4 ms·

> It's a shame that all people cannot be like this, because there are others who take a hard line stance against certain private matter that someone else may ho

by coldpie 10y ago

> It's a shame that all people cannot be like this, because there are others who take a hard line stance against certain private matter that someone else may hold. In Eich's case, it wasn't a private matter. He used his money and influence to attempt to enforce his religious views on people who do not subscribe to his religion. When you are involving the government in public enforcement of your personal views, they are not personal any longer.

humanrebar 10y ago
The donor list was not public. Some people believe private political behavior should stay private, just like voting. Saying "this is too important for privacy to apply" affects more issues than just politics advocacy. In this situation, people apparently are applying the template: "When you X, it's no longer personal anymore".
- coldpie 10y ago
  Are you sure it wasn't public? Those kinds of donation rolls often are. In either case, I do think it is reasonable to reject a CEO who is actively attempting to harm their own employees through government enforcement of personal religious beliefs. Especially for an altruistic company like Mozilla.
  - Turing_Machine 10y ago
    Given that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were also opposed to gay marriage at that time, would you agree that that they should also have been disqualified? If not, why not?
    - coldpie 10y ago
      I don't think it's an interesting comparison, given one is a choice between two "lesser evils" and elected by three hundred million citizens VS the other being a leader of a private company appointed by a board from a pool of presumably many (or at least several) valid candidates. Totally different scenarios. But yes, it was a big black mark against them and they, too, received lots of public pressure to change their public policy on the matter. And eventually, they did. Eich refused to even say he wouldn't make such a donation again, much less apologize for the harm he caused.
      - Turing_Machine 10y ago
        Sorry, why should a public official should be held to a lower standard than the director of a private company? I'm not seeing that. Most observers believe that the passage of Proposition 8 in California had far more to do with black churches turning out for Barack Obama than it did with contributions from people like Eich. Edit: updating with citation. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/06/AR2008110603880.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11... 70% of black voters supported Proposition 8, which means that they were against gay marriage.
        coldpie 10y ago
        You're right that I didn't answer your question directly. To be explicit, yes, I think wishing to impose your personal religious beliefs on your constituents should disqualify you from holding public office. However, when presented with two options that both fail that test, I will vote for the lesser of the two evils presented to me. I don't think that Mozilla was faced with that dichotomy, and the fact that Eich was relatively quickly and easily replaced backs that up.
        humanrebar 10y ago
        > I think wishing to impose your personal religious beliefs on your constituents should disqualify you from holding public office. Should officials be cajoling or forcing people to "convert" (not every religion has conversion as such)? Nope. Can we divorce all laws from any metaphysical worldview? No. That's not possible. We presume certain things matter, like human lives, freedom of conscience, truth, the health of the planet, etc. Banning murder assumes that the Flying Spaghetti Monster does not exist and/or does not require human sacrifice to get into heaven. I can't come up with the right adjective, but that's imposing an (a)theological position on constituents. It's obviously the right position, too. Point being, even the idea of "inalienable rights" is an (a)theological position. Some people think rights are given by God or the nature of humanity. Others think laws are given by the people and groups that can enforce them. The goal isn't to have agnostic laws. That's literally impossible. The goal is to find a just baseline worldview we can all compromise on and have tolerant laws that follow from that.
  - humanrebar 10y ago
    > Are you sure it wasn't public? Ah, I was mistaken on that detail. Apologies. Apparently I've read some poorly researched sources on the subject. There was a lawsuit about whether it should be made public and a judge ruled that it should be. So "leaked" is inaccurate, though there was and is disagreement about whether the information should be public.
tzs 10y ago
Has he actually said he did it because of religious views? I've come across people who believed that the state should not be involved in marriage. They viewed extending marriage to gay couples as just making a bad situation worse, by getting the state involved in even more relationships.
- coldpie 10y ago
  > Has he actually said he did it because of religious views? Yes, he has.
  - BrendanEich 10y ago
    No, I haven't -- but keep on misrepresenting everything about that case, including the legal situation in California. Do you have a religious reason for putting words in my mouth on hacker news? That would explain things about as well as your false assertion about me! To save anyone interested in what I've written some site-specific searching, start here and follow the links I left in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13411986 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13411986 Searching for coldpie and my name will return lots of tediously similar comments from him inveighing against me based on ill will and little else. I'll spare you all those search results :-|.

by coldpie 10y ago

humanrebar 10y ago

The donor list was not public. Some people believe private political behavior should stay private, just like voting. Saying "this is too important for privacy to apply" affects more issues than just politics advocacy. In this situation, people apparently are applying the template: "When you X, it's no longer personal anymore".

coldpie 10y ago
Are you sure it wasn't public? Those kinds of donation rolls often are. In either case, I do think it is reasonable to reject a CEO who is actively attempting to harm their own employees through government enforcement of personal religious beliefs. Especially for an altruistic company like Mozilla.
- Turing_Machine 10y ago
  Given that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were also opposed to gay marriage at that time, would you agree that that they should also have been disqualified? If not, why not?
  - coldpie 10y ago
    I don't think it's an interesting comparison, given one is a choice between two "lesser evils" and elected by three hundred million citizens VS the other being a leader of a private company appointed by a board from a pool of presumably many (or at least several) valid candidates. Totally different scenarios. But yes, it was a big black mark against them and they, too, received lots of public pressure to change their public policy on the matter. And eventually, they did. Eich refused to even say he wouldn't make such a donation again, much less apologize for the harm he caused.
    - Turing_Machine 10y ago
      Sorry, why should a public official should be held to a lower standard than the director of a private company? I'm not seeing that. Most observers believe that the passage of Proposition 8 in California had far more to do with black churches turning out for Barack Obama than it did with contributions from people like Eich. Edit: updating with citation. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/06/AR2008110603880.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11... 70% of black voters supported Proposition 8, which means that they were against gay marriage.
      - coldpie 10y ago
        You're right that I didn't answer your question directly. To be explicit, yes, I think wishing to impose your personal religious beliefs on your constituents should disqualify you from holding public office. However, when presented with two options that both fail that test, I will vote for the lesser of the two evils presented to me. I don't think that Mozilla was faced with that dichotomy, and the fact that Eich was relatively quickly and easily replaced backs that up.
        humanrebar 10y ago
        > I think wishing to impose your personal religious beliefs on your constituents should disqualify you from holding public office. Should officials be cajoling or forcing people to "convert" (not every religion has conversion as such)? Nope. Can we divorce all laws from any metaphysical worldview? No. That's not possible. We presume certain things matter, like human lives, freedom of conscience, truth, the health of the planet, etc. Banning murder assumes that the Flying Spaghetti Monster does not exist and/or does not require human sacrifice to get into heaven. I can't come up with the right adjective, but that's imposing an (a)theological position on constituents. It's obviously the right position, too. Point being, even the idea of "inalienable rights" is an (a)theological position. Some people think rights are given by God or the nature of humanity. Others think laws are given by the people and groups that can enforce them. The goal isn't to have agnostic laws. That's literally impossible. The goal is to find a just baseline worldview we can all compromise on and have tolerant laws that follow from that.
- humanrebar 10y ago
  > Are you sure it wasn't public? Ah, I was mistaken on that detail. Apologies. Apparently I've read some poorly researched sources on the subject. There was a lawsuit about whether it should be made public and a judge ruled that it should be. So "leaked" is inaccurate, though there was and is disagreement about whether the information should be public.

tzs 10y ago

Has he actually said he did it because of religious views? I've come across people who believed that the state should not be involved in marriage. They viewed extending marriage to gay couples as just making a bad situation worse, by getting the state involved in even more relationships.

coldpie 10y ago
> Has he actually said he did it because of religious views? Yes, he has.
- BrendanEich 10y ago
  No, I haven't -- but keep on misrepresenting everything about that case, including the legal situation in California. Do you have a religious reason for putting words in my mouth on hacker news? That would explain things about as well as your false assertion about me! To save anyone interested in what I've written some site-specific searching, start here and follow the links I left in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13411986 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13411986 Searching for coldpie and my name will return lots of tediously similar comments from him inveighing against me based on ill will and little else. I'll spare you all those search results :-|.