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> Amongst my real-life friendship groups this sort of "hate mob" type stuff just doesn't exist You have great friendship groups. Do you remember, by any chanc

> Amongst my real-life friendship groups this sort of "hate mob" type stuff just doesn't exist You have great friendship groups. Do you remember, by any chance how this topic was handled in your discussions (I am genuinely curios) "... Brendan Eich is gone. The creator of JavaScript and co-founder of mozilla.org has quit as Mozilla’s CEO, forced out by the uproar over a donation he made six years ago to a ballot measure against gay marriage. There’s no record of Eich discriminating against gay employees—“I never saw any kind of behavior or attitude from him that was not in line with Mozilla’s values of inclusiveness,” says the company’s chairwoman, ..." [1] [1](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2014/04/brendan-eich-quits-mozilla-lets-purge-all-the-anti-gay-donors-to-prop-8.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2014/04/brendan-eich-qui... )

esotericn 7y ago
Never came up. If you're after my personal opinion - I think that the whole debate about gay marriage gets muddled because there's basically this interplay between the state and religion. So you end up in this weird place where - those who really believe in the religious aspects of marriage have to be against gay marriage because it's literally "against the rules", it doesn't compile. But then in the real world, we have a state that confers benefits based on marriage - and even in places where civil partnerships are wholly equal in the law, you still have the weird 'status' style thing whereby they're sort of seen as being lesser. To me it's almost completely a nomenclature thing. If we didn't have marriages or civil partnerships, and instead we asked whether two people (of arbitrary sex) should be allowed to cohabit and/or enter a contract with each other to share assets, I think it'd be way simpler. I mean there'd still be the stalwart homophobes that just think it's capital-W Wrong or think that religiously they need to at least publically claim it as being wrong, but what I wrote up there I think is a big part of it.
- baddox 7y ago
  > So you end up in this weird place where - those who really believe in the religious aspects of marriage have to be against gay marriage because it's literally "against the rules", it doesn't compile. Huh? I think it's widely considered acceptable for a straight person to be against entering into a gay marriage themselves. Supporting government policy that prevents other people from doing so is a very different matter.
- zinclozenge 7y ago
  Marriage has, since time immemorial, always been a contractual relationship. What you described is exactly what marriage is, there's no need to come up with another word or term when a perfectly good one already exists.
  - untog 7y ago
    In an ideal world, sure. But it's silly to pretend that a marriage is not also full of religious meaning and significance to many.
  - jonnycomputer 7y ago
    "since time immemorial" irrelevant. not all contracts are sanctioned or defined by the state. the problem is that christians see the state as sanctioning their religious institution, and now, perverting it. the solution is to have the state get out of the business of sanctioning it.
    - marcinzm 7y ago
      >the solution is to have the state get out of the business of sanctioning it. Legality is tied to morality and morality is tied to religion (in those who believe in religion). You cannot separate them out in a society with high regard for religion. Even if you remove religion you still have the cultural views on morality which become tied to the state's laws.
      - cannonedhamster 7y ago
        Legality has nothing to do with morality. What morality is there in saying that you cannot pass a vehicle in a tight lane? None. It's a safety concern. Morals only concern religion. Ethics concern right or wrong. Law concerns a group of defined social agreements between people within a defined region. While the basis of some of our laws has a history of Christian influence, our laws in and of themselves do not require morality. An atheist is no more likely to go on a murderous rampage than a Christian, ethically it would be wrong. That kind of timing is built into humanity as a whole because it's required for civilization and predates religion. You see it in animal species as well. Heck a dog sees the benefit in not murdering their master.
- marcinzm 7y ago
  The way I see it, the fight for gay marriage cannot be looked at without historical context. In many countries for a long time gay relationships were illegal. Punishable by jail or worse. Gay marriage is simply a step on a long road towards legalizing gay relationships. It doesn't matter what it would be called, historically gay people would not have been allowed to participate.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
claudeganon 7y ago
Honestly, I’m happy to live in a future where bankrolling the denial of other’s human rights is something that can cost you your job, even if you’re wealthy and powerful. No one would have questioned him being forced to resign if he had financed an anti-miscegenation initiative. It’s just that hatred of LGBTQ people is still normalized to the extent that people think you should be “given a pass.”
- RickSanchez2600 7y ago
  Eich is Catholic, his faith does not believe in gay marriage. He donated to a charity that was against gay marriage on the ballots. Because of that he was forced to resign.
  - hopethathelps_ 7y ago
    He donated to a charity that worked to take away my "god given" (I didn't choose to be born gay, I just was) rights. He absolutely should have been forced to resign and I'm glad he did. You're also a real asshole if you think that donating to an anti-gay charity is right.
- gruez 7y ago
  >Honestly, I’m happy to live in a future where bankrolling the denial of other’s human rights is something that can cost you your job, even if you’re wealthy and powerful. Sounds great when it's working for you. How about in reverse? Are you fine with CEOs firing employees that don't follow their preferred political affiliation/positions? Just to make it interesting let's say it's pro-deregulation, anti-union, anti-welfare, anti-minority rights, and pro guns.
  - traderjane 7y ago
    Some people enjoy secularism even if it brings a hard edge to those who desire a religiously wholesome society.
  - cannonedhamster 7y ago
    Apparently people just got fired over at Kickstarter for wanting to going a union. Also I think you forget that the national guard have been called in and killed Union members in the Pennsylvania coal fields for unionizing. Also Reagan with his union busting. I had a boss who literally sent an email out to the entire company saying he was increasing our healthcare costs by cutting our benefits if Obama won and he did. The stuff you're taking about happens all the time.
thenewnewguy 7y ago
> There’s no record of Eich discriminating against gay employees—“I never saw any kind of behavior or attitude from him that was not in line with Mozilla’s values of inclusiveness,” says the company’s chairwoman. Somewhat off-topic, but is donating to groups opposing the human rights of minority groups seriously considered "in line with Mozilla’s values of inclusiveness"?
dang 7y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20989962 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20989962.
cannonedhamster 7y ago
Brendan Eich gave money to a cause that would have limited the rights of his employees. He actively chose to do that. If you're willing to publicly support a position you should not be surprised if it had ramifications. It doesn't matter if no one knew about whether or not he discriminated against employees, it's an appearance of impropriety and his actions outside of work led to a destabilisation of the company inside work. Same thing has happened numerous times to numerous people across any number of issues. It used to be that association with PoC could get you blacklisted. Then there was the Red scare. This has always been happening and most likely always will.

esotericn 7y ago

Never came up. If you're after my personal opinion - I think that the whole debate about gay marriage gets muddled because there's basically this interplay between the state and religion. So you end up in this weird place where - those who really believe in the religious aspects of marriage have to be against gay marriage because it's literally "against the rules", it doesn't compile. But then in the real world, we have a state that confers benefits based on marriage - and even in places where civil partnerships are wholly equal in the law, you still have the weird 'status' style thing whereby they're sort of seen as being lesser. To me it's almost completely a nomenclature thing. If we didn't have marriages or civil partnerships, and instead we asked whether two people (of arbitrary sex) should be allowed to cohabit and/or enter a contract with each other to share assets, I think it'd be way simpler. I mean there'd still be the stalwart homophobes that just think it's capital-W Wrong or think that religiously they need to at least publically claim it as being wrong, but what I wrote up there I think is a big part of it.

baddox 7y ago
> So you end up in this weird place where - those who really believe in the religious aspects of marriage have to be against gay marriage because it's literally "against the rules", it doesn't compile. Huh? I think it's widely considered acceptable for a straight person to be against entering into a gay marriage themselves. Supporting government policy that prevents other people from doing so is a very different matter.
zinclozenge 7y ago
Marriage has, since time immemorial, always been a contractual relationship. What you described is exactly what marriage is, there's no need to come up with another word or term when a perfectly good one already exists.
- untog 7y ago
  In an ideal world, sure. But it's silly to pretend that a marriage is not also full of religious meaning and significance to many.
- jonnycomputer 7y ago
  "since time immemorial" irrelevant. not all contracts are sanctioned or defined by the state. the problem is that christians see the state as sanctioning their religious institution, and now, perverting it. the solution is to have the state get out of the business of sanctioning it.
  - marcinzm 7y ago
    >the solution is to have the state get out of the business of sanctioning it. Legality is tied to morality and morality is tied to religion (in those who believe in religion). You cannot separate them out in a society with high regard for religion. Even if you remove religion you still have the cultural views on morality which become tied to the state's laws.
    - cannonedhamster 7y ago
      Legality has nothing to do with morality. What morality is there in saying that you cannot pass a vehicle in a tight lane? None. It's a safety concern. Morals only concern religion. Ethics concern right or wrong. Law concerns a group of defined social agreements between people within a defined region. While the basis of some of our laws has a history of Christian influence, our laws in and of themselves do not require morality. An atheist is no more likely to go on a murderous rampage than a Christian, ethically it would be wrong. That kind of timing is built into humanity as a whole because it's required for civilization and predates religion. You see it in animal species as well. Heck a dog sees the benefit in not murdering their master.
marcinzm 7y ago
The way I see it, the fight for gay marriage cannot be looked at without historical context. In many countries for a long time gay relationships were illegal. Punishable by jail or worse. Gay marriage is simply a step on a long road towards legalizing gay relationships. It doesn't matter what it would be called, historically gay people would not have been allowed to participate.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

claudeganon 7y ago

Honestly, I’m happy to live in a future where bankrolling the denial of other’s human rights is something that can cost you your job, even if you’re wealthy and powerful. No one would have questioned him being forced to resign if he had financed an anti-miscegenation initiative. It’s just that hatred of LGBTQ people is still normalized to the extent that people think you should be “given a pass.”

RickSanchez2600 7y ago
Eich is Catholic, his faith does not believe in gay marriage. He donated to a charity that was against gay marriage on the ballots. Because of that he was forced to resign.
- hopethathelps_ 7y ago
  He donated to a charity that worked to take away my "god given" (I didn't choose to be born gay, I just was) rights. He absolutely should have been forced to resign and I'm glad he did. You're also a real asshole if you think that donating to an anti-gay charity is right.
gruez 7y ago
>Honestly, I’m happy to live in a future where bankrolling the denial of other’s human rights is something that can cost you your job, even if you’re wealthy and powerful. Sounds great when it's working for you. How about in reverse? Are you fine with CEOs firing employees that don't follow their preferred political affiliation/positions? Just to make it interesting let's say it's pro-deregulation, anti-union, anti-welfare, anti-minority rights, and pro guns.
- traderjane 7y ago
  Some people enjoy secularism even if it brings a hard edge to those who desire a religiously wholesome society.
- cannonedhamster 7y ago
  Apparently people just got fired over at Kickstarter for wanting to going a union. Also I think you forget that the national guard have been called in and killed Union members in the Pennsylvania coal fields for unionizing. Also Reagan with his union busting. I had a boss who literally sent an email out to the entire company saying he was increasing our healthcare costs by cutting our benefits if Obama won and he did. The stuff you're taking about happens all the time.

thenewnewguy 7y ago

> There’s no record of Eich discriminating against gay employees—“I never saw any kind of behavior or attitude from him that was not in line with Mozilla’s values of inclusiveness,” says the company’s chairwoman. Somewhat off-topic, but is donating to groups opposing the human rights of minority groups seriously considered "in line with Mozilla’s values of inclusiveness"?

dang 7y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20989962 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20989962.

cannonedhamster 7y ago

Brendan Eich gave money to a cause that would have limited the rights of his employees. He actively chose to do that. If you're willing to publicly support a position you should not be surprised if it had ramifications. It doesn't matter if no one knew about whether or not he discriminated against employees, it's an appearance of impropriety and his actions outside of work led to a destabilisation of the company inside work. Same thing has happened numerous times to numerous people across any number of issues. It used to be that association with PoC could get you blacklisted. Then there was the Red scare. This has always been happening and most likely always will.