Religion does not hold a monopoly of any kind on the concept of matrimony.

Neither does government, so why does it matter what government calls it?

[mkr-hn]

> Marriage has historically been a religious ceremony

This depends on where and when you constrain your view. Marriage is a diverse institution with as many manifestations as there are years in the existence of civilization.

[bane]

> Marriage has historically been a religious ceremony, and by legalizing gay marriage we're codifying what opponents view as an assault on their deeply-held religious beliefs.

Let's buy that argument for a moment. And let's suppose that religious interference in law isn't explicitly forbidden by the U.S. Constitution.

Which religion or religious faction then should supply the law? The particular Christian denomination I was raised in says gay people can marry and they'll even do the marrying. And they can even become priests! They represent over 2 million (1 in 150) Americans. I can think of at least a half dozen other Christian denominations alone that not only allow for same-sex marriage, but will perform marriage and otherwise allow for full religious participation of gay members.

Why should the teachings of my religion be shut down in favor of somebody else's? Who gets to pick which religion we follow? Am I now being forced to follow somebody else's religion?

(I don't support forcing other religions to observe same-sex relationships, people are free to leave their religion and go somewhere else or nowhere as they please).

[Sandman]

> Marriage has historically been a religious ceremony, and by legalizing gay marriage we're codifying what opponents view as an assault on their deeply-held religious beliefs.

Couldn't the same be said about civil marriage in general? Yet I don't see many religious groups opposing civil marriage between a man and a woman.

[baddox]

There's a fundamental difference between supporting the government's authority in the realm of marriage, and supporting the government's authority to ban homosexuality itself. One can, for example, easily oppose laws which ban homosexual cohabitation, while also opposing government having any role in marriage.

[baddox]

> I'd say a fundamental portion of respect is not encoding your personal beliefs of other people's personal lives into law.

I fully believe that claim, but that's because I'm a crazy anarchist. If you're not a crazy anarchist, then you probably don't fully believe that claim.

[waterlesscloud]

And yet elsewhere in this thread you're saying a man who literally made laws negatively affecting gays should be able to keep his job because hey, the economy.

There's some serious cognitive dissonance here.

[Karunamon]

If you'd stop willfully misinterpreting my posts, you'd know that was not what I was saying at all. The whole point there was that certain things are more important than other things at certain times.

And I did say five years ago, which you conveniently omitted from your little summary here.

I am not a single issue voter.

[waterlesscloud]

But you're single issue on Eich. Who wasn't actually making laws against same sex marriage, but instead made open source software that improved the world.

[Karunamon]

Eich isn't an elected official.

[baddox]

So you're single issue when it comes to private citizens, but multiple issue when it comes to elected officials?

[bluntly_said]

The other side of this coin is that marriage has religious significance to many people, and by forcing the definition to change, pro-gay rights groups are also codifying personal belief into law.

Both sides fucked it up. The only proper response should have been to remove all legal rights associated with marriage, and force all couples to get a civil union. Tax that instead. Churches are welcome to marry people all they desire (on both sides, gay or straight as they please according to their beliefs)

[Karunamon]

>religious significance to many people, and by forcing the definition to change, pro-gay rights groups are also codifying personal belief into law.

The establishment clause to the constitution says that religious beliefs do not get to be encoded in law. And considering I have not seen one single anti-equality argument that wasn't either religiously motivated or a gigantic mass of "appeal to tradition" fallacies, I suggest the "anti" side move to a different country where theocracy is an accepted form or government. Because this isn't one.

> The only proper response should have been to remove all legal rights associated with marriage, and force all couples to get a civil union. Tax that instead.

I'd be okay with this, but it's not a change that happens overnight. There are too many things.. insurance benefits, tax benefits, inheritances, visitation rights, etc. associated with the spousal relationship. Those will take some time to work through. In the mean time, this is a suitable band-aid.

[bluntly_said]

There already was a suitable band-aid, it was called domestic partnerships, and had the full legal rights of marriage in California.

Co-opting the word marriage in law, rather than asking for it to be removed was actively choosing to force religions to accept your personal beliefs.

That's bullying.

--

That said, I generally fall much closer on the scale to you than to the supporters of prop 8, but you have to be able to recognize and draw a line as to where your rights end. Attacking a personal donation made as part of a democratic process is not something I can condone. Particularly when the end result cost a man his job.

[Karunamon]

Ah yes, "separate but equal". Where have I heard this before...

>actively choosing to force religions to accept your personal beliefs.

Nonsense. Churches do not have a monopoly on the word or the concept of matrimony. If there was any consistency in religious beliefs whatsoever, there would be infinitely more backlash at the Vegas drive through chapels than two people wanting to live their lives together in peace.

[bluntly_said]

And my response to the separate but equal argument is literally sitting in my comment above, and part of my argument, remove rights from the word marriage. There is ONLY civil unions. There is no separation.

You yourself claimed that appropriating the word marriage was a band-aid, and yet you ignore that a band-aid was in place, and a much more rational argument would have been to remove rights associated with marriage.

Instead you continue to argue that codifying your beliefs into law was correct, even while you denounce the other side for trying to do that.

Come back when you can intelligently make an argument that is internally consistent. I have to agree with the others commenting on your posts, you have some serious cognitive dissonance.

[mkr-hn]

Prop 8 was part of a long-running--to this day--national campaign to create and maintain this separation across many jurisdictions with different takes on marriage and civil union. The campaign has employed every negative tactic imaginable. You have to look at it in that context to understand why it's still an issue, even if it seems okay on the level of one state.

The trouble is, it's easy to give one class new things that the other doesn't get, making them unequal again. Making marriage equal ensures everyone acts fairly when modifying the legal institution of marriage.

edit: Since HN won't let me reply to bluntly_said --

Trouble is, the fight to move those rights to civil unions and properly separate church and state is a decades-longer fight. I would like to be able to get those essential legal protections within my lifetime. We can finish the job in a few years when marriage equality is universal.

[bluntly_said]

But I think this is still wrong. Giving marriage any rights at all is respecting a religious practice in the government.

I think we solve the problem not by forcing those who are religious to accept gays, or by forcing gay people to accept a different word for the same rights. I think we solve it by acknowledging that marriage should never have had rights, and forcing anyone who wants the rights currently afforded to marriage, gay or straight, to get a civil union. Or hell, if you don't like civil union, call it a taxed co-habitation rights application.

Once the government has no interest in marriage, no one can stop a gay person for getting married if they'd like to. Just like no one can force a very religious community or church to recognize that marriage.

[AlexMax]

Sorry, but I find it incredulous that the only reason that some folks are unwilling to give LGBT folks the right to marry is because of what the state happens to call the practice.

[baddox]

Why is that hard to believe? A lot of people demonstrably oppose calling it marriage, even when homosexual couples already have the same legal rights and benefits as heterosexual couples.

[bluntly_said]

I think the issue is that as long as the state endows rights to religious practice (marriage) there is a problem.

If the state only gave rights and taxed civil unions, the churches cannot, by definition, control if other people get married. All they'd need to do is find a church willing to marry them, or start their own.

To quote from another of my posts: --- I think once the legal implications are removed, churches would lose their control over the word by default. It doesn't have meaning outside of the church at that point, and the government "shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" So if gay people wanted to get married, no one could stop them.

[AlexMax]

> I think the issue is that as long as the state endows rights to religious practice (marriage) there is a problem.

Legal marriage and religious marriage are already not the same thing. That was the entire point of my statement - that legally, it didn't matter what the state called it because it is a separate institution. You can get legally married without a religious ceremony.

[ufmace]

I agree with this point of view, and have always been a bit skeptical of the gay marriage movement because of it. But on the other side, it sounds like Prop 8 is the exact opposite of what we're talking about - a measure to codify the definition of marriage and define it as exclusively heterosexual into the constitution. I can't think of any decent reason to support it.

[bane]

Treating people with respect also means holding their opinions up to a respectable standard. There are some opinions that are disrespectable that otherwise good people harbor. Because you respect them, those opinions are even less tolerable.