[wpietri]

Eich's public behavior was absolutely material to his work. You can't work to break apart gay families and undermine gay people's constitutional rights and then expect gay people to be be perfectly comfortable working for you. And Mozilla's board reasonably felt that material to him being the CEO of a company. Well, that or his demonstrated inability to handle a corporate crisis with a big press element.

[cookiecaper]

* Marriage is not a constitutional right for anyone

* The rules that say the government is not allowed to define marriage further than "two humans say they want to live together and want us to give them stuff for it" are very new, and Eich was fighting to not have this become the rule.

* Gay people should be perfectly comfortable working for people who supported Prop 8 or they're going to have a hard time, as there's a > 50% chance that a random stranger will have done so.

* Eich's ideas on what relationships the government should reward does not materially affect his performance as CEO. He'd already promised to keep Mozilla's inclusive policies.

* If you really want to say gay people would find it impossible to work for Eich, I find it hard to believe that any such persons at Mozilla are less replaceable than Brendan Eich. If they do resign in protest, Eich would've had no trouble replacing them. However, Mozilla's official statement indicated the vast majority of the company supported him, with "less than ten" current employees threatening resignation if Eich maintained his post.

* The board didn't fire or pressure Eich to leave. He resigned voluntarily as damage control. Mozilla's official statement is clear about this.

Casting anyone who supported Prop 8 as a villain is a wholly untenable philosophical stance. It condemns the majority of Californians and Americans. You can't live life with that large of a chip on your shoulder, it's completely disruptive. If you are doing so, I recommend you seek a shoulder-chip repair professional before further damage to self and others is perpetrated by political intolerance.

[wpietri]

* The reason Prop 8 was was a constitutional amendment is that equality before the law is a right enshrined in the California constitution.

* Immaterial.

* There is a difference between "voted for" and "funded". Further, Eich refused to say whether his opinion had changed. And obviously, you don't get to say what gay people are comfortable about.

* Incorrect. Promising to be bigoted only in his off hours is not a promise that will convince everybody.

* Your view apparently is that as long as you're not powerful, injustice is fine. That's not a view many share. Especially at Mozilla.

* Fair enough.

At one point vast majorities of people opposed interracial marriage. And, earlier, were in favor of slavery for black people, an institution maintained through brutality and torture. I'm not saying those people are villains, but I am saying they were wrong, and bigoted in a way that was deeply problematic. And I'm saying the same thing about people who supported Prop 8. Thankfully, as the statistics show, people are more quickly waking up to their anti-gay bigotry, so it's a dead issue here in California, and it soon will be in the rest of the nation.

[cookiecaper]

> The reason Prop 8 was was a constitutional amendment is that equality before the law is a right enshrined in the California constitution.

OK, again, it's not that "the right to marry" is constitutional. It's just that some judges have decided "marriage" means giving benefits to any two humans who claim they want it. This isn't what marriage is supposed to be, but that's beside the point at the moment. Bans on same-sex marriage were considered unconstitutional because marital benefits were granted to persons who engaged in opposite-sex permanent coupling, and the judiciary decided that since the existence of sex was acknowledged, it was unfair. Enforcing this massive blind spot is obviously absurd, but again, currently beside the point. The point is there is not a constitutional right to marital benefits.

>* There is a difference between "voted for" and "funded". Further, Eich refused to say whether his opinion had changed. And obviously, you don't get to say what gay people are comfortable about.

Eich's contribution was minor, so not much of a difference in this case. Perhaps, as a wealthy individual, he routinely donates to political causes that accord with his beliefs and considers this good citizenship. You can't say that this issue was critical to Eich simply because a small contribution exists.

There was no reason to demand Eich recant his position. This is still a hot mainstream political topic. As Mozilla stated, almost the entire company was content to follow Eich; only a negligible number of employees threatened to leave. Eich resigned to prevent damage to Firefox and its users.

>Incorrect. Promising to be bigoted only in his off hours is not a promise that will convince everybody.

It doesn't materially affect his performance as CEO no matter what he chooses to believe on a social issue about as far removed from computer software as you can get.

>Your view apparently is that as long as you're not powerful, injustice is fine. That's not a view many share. Especially at Mozilla.

No, my view is that Eich committed no injustice by expressing his opinion via political contributions, and that we shouldn't displace extremely well-qualified persons because a very small percentage of people chose to have their feelings hurt by Eich's completely reasonable, defensible, and valid actions. It has nothing to do with anyone's power, just their value and contribution. Eich, as the inventor of JavaScript, provides irreplaceable value, and as he did nothing wrong, he shouldn't have been displaced.

>At one point vast majorities of people opposed interracial marriage. And, earlier, were in favor of slavery for black people, an institution maintained through brutality and torture.

However deplorable you consider these things, you need to understand the context in which such people were developed and some basics about human moral development. The black and white, scorched earth view is not beneficial to anyone except those primarily concerned with stroking their victim complex. After the South surrendered, widespread amnesty was offered, not widespread condemnation of all "bigots". One needs to learn to live with the fact that vast majorities of his contemporaries have different belief and value systems, instead of trying to force them to adopt the same value system by shame and bullying.

I don't want to get into it here, but I believe there are major differences between opposition to same-sex marriage and racial issues. Pretty much the only thing they share is that they were controversial political issues.

I agree that in the short-term, discussion on gay marriage will be chilled and it will be grudgingly accepted in light of absurdly hypocritical bullying and shame campaigns orchestrated by gay rights activists. But I don't think it will last. I think the fact that gay marriage is even entertained demonstrates that western society has been stretched to its breaking point, and I expect it to break, at which point these realities that we prefer to ignore will pronounce themselves starkly and demand recognition, as has happened over and over again when a society gets enough wealth to drink and imbibe itself into major social stupor.

[wpietri]

The bit about constitutionality is about equal protection under the law. The sole legal purpose and effect of Prop 8 was to strip equal protection from gay people as regards to marriage. That's not a debatable legal point, and the court decisions are quite clear on it. You can try to justify that, but pretending like that's not what went on mainly makes you look willfully ignorant.

I don't have a black-and-white, scorched-earth view of this. I have a lot of compassion for the people who find themselves on the wrong side of a social change. And if people want to be bigoted in the quiet of their own homes, far be it from me to try to change them. But people using the power of the state to be bigoted don't get that pass until they renounce their attempts at active harm. And they also don't automatically get to be the boss of people that they're bigoted against.

Regarding the "society is about to collapse from the liberals" bit: that has been a popular line at least since Lincoln freed the slaves. Wake me when it happens. And also fuck you for suggesting that letting my friends raise their families in peace is somehow akin to drunken self-indulgence.

[cookiecaper]

It is a debatable point. Some judges agree with the interpretation that you're pretending is universal, and some don't. This is why this is a controversial political issue. If gay marriage were self-evidently legal, all of these court cases would not have happened. To many, the crux of the issue that the government chose to provide rewards and recognition for those willing to engage in a certain behavior, and now there are people trying to say that they should be included because they're doing something superficially similar. Whatever you believe about homosexuality or gay marriage, permanent cohabitation with same-sex individuals is not the same as permanent cohabitation with opposite-sex individuals. Maybe you think it doesn't make a difference, but a lot of people do, and only want to use state powers to encourage the latter behavior.

The issue here is that you see this as a matter of bigotry. As long as your view of the opposition is that narrow, a constructive dialogue is impossible. I understand it may be difficult to overcome that impulse with activists constantly trying to shame people into exactly that submissive position that doesn't allow them to consider the arguments of any opposition figure without automatically self-incriminating, but I hope that people can learn not to fall for that shaming.

True, there are always people anticipating major social collapse. It just so happens that occasionally, those people are right. The fact that some of them have been wrong in the past doesn't mean the suggestion is automatically invalid.

Your belligerent, empty retort only further illustrates the validity of my arguments. The attitude of "Fuck you, and the half of society that agrees with you" doesn't really make for social cohesion or stability.

[wpietri]

It's not legally debatable in California, because those are the judgments that led up to Prop 8. It's settled law. And it was before Prop 8 aimed to change the constitution to strip equal protection from gay people. Which is why those paying for Prop 8 are literally guilty of trying to break up existing families.

You might believe permanent cohabitation between gay people is different, just like most people who were opposed to interracial marriage. But, in both cases, it's not materially different with respect to civil marriage. Not with regards to equal protection, because no anti-gay bigot has been able to demonstrate in court a rational basis for making that distinction. And not in my experience, where what I see is just like what I see when I visit my straight friends. Happy couples and struggling couples; childless couples and couples with happy, laughing children. Children who deserve society's protection, just like any others.

Regarding the last bit, you can't claim half of society on that. An ever-declining portion of society is anxious, concerned, confused, or misled on gay marriage. I have lots of compassion for them. There are also some people who believe it's against what their god(s) want, but correctly recognized that using the power of the state to impose their religious views on others is wrong. Them, I appreciate.

There are also some bigots -- a much smaller number than the other groups -- who say hateful and false things, as you have. They, and you, can go fuck yourselves. We survived the much greater social upheavals of reducing anti-black bias; we'll certainly make it through accommodating the smaller number of homosexuals. You and your friends can go on to be the Jesse Helmses and the Don Sterlings of your day, muttering into your bran flakes about how it's all going to fall part any day now while your grandchildren politely ignore you and get on with their lives. Enjoy it.

[PhasmaFelis]

> Gay people should be perfectly comfortable working for people who supported Prop 8 or they're going to have a hard time, as there's a > 50% chance that a random stranger will have done so.

You're seriously arguing that people should be okay with being oppressed, as long as a lot of people are oppressing them? Like, maybe we should be flattered by all the attention?

[cookiecaper]

I'm not arguing that people should be OK with "being oppressed". People are free to engage in responsible social and political action to effect the changes they want. One can disagree civilly and continue his/her social activism. I'm arguing that people should accept not everyone agrees with them, and not try to get those people fired/destroyed for their disagreement.