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Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

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Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#471

Post by clavalle »

xaa wrote: post #431

My father-in-law is a high-level official in the "Alliance Defending Freedom", which is essentially the conservative counterpart to the ACLU, providing legal advice to conservative causes. For years, he's been telling me about the "gay liberal agenda", which, to him, was not just about promoting gay rights, but also about silencing any freedom of speech advocating opposing viewpoints. I always pooh-poohed him and gen…

Free speech doesn't mean no consequences for your speech -- it means the government cannot interfere with your speech (within reason).

When you make political speech it is necessarily public not a privately held opinion. He made a political donation showing that he supported a law that curtailed a group of people's natural Right. That donation was used to try and affect public policy. That is not some theory he holds for himself, that is action that directly affects others.

Just because people hold opinions doesn't mean you have to tolerate them.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#472

Post by peteretep »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #447
peteretep wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does that make them all homophobes? What's your alternative explanation?

My explanation? That they were in favor of what the Proposition actually was, i.e. insertion of the following language into the state constitution: "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California" I don't think a supporter of such a clause is automatically a "homophobe". It might just be that the proponents did not wish to make same-sex marriage an institutional reality. That's not an in…

Out of interest, had the language been "only marriage between a man and a woman of the same color is valid or recognized in California", would you have said supporters of it were racists?

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#473

Post by benched »

DangerousPie wrote: post #45

I am a strong supporter of gay marriage, but I have to say that I find this very unfortunate and worrying. Apparently many Mozilla supporters seem to think it is okay to bully a qualified person out of his job only for his political views, even if they had absolutely no effect on his qualification or his actions on the job. I can't help but feel like this campaign has done a lot more harm to him than his $1000 donati…

"for his political views"

In this case, you cannot speak generally like this. In this case, it really matters exactly what those political views are, not just that they are "political". And that's why there was such an uproar, and why he's stepping down.

People seem to be willfully misunderstanding this. It's not like, "Whoa! Guys! We can persecute people for their ''''political'''' views now? What's up with that?" No, it's more like we're sick of having to liberate all the people that some people find too 'othery', one group at a time. We've seen this before. We know how it goes. We know how it ends, and we're less inclined than ever to play nice with the oppressing side.

And it really does not take a genius, or an orator, to see which side is the oppressing one.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#474

Post by JeremyMorgan »

danudey wrote: post #239
dethstar wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't just bad press, someone here posted a link to a "biggish" organization in, I think, Australia where they were asking people to boycott Mozilla by not using it's software.

Also, OkCupid called them out on it extremely publicly.

Yes, even though their employees have contributed far more.

http://pastebin.com/ekaFQXbE

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#475

Post by PhasmaFelis »

bruceb wrote: post #372
sanxiyn wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this showed Eich is insufficiently dedicated to Mozilla's mission. If Eich believed he can help Mozilla's mission by being a CEO (otherwise, why bother?), is lying about an issue more important than how much you could help Mozilla's mission? Utilitarian 101. On the other hand, Eich probably didn't make such utilitarian calculation, and followed "do not lie" deontology instead. Pity.

dumb question alert. Why are some replies so light you can barley read them? Is this something new on HN?

Anything with a zero/negative reputation is faded correspondingly. Mouse highlighting restores it to readability, of course.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#476

Post by LeoNatan25 »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #238
pessimizer wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>even if they had absolutely no effect on his qualification or his actions on the job. There's no evidence of this either way, and the qualifications for being a CEO are nearly orthogonal to the qualifications for being a developer. He's clearly an outstanding developer; though javascript seems the product of a damaged mind, it's the water we all swim in. As a CEO, he chooses the direction of the company and manages…

What evidence is there that he's a "homophobe"? 7 million other Californians also voted for Prop 8. Does that make them all homophobes?

It does indeed.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#477

Post by bowlofpetunias »

nostrademons wrote: post #60
phillmv wrote: post #14

From the recode recap - http://recode.net/2014/04/03/mozilla-co-founder-brendan-eich... >“It’s clear that Brendan cannot lead Mozilla in this setting,” said Baker, who added that she would not and could not speak for Eich. “The ability to lead — particularly for the CEO — is fundamental to the role and that is not possible here.” The most damning aspect of this was their a) inability to predict this would be an issue…

It speaks a lot to his integrity that he didn't. Would you rather have a CEO who says one thing in public and then goes and does another thing surreptitiously, or one who stands up for his beliefs even when they're unpopular?

The only people who can combine being anti gay marriage and integrity are those who are willing to openly admit they hate gay people.

Anybody with an ounce of integrity couldn't claim with straight face that gay marriage negatively affects their personal or religious beliefs and freedoms.

Not standing up for their beliefs but surreptitiously acting on them anyway is exactly what people like Eich do.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#478

Post by amadeus »

gfodor wrote: post #209
dopamean wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally agree with you but I think the problem here is that being against gay marriage is more than just a "political view." Being for low taxes is a political view. Being for smaller government is a political view. Believing a certain group of people don't deserve to live their lives like other simply because of who they love is not a political view. It reads as extremely hateful and that makes people uncomforta…

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 lives like others." It means you don't believe that the government should recognize same sex marriages as marriages. There are a large gradient of views here, and on one extreme are the bigots who hate homosexuals and on the other there are people who simply have…

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.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#479

Post by akerl_ »

matthewn wrote: post #422
icebraining wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All rights are subject to majority vote. Or subject to the majority, anyway.

No, rights are manifestly NOT subject to a vote. That is why they are called rights .

That is the case in an ideal world, where we receive some blessed words inscribed upon our souls and also a way to read them.

Since we don't live in that ideal world, our only option is to designate some body to decide what are rights and what are not. Whether that body is a king or a judge or a council of judges or a legislative body or the full populace (or some combination of the above) is an important and worthwhile discussion, but in the end we do need to designate some entity to decide what the rights are.

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