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Donating money to support a campaign on a proposition supported by 52% of voters is not 'hurting people', and saying so is hyperbolic and ridiculous. The reali
by gfodor 12y ago
Donating money to support a campaign on a proposition supported by 52% of voters is not 'hurting people', and saying so is hyperbolic and ridiculous.
The reality is that the gay rights movement did not have the unprecedented swiftness it did by alienating those who feel differently about homosexuality. It traditionally has been a movement predicated on the idea that people who didn't support gay rights could be converted if they could only be reached in the proper context. The effectiveness of this approach speaks for itself.
It's a shame and an embarrassment that people think it's appropriate or rational behavior to do what was done to Eich. If that type of behavior was the common reaction to someone who, privately I might add, had opinions counter to the movement then we would have been set back decades.
- dwild 12y agoSupporting a cause that limit someone right based on their sexual orientation is hurting people. The fact that 52% support it doesn't change the fact that you limit someone right. Even if 99% people believe that brown hair people shouldn't have the right to take the bus, it wouldn't be less wrong. It's not magically right to limit rights because the majority agree. I never said that what people did to Eich is right, I currently don't have an opinion on that because I doesn't know enough.
- gfodor 12y agoSorry, if you are going to re-define 'hurting people' to mean 'making a modest political donation to a mainstream position that some argue is discriminatory' I don't know what to tell you. This hard line perspective stifles an open society. In this case, money is speech, and regardless of how wrong it is it's not the kind of speech I'd classify as harmful. ("Fire in a crowded theater.")
- dwild 12y agoWhat's hurt people in this situation is to remove them their right. If you do an action with the goal to remove right from people, even if it's small, even if it's really indirect, if you do it with the goal to remove right from people, then yeah I believe it's wrong. We are all equals, we should have equals rights. Having equals right doesn't hurt anyone but having different rights does.
- dreamweapon 12y agoDonating money to support a campaign on a proposition supported by 52% of voters is not 'hurting people', and saying so is hyperbolic and ridiculous. (1) The fact that Prop 8 won in the polls is irrelevant to the question of whether it was hurtful or not. To say (in effect; not quoting you directly) that "if a ballot measure passes, it must be harmless" is kind of like saying that there's nothing wrong with supporting, say, a racist demagog because after all, their rallies were always attended by thronging, jubilant crowds. (2) What got Eich fired (or pushed into resigning, whatever) was not so much that he donated to a group supporting Prop 8 (by itself), but rather the bigoted TV ads ran by that group (which Eich apparently never distanced himself from). That was really the "clincher" that rallied people against him.