171–180 of 230 posts
For those of you defending Eich, what if he monetarily supported white supermacy instead? Would you still feel comfortable about his position?
Just the CEO? Who else shall we burn at the stake? Mary, the office manager, goes to church every Sunday. How did she vote? John over in mobile dev is a devout Muslim, I'll bet he doesn't take kindly to such things as gay marriage. Time to start scanning through those campaign contribution records for Prop 8 and seeing if a JOIN on the employee database gives us any results. I've always held to the idea that my job i…
There's a huge difference between holding general religious beliefs and contributing financially to a political movement specifically pursuing institutional discrimination of a large class of Americans. I'm a little troubled by the chilling effects that career and public opinion can have on political expression, but it's hard to generate sympathy for blatantly unconstitutional, horrendously discriminatory forms of po…
So, you can believe whatever you want, as long as you don't act on your beliefs?
> ... to a political movement specifically pursuing institutional discrimination of a large class of Americans.
Prop 8 was proposed by the voters of California, it would not have had direct ramifications on the rest of the US.
> ... blatantly unconstitutional...
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/27/us/politics/supreme-court-...
The last big ruling by the SCOTUS on gay marriage came down to a 5-4 vote. The supreme court justices are not amateurs at enforcing the US Constitution. That it was 5-4 is a good sign that the issue is hard to argue one way or the other from the constitution.
EDIT: typo
[1] http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/california-employment...
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I wouldn't call it a witch hunt. Now every Mozilla employee's work is contributing to Eich's paycheck. The paycheck with which he will (has) donate(d) to oppose gay marriage. If I was a Mozilla employee, this is not something I would want to be contributing to. This argument can obviously be applied to any employee in the company, but it's severely exacerbated when it's applied to the CEO, who's getting a huge payche…
"This argument can obviously be applied to any employee in the company, but it's severely exacerbated when it's applied to the CEO" So, you're saying then, that they should go through the donations of every employee, ever, and fire anyone who donated to a cause that a sub-group of employees disagrees with?
With this line drawn, it's not about going through and ratting out people who donate to stuff you don't like, and it's not about limit free speech. This is about supporting human rights, and more specifically to the private company, maintaining a workplace that is inclusive to everyone, and a vision for the company that everyone can get behind.
Yes, everyone has free speech and should be able to support whatever they want, but when you support oppression, I think it's completely fair that there is backlash and questioning of whether you should be part of, and benefitting from, a inclusive group. The employees have every right (freedom of speech, remember?) to voice opposition to you in your role, because it really does affect everyone in the company.
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We have secret ballots for a reason: what you do in public has consequences. When you speak in public, it's possible that you will face censure from your employers, your employees, or your customers. You can't control how other people feel about what your actions.
Sure it's possible , and of course legal. But it behooves your employers, employees and customers to remember that we live in a civil society, and banishing the heretics rather than gracefully tolerating and persuading them is poisonous for that society.
His suitability for a leadership position is openly questioned by employees in light of his publicly espoused views. Nothing more, nothing less.
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He expressed his views publicly. They are subject to public criticism. It's absurd to characterize any form of criticism, especially something relatively mild as this, as a witch-hunt. Anti-gay bigotry is socially unacceptable. Honestly anyone who thought about it at length ought to have realized we were heading in this direction. And the bar for denying an entire category of people's rights out to be relatively high…
Try to see this from another angle. It's 1970 and you've donated to an organization that advocates equal rights to blacks. As a consequence, when you rise through the ranks at your company and have the opportunity to be considered for CEO, your board of directors rejects you on the basis of that contribution. What you're saying is it's ok to deprive a man of his livelihood based on the current state of public opinion…
I think you're presupposing that principles are interchangeable and I don't accept that. I believe in some inherent human rights, and the merits of this particular issue are incredibly relevant. The gentleman in question made a substantial monetary contribution aimed at denying a collection of people a set of privileges.
The reasons for why society ought to privilege views like his over the rights of other people are flimsy at best; it's just a lousy idea given that the basis is wholly religious. Substitute something interracial marriage if you prefer. The fact is that some views are not just immoral in the face of society's avowed principles but unsound as well.
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There're any number of reasons why someone might visit those countries. When you put up $1K towards a political campaign whose raison d'etre is to deny gay people the right to marry, it's rather well defined what the expectation is. I don't understand what charities have to do with this, though. Surely there are charities which would be morally objectionable. If he'd donated to a charity with similar aims to the Prop…
> There're any number of reasons why someone might visit those countries. People were calling for a boycott of all things Russian, or did you forget that? The irony of course being that Russia decriminalized same-sex relationships in 1993 long before the US, effectively, did the same in 2003 even though 14 states still ban sodomy.
I don't really see how this is relevant except for a tit-for-tat comparison b/w Russia and the US, which is kinda pointless.
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You're wrong on two points: a) Contributing financially to many religious institutions is explicitly financing groups who opposed gay marriage, and is an activity than many religious people undertake. b) Advocating for something that in some views is unconstitutional is a constitutionally protected activity. The practice itself may be unconstitutional (I certainly think so), however, the political advocacy itself is…
a) When you fund "mormonism" or whatever, there is a lot of plausible deniability that you're not a bigot, as this is a huge population of people doing a mix of things, mostly good. In contrast, when you specifically fund Prop 8, you need a really good excuse. b) Advocating for something that is purely prejudicial and hateful is deserving of censure. As I said, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about holding people ac…
I don't even agree with these people, but people who express views like yours - that we should censor views we find distasteful so they can't even be discussed openly - make it really hard to comfortably take a stand against them.
I'm not for censorship, even of views I find extremely distasteful, and don't advocating punishing people merely for holding or articulating them.
Is there any evidence he's done anything besides be part of the political process, such as discriminate in the running of the nonprofit?
*Edit to fix typo.
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Do you support employees being fired for supporting gay marriage then? I don't see any difference in the two positions (both are using their paychecks to advanced a political cause), except that you personally agree with one position and not the other.
The difference is that only one of those positions in a boss is threatening. Take interracial marriage as a parallel. If you are in a mixed-race marriage and your boss has tried to prevent interracial marriage, you could reasonably feel threatened. Whereas if your boss supports equality, you won't worry whether you are in a same-race or mixed-race marriage.
Of course, I don't need to feel threatened by people disagreeing with life choices I've made just because they don't like them, nor do I need to retaliate against people having different views. I can act like a professional at work while expressing my dissent in the marketplace of ideas.
I don't think Mozilla employees are wrong to say he's wrong on Twitter - I think they're wrong to link it to workplace politics sans any demonstration of him doing so.