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I believe that Brendan did not properly communicate his personal beliefs on the matter. I think people who believe in christian values are afraid of stating tho

I believe that Brendan did not properly communicate his personal beliefs on the matter. I think people who believe in christian values are afraid of stating those views publicly because in the US there is a bad history of christian fundamentalists (ie Moral Majority) who fanatically attack people who do not ascribe to christian moral values. Despite a high percentage of people in the US who profess to be christians, the US has one of the highest divorce rates in the world. A lot of people see the christian concept of family unit as basically flawed, we live in a culture where divorce and single parents are the norm. There is also the issue of separation of church and state when dealing with family values. So I think a lot of people who are in position of authority are afraid of publicly stating their personal christian beliefs because christian values seem to be so out of touch with what is actually going on. Indeed it is not morally right nor is it lawful to force religious beliefs on someone. But we still have a right to have moral beliefs that we use to help form our decisions. In my view Brendan appeared to back down from openly stating what his personal beliefs are on the matter and to fall back on the idea that he supports anti-discrimination laws (that include discrimination on the basis of sexual preference). I think its possible to have moral convictions based on religion and vote in ways that support those convictions. This is not discrimination, there is no 'ultimate moral code' that transcends all laws or religious beliefs. In the end all laws and moral codes must come from somewhere. These laws must be fair and not tied to any religion or moral code but must be voted on democratically. Brendan backed down from explaining why he holds such beliefs. This sort of makes him a coward and someone who is afraid to speak on what he personally believes to be true because of fear he will be seen as intolerant.

BradCantrell 11y ago
I just want to clarify in my post that I dont believe in a fight or confrontation of christians vs gays or any other group of people. I dont want to give the impression that Im calling Brendan to fight a holy war. My main point is we need to maintain our freedom of speech and freedom of thought, we should be free to say what our values are. Im not accusing Brendan of being afraid and using the word coward is probably overly dramatic. But Im saying we dont appreciate our freedoms until we lose them and I dont think there was healthy or free dialog in how things played out during this controversy. More and more discrimination issues are being brought forward in Silicon Valley and we are going to have deal more and more with people who have strong moral differences to our own. Brendan Eich just happens to be thrown in the spotlight for exersizing his right to vote on something others disagree with. So like it or not this incident will have a president on how issues like this are handled in the future.
- orionblastar 11y ago
  SSM isn't something that a lot of people in the tech industry discuss in public. A lot of people in a SSM want to stay in the closet for example. In 1999 I worked for a law firm that developed a series of web apps. One of them displays employee information from the HR database (We were developing an HR management system) I was added to add some fields to the employee info page. One of them was Spouse_Name. Now this was in St. Louis Missouri that has a city law that protects against sexual orientation and the law firm was connected with the Democrats. I told my manager I objected to adding in spouse name as it out would people who had a same sex partner in the database. He told me it was nonsense and that nobody would discriminate against a gay couple. I told him some might want to keep it a secret just in case. He told me to add it or get fired. So I added it. There were a lot of complaints that the web app was broken and showing a spouse of the same sex. A lot of them supervisors or managers. I was blamed for outing them with my web app. I feel bad about it to this day. Stuff like that stressed me out and lead to my mental breakdown and development of a mental illness. I didn't mean to harm anyone or out anyone with my web app. But I just wanted to say that some SSM people want to keep it a secret, and not talk about it. Even if it is an issue that needs to be addressed. There are many people who left Christianity over issues like that, they became non-practicing or atheists as a result.

BradCantrell 11y ago

I just want to clarify in my post that I dont believe in a fight or confrontation of christians vs gays or any other group of people. I dont want to give the impression that Im calling Brendan to fight a holy war. My main point is we need to maintain our freedom of speech and freedom of thought, we should be free to say what our values are. Im not accusing Brendan of being afraid and using the word coward is probably overly dramatic. But Im saying we dont appreciate our freedoms until we lose them and I dont think there was healthy or free dialog in how things played out during this controversy. More and more discrimination issues are being brought forward in Silicon Valley and we are going to have deal more and more with people who have strong moral differences to our own. Brendan Eich just happens to be thrown in the spotlight for exersizing his right to vote on something others disagree with. So like it or not this incident will have a president on how issues like this are handled in the future.

orionblastar 11y ago
SSM isn't something that a lot of people in the tech industry discuss in public. A lot of people in a SSM want to stay in the closet for example. In 1999 I worked for a law firm that developed a series of web apps. One of them displays employee information from the HR database (We were developing an HR management system) I was added to add some fields to the employee info page. One of them was Spouse_Name. Now this was in St. Louis Missouri that has a city law that protects against sexual orientation and the law firm was connected with the Democrats. I told my manager I objected to adding in spouse name as it out would people who had a same sex partner in the database. He told me it was nonsense and that nobody would discriminate against a gay couple. I told him some might want to keep it a secret just in case. He told me to add it or get fired. So I added it. There were a lot of complaints that the web app was broken and showing a spouse of the same sex. A lot of them supervisors or managers. I was blamed for outing them with my web app. I feel bad about it to this day. Stuff like that stressed me out and lead to my mental breakdown and development of a mental illness. I didn't mean to harm anyone or out anyone with my web app. But I just wanted to say that some SSM people want to keep it a secret, and not talk about it. Even if it is an issue that needs to be addressed. There are many people who left Christianity over issues like that, they became non-practicing or atheists as a result.