[mantrax4]

I think we can safely stop thinking about the morality and legality of our actions, as long as we just apologize regularly.

Here we have two people who have both performed actions which are both indirectly anti-gay. But one is let go due to an apology, and the other wasn't due to no apology.

Apologizing is like a mark-and-sweep garbage collection approach to our past perceived sins.

Accountability (and reference counting) is boring and takes a lot of resources.

So we should just apologize.

BTW, I apologize for everything.

I also sincerely apologize for this post. Forgive me.

[discardorama]

Supporting Prop 8 is not "indirectly anti-gay". It is directly anti-gay. Prop 8 has only 1 purpose: to deny gay couples the protection of marriage. On the other hand, with a candidate, one could in all honesty support a particular position (or set of positions), while being unaware of the candidate's stance on some other positions.

I was waiting for Eich to respond to the firestorm with some clarification or a public statement; he did neither other than resigning. That, to me, speaks volumes: he'd rather give up his CEO position than his anti-gay position. So it is best that he resigned and left.

[nilkn]

> That, to me, speaks volumes: he'd rather give up his CEO position than his anti-gay position.

That's a pretty big assumption. You don't know that at all, and you also have no idea what sort of pressure he might have faced from Mozilla's board.

[omonra]

"Prop 8 has only 1 purpose: to deny gay couples the protection of marriage."

I'm sure that a certain % of individuals who voted for it also supported the institution of civil unions - that would entitle gays to same rights as married couple. But these people care about the name/institution of 'marriage' maintaining its original (m+w) definition.

Therefore I personally would not rush to call support of prop 8 'anti-gay'.

[scrollaway]

Nothing is let go due to an apology. It's let go because he was not in any way, shape or form supporting anti-gay laws and his apology is about not having done enough research on the guy.

Seriously.

[DatBear]

>"...Cannon 'has a special kind of hate for gays' and opposed employment protections, adoptions by same-sex couples, abortion, and voting rights while backing the state's constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage."

How is supporting someone with views like that, who would then be in a position to change legislation (or not) to support his views better than supporting Prop 8?

Also, if it's not let go due to an apology, why are you giving a reason for letting it go that was straight from the guy's apology?

Seriously.

[mantrax4]

Yeah, pleading ignorance was a neat way to word it, I admit.

The guy is a sleaze-bag, who chose to attack an open source browser (with an important role for the future of the internet, and the work of thousands) through his business for the benefit of getting positive PR for his business.

I wonder if Brendan Eich had this mentality, how he'd spin it. "Oh, I apologize, I thought Prop 8 was about supporting the gays, damn. I didn't do my research!".

But he doesn't have this mentality. So he instead chose to abandon the work of his life in order to preserve it, a rather painful action, as his spin-skills and spin-will were insufficient.

It basically means that those of us who are willing to...

1) Attack others for their political actions for PR reasons.

2) Engage in the same type of political actions.

3) Lie they were ignorant about it.

4) Say "sorry" without feeling any guilt.

... have a huge edge on those honest people who just say things as they are, without spinning things.

Damn, no wonder sociopaths are ruling the world, huh?

[dragonwriter]

> Engage in the same type of political actions.

Donating to a candidate that isn't a single-issue candidate, even one opposed to same-sex marriage, is not the "same type of political action", relative to same-sex marriage or gay rights more generally, as donating to a campaign that is solely about enshrining prohibition of same-sex marriage into a state constitution.

It might be a similar act if it is motivated by the candidates anti-gay or anti-same-sex-marriage views, but in and of itself it isn't the same type of action.