19 ms·

I support legalizing gay marriage. But two things, first, supporting prop 8 does not mean you "believe a certain group of people don't deserve to live their liv

• tripzilch 13y ago
  > people who simply have hangups about the word "marriage" vs "civil unions." oh well, that's okay then. ?! you do realize these people only have "hangups" about "marriage" vs "civil unions" when it concerns gay couples, right? see on the one end of the spectrum you got bigots who hate minority X, and other other end you got these people who simply have hangups about treating them equal. > As far as I know Brendan has never articulated his opinions on the matter, they have just been extrapolated from a $1,000 donation. The most charitable opinion on the matter I can extrapolate from donation $1000 would be if he believed that this money would somehow be used to abolish "marriage" in favour of "civil union" in general, for same-sex, gay or corporate couples all alike. Which would be such a dumb assumption that stepping down as CEO seems again very reasonable. > In many parts of the country, support of prop 8 is a mainstream viewpoint. In many parts of the world, hunting down and lynching gays is a mainstream viewpoint. Also in those very same parts of your country, there's many other rather questionable mainstream viewpoints being held. > People who have different upbringings in different geographic areas are of course going to be biased towards certain views, and it's a bit unfair to chastise them for not completely realigning their viewpoints overnight for something that has probably been the fastest and most productive civil rights movement, maybe ever. It's not been "overnight", it's been years (maybe decades even). Now you can argue it's not fair to chastise large groups of people over geographic areas for realigning their viewpoints over many years. I could also argue that it is fair, but that's not even the issue here. An individual can be expected to realign their viewpoint much quicker and can therefore be held to a much higher standard. And when this person is the CEO of Mozilla, I don't think it's unfair at all to hold them to that standard either. Whoever gets to make that call. > This could have been an opportunity to attempt bring someone, a powerful CEO, to the side of being informed and support gay rights but instead it was a witch hunt and an embarrassment. It's not a real witch hunt until we test the hypothesis that bigoted CEOs do not actually catch fire if you burn them at the stake, because they will be saved by The LORD for their unquestioning dedication to the sanctity of marriage. This is a widely held belief in many parts of the world and I guess the only real solution is that everybody just have at it and we'll see who gets out alive in the end (a traditional method of conflict-resolution that is also practised pretty much everywhere in the world).
• mkr-hn 13y ago
  He had the opportunity to clarify which of these views he held. He chose to step down and leave us to speculate instead.
  • gfodor 13y ago
    That's a fair point. But to play devil's advocate, I can empathize with someone just wanting to get out of the spotlight when they are in the middle of a worldwide mob accusing them of being a bigot. In all likelihood, at that point, anything you say will just be manipulated to re-enforce the view that you are an intolerant, evil person.
  • victorhooi 13y ago
    Well, actually, he comes across as the bigger person. He made a very public post saying, I'm happy to discuss my views - reach out to me and I'm happy to do it in private. The alternate would have either been a public spectacle, or farce - sorry, but the real world isn't quite like 4chan, and adults are able to sort things out without resorting to baying mobs.
    • dnr 13y ago
      He didn't say that at all. He said: "If we are acquainted, have good-faith assumptions, and circumstances allow it, we can discuss 1:1 in person. Online communication doesn’t seem to work very well for potentially divisive issues. Getting to know each other works better in my experience." I think it's clear that the vast majority of people that would like to discuss his views with him couldn't actually take him up on that offer, because they're not acquainted and couldn't meet in person.
      • victorhooi 13y ago
        How is that not the right thing to do? Having a flame way on 4chan, or HN benefits nobody - it just feeds the mobs, and rapidly degenerates into the lowest common denominator. If you were genuinely interested in having a dialogue, and engaging as one human being to another human being, then what he suggested is exactly the right thing to do. If you just want to get up on a soapbox, or mouth off at somebody in a public forum to inflate your ego, then he's not interested - and I applaud him for that. And look, I'm not even in the US - but if I wanted to engage in a dialogue with him - I'm sure a Skype or phone call might suffice.
• thrownaway2424 13y ago
  Support for Prop 8 has a huge age gradient, as does anti-homosexuality in general. Support for Prop 8 falls by about 0.75% per year Ages 18-24 voted overwhelmingly against it. 65+ voted overwhelmingly for it. Old people hate gays. Young people don't. Support for Prop 8 among young people in the SF Bay Area is negligible. These are the people Eich was supposed to lead as CEO of Mozilla. You can't lead people who think you are a reprehensible bigot.
  • acjohnson55 13y ago
    You're assuming the people he briefly led and who worked with Eich for years thought of him this way. I'm hugely anti Prop 8, but "reprehensible bigot" is not a coat of paint I would use on all of its supporters.
  • gfodor 13y ago
    People have not been spending their time arguing about the pragmatic negative effects of choosing Eich due to the perception of young people that he is a bigot (regardless of facts.) They have spent their time talking about how terrible Eich actually is, how terrible Mozilla actually is, etc, etc.
  • sp332 13y ago
    Old people only know gay people as Elton John and Freddie Mercury. Younger people know normal people as gay, so it's no wonder.
    • waterlesscloud 13y ago
      Do young people really believe this?
      • sp332 13y ago
        Well, I do, because I was told by older people and it makes sense. Why?
        • 13y ago
• amadeus 13y ago
  Sorry, you're just wrong. There is no language in prop 8 that has to do with the concept of civil unions. All it DID do was define marriage as being between a man and a woman. Any debate about marriage and a government's role in it is sidestepping the issue. It's a civil rights issue, and he chose to put money in an attempt to create discrimination for a certain kind of people. There's no excuse, he doesn't deserve death threats, but he deserves everyone talking about it and making it a big deal.
  • gfodor 13y ago
    If you are someone who believes gay people should be allowed to form civil unions, but are offended by the idea that those unions be called marriages, supporting prop 8 is consistent with those views even though it doesn't mention civil unions. I have no idea why Brendan donated $1,000 to support prop 8, and I'd be skeptical that he'd do so if he didn't actually have much stronger beliefs than the civil unions point. But I still feel like this entire situation where a donation to a widely supported political cause, context free, can cause your life to be ruined is chilling.
    • amadeus 13y ago
      You're still stretching the point. If you have an issue with the term marriage, then you're coming at it from a religious perspective. There's separation of church and state, it's a constitutional thing. If you want to redefine something as a Civil Union, then you help create and vote for that specific legislation. There was/is no logical or rational reason to vote for Prop 8.
      • momentarily 13y ago
        I, personally, have an issue with witch hunts, with McCarthyism, with bigotry. Eich's persecution for his beliefs was bigotry. Everyone complicit in it is a bigot.
        • eevee 13y ago
          One man can't be CEO because other people complained on the Internet. A great many people temporarily couldn't get married because that one man paid good money to make it so. And your sympathies lie with the poor persecuted CEO. Won't someone think of the rich white guy for once?
• kybernetikos 13y ago
  > on one extreme are the bigots who hate homosexuals and on the other there are people who simply have hangups about the word "marriage" vs "civil unions." As someone who is entirely unconvinced about the need for the government to recognise any kind of marriage at all, my view could also be characterised as anti-gay marriage, but without the context to do so would be misleading.
  • sitkack 13y ago
    Marriages are just contracts, governments should treat them as such. Having a special case is just stupid.
• Zigurd 13y ago
  > * It means you don't believe that the government should recognize same sex marriages as marriages.* Perhaps his situation would have been better had he explained his views that way. But, like the people who think a functioning laissez faire market in medical care would spring forth if only the government would get out of the way, such views are unrealistic. Unfortunately, his actions are indistinguishable from those of a bigot. As for growing up in a different environment, there is a vast amount of racism in some homogeneous societies. And there is no reason to give it any leeway.
• phaus 13y ago
  >there are people who simply have hangups about the word "marriage" vs "civil unions." And this 'hangup' is simply idiotic. Christians that speak of 'civil unions' are trying to hold homosexuals' rights hostage so they can pretend that they have carved out a small victory. Christianity invented neither the concept nor the terminology for marriage. Most of us at HN rave all day long about how stupid it is when a company tries to patent a generic English word, so why would it be OK for a religion to do the same thing? That being said, I'm not entirely sure that he should have been forced out of his job. I mean, while we're at it, why not harass everyone that voted for Romney or Bush? Anyone that votes for either of them was basically voting to oppress homosexuals and atheists. What's the difference?
  • incongruity 13y ago
    Please don't paint all Christians with a broad brush. I, for one, support gay marriage, as do many others. Just say'n. On the other hand, I also think it'd be completely valid to say that the government shouldn't be in the 'marriage' business at all (gay or straight) and it should only handle contracts -- aka civil unions. One could then parse "marriage" to be something reserved for whatever church/belief system/personal labeling one wishes to subscribe to. In the end, however, the government would treat all people equally, as it should.
    • blindhippo 13y ago
      "Marriage" IS a civil contract. This is the entire point of the institution. And considering the Government is the embodiment of and the centralized authority for our society, it very much should be at the center of marriage. A "marriage" is a multifaceted social institution that has civil/economic implications (first and foremost) and cultural implications as varied as the number of people on the planet. To state that it is only a religious institution is incredibly myopic to it's history and evolution in human society. That all said, we pretty much have the same view, but I propose a slightly different solution: drop one of the terms entirely. There is no reason to differentiate between civil unions and marriage. They are legally the exact same thing - no reason to have two terms for it. I would say we drop "civil unions" and stick with "marriage", but that's just my opinion.
• wpietri 13y ago
  Putting money behind Prop 8 helped strip a civil right from gay people. It's technically true that proves nothing about Eich's beliefs. Heck, maybe it was Eich's personal Opposite Day. But does it matter? Even the bible says, "You will know them by their fruits," meaning that it's reasonable to judge people by what they do. The pseudo-gotcha about tolerance is ridiculous, an accusation of hypocrisy based on a straw man. Gay marriage isn't about some mushy notion of tolerance. It's about civil rights, about equality before the law. As you point out, we don't yet know his views. This is about his actions. And the concern about him as CEO also isn't about tolerance. It's about safety. Given that Eich has worked against the civil rights of gay people without explanation or apology, it's reasonable for gay employees and business partners to be concerned. When he was CTO, it wasn't as big a deal, because that was a technical role. But as boss of everybody, it's a different thing. Personally, I don't think he should have left over his donation. I think he should have explained and apologized for his gay-hostile action before or as part of the CEO transition. Failing to recognize the problem in advance and then failing to deal with it quickly and forthrightly did make me strongly question his fitness to be CEO. Mozilla's CEO needs to lead and inspire people, and to adroitly handle the media, both traditional and social, adroitly. At that, so far, he's very much failed.
  • smsm42 13y ago
    >>> it's reasonable for gay employees and business partners to be concerned. Unless Mozilla has entered into business of organizing gay weddings while I wasn't looking - no, it's not reasonable at all. No more than gun owner should be concerned if his CEO donated to a known anti-gun politician, or a medical marijuana user should be concerned if his business partner donated to a politician that opposes drug legalization. There was nothing in Eich's actions that would concern his employees and business partners in their capacity as employees and business partners. As far as it is known, he didn't say he would fire gay people (and he didn't do that either), he didn't say he would deny them benefits if affording such benefits were recognized by the law, he didn't refuse to enter any deals because opposing side was represented by gay person - in short, he did absolutely nothing of the sort that may raise such reasonable suspicion. The only base for that is "he's for prop 8, so he must be despicable person, so he's evil, so we have reasonable suspicion he would hate us because that's what evil people do". It's not an argument, it's a series of stretches, one worse than the other.
• pdabbadabba 13y ago
  Yeah, and here's a third thing: Prop 8 support is mainstream TODAY! Sure, maybe it's extremely unpopular among the hackernews crowd (including myself) but let's not forget that Prop 8 support is hardly fringe. Prop 8 actually passed! In California!
  • zimpenfish 13y ago
    It passed with 52% 6 years ago with an allegedly confusing ballot paper. You can't extrapolate from that to what might happen if you repeated the vote today.
    • pdabbadabba 13y ago
      I'm not saying it would easily pass again if a vote were held today. All I'm saying this establishes is that opposition to gay marriage is not, in the community at large, a fringe view.
      • zimpenfish 13y ago
        ...in 2008 according to a possibly confusing ballot paper. You cannot in any way extrapolate from that vote 6 years ago to how things might be now. No sir, you cannot.
        • pdabbadabba 13y ago
          Then I suggest you go read some opinion polls. Here's a relatively recent one: http://www.gallup.com/poll/163730/back-law-legalize-gay-marriage-states.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/163730/back-law-legalize-gay-marr... Yes, a majority of Americans apparently now support gay marriage! Yay! But 43% remain against it. Of course, reasonable people could disagree about exactly what constitutes a "fringe view." But I doubt many would say that the term covers views held by 43% of the population. So, yeah, maybe the ballot was confusing, and maybe that was six whole years ago. But I'd say it is, nonetheless, a generally pretty accurate indicator of people's views on the subject.