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Torn and weary (on Brendan Eich and Mozilla)

christianheilmann.com

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Re: Torn and weary (on Brendan Eich and Mozilla)

#61

Post by tomelders »

purringmeow wrote: post #25
tomelders wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is madness. Is it ok for someone to lose their job for being racist? Is it ok for someone to lose their job for not being racist? Is it ok for someone to lose their job for being sexist? Is it ok for someone to lose their job for not being sexist? Is it ok for someone to lose their job for being homophobic? Yes. Is it ok for someone to lose their job for not being homophobic? No. Do people lose their jobs for be…

Who said Eich is a homophobe? If marriage were a right, why are we denying it to so many groups - not only gays, but polygamists and relatives? Also, do not equate racism and interracial marriages with homosexual marriages. The former is just a matter of skin color - a black man and a white man are the same. If we go by the racist logic, it would be OK to deny a tanned white man marrying a pale white woman. Homosexua…

Oh how you're wrong, let me count the way.

Polygamists are entitled to get married. You can't be a polygamist if you're not married. Everyone who has the right to get married has the right to be married to one other person at a time. Polygamists included.

As for relatives, they're free to marry people who are not close blood relatives for solid biological reasons that are well defined and well understood. You strain your argument to the point of ludicrousness to suggest anyone should be ok with close blood relatives marrying. Adopted siblings would be free to get married. A man would be free to marry his adopted mother. As abhorrent as that may sound to any people reading this (adopted or otherwise), the law isn't that you can't marry relatives, it that there are specific kinds of relatives you are not allowed to marry.

Also, do not equate racism and interracial marriages with homosexual marriages. The former is just a matter of skin color - a black man and a white man are the same. If we go by the racist logic, it would be OK to deny a tanned white man marrying a pale white woman.

What on earth are you talking 'bout willis? Are you saying that gay men are different to straight men? Because if that's what you think, then you are, without a shadow of a doubt, a fully qualified homophobe. In fact, you could get a job teaching homophobia at the international college for cunts.

If you want the public to support your cause

I don't care one jot wether the public support it or not. They sure as hell didn't support equal rights for black people. Where would black people in america be now if they had to wait for the white man to acknowledge their rights? This stuff isn't up for debate, this is the way the world is going to be wether you like it or not. If you think the world is waiting for you to say, "it's OK, gay people can have rights, I'll allow it", then you're delusional.

Re: Torn and weary (on Brendan Eich and Mozilla)

#62

Post by tomelders »

nailer wrote: post #44
tomelders wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does. You do not get to chose the parameters of what makes a homophobe. The people who suffer at the whim of homophobes make that distinction. Opposition to same sex marriage is 100% homophobic. Same sex marriage doesn't hurt anyone. It's prejudice, plain and simple.

From the article you just read: > For a cynical person, this would be a great way out: “OK, I am not $x, so it is not my problem, you just claimed that I have no right to an opinion as I never experienced the suffering. Done.” I'm not going to debate you: re-posting your opinion with no supporting arguments means you've obviously made up your mind. I think it's rubbish that someone can't access their life partner in…

I'll answer your first two points one go; So what? If their concept is diminished by someone else's interpretation of marriage, then that's their problem, no one else's.

Do christians think jews have no right to worship? Do methodists believe anglicans have no right to worship? Of course not. They all worship the same god, and they all seem to have no problem allowing the other group to have their own definition of what worshiping god means without it diminishing what they believe worshiping god means.

So why does one persons definition of marriage take precedence over someone else's?

I don't know what you're attempting to say with your third point, but then I don't think you've properly thought anything through, as evidenced by your childish gambit of "You can't call me a homophobe because I said you can't".

If you think it's ok to deny same sex couples the opportunity to marry, then you're a homophobe. Regardless of wether you argument against it is in support of some other persons beliefs.

Re: Torn and weary (on Brendan Eich and Mozilla)

#64

Post by coolj »

MetaCosm wrote: post #48
zimbatm wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are strong feelings. Don't you think that everyone is entitled to their own opinions ? In any case you can't force somebody to think differently, otherwise it's bullying. I'm pro LGBT and I think this is a loss for the cause. I'm pro LGBT because I don't think that people should get persecuted for being different. I want to promote peace, tolerance and compassion. Bullying someone into stepping down from his ro…

Would you be fine if Eich had donated $1000 to an group trying to stop inter-racial marriage? Inter-racial marriage issues are not some far past thing, "In October 2009, Keith Bardwell, a Louisiana justice of the peace, refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple..." In your mind, is being against interracial marriage just an opinion people shouldn't be held to account for... or like me, would you sa…

> an opinion people shouldn't be held to account for...

I believe people should be held publicly accountable for their actions, not their thoughts/opinions, no matter how strongly I may disagree with their ideas. I wouldn't be too worried about a CEO of Mozilla who had at some point contributed $1000 to a group trying to stop interracial- (or gay-, or plural-, or cats-and-dogs-) marriage by itself, if it were the person's own money. There are benign reasons a person may support such views, however misguided they may be, without being motivated by hate. So nothing in that contribution alone to makes me suspect the person would behave unfairly in the workplace towards the group of people supporting such marriage or trying to be married. To bring it back from the thought experiment to the current situation, I'm pretty sure a lot of people worked with Brendan at Mozilla, and I haven't heard of anyone coming forward with complaints of homophobia against him after working with/for him... so yeah.

Re: Torn and weary (on Brendan Eich and Mozilla)

#65

Post by tomelders »

Pacabel wrote: post #43
tomelders wrote: post #20

What world is this? When did everyone lose their minds and decide it was ok for some people to be Homophobes, but not for others? Can I be a racist if I'm a CEO? Am I free from criticism for my horrible beliefs just because I run an organisation that people like? Does donating $1000 to a movement that campaigns to take rights away form black people have any reflection on me? Can I be trusted to not let my world view…

I think you might be missing the overarching issue here. It isn't so much about the specifics of gay marriage, or Eich's donation, or him losing his job because of his opinions. The real issue is hypocrisy, contradiction and double-standards. We've seen one group (in this case the pro-gay-marriage crowd) act in a way towards others (Eich and the anti-gay-marriage crowd) that the first group would think is absolutely…

When people talk about equality, what they really mean is that people should not be punished, mistreated or excluded because of something they have no control over such as their gender, or skin color. But you seem to think that equality means people can think and do exactly as they please without consequence.

> We've seen one group (in this case the pro-gay-marriage crowd) act in a way towards others

Who exaclty? Which crowds? Because from where I'm looking it looks like people in the Mozilla organisation were responsible for this.

> If one group of people is going to hold another group of people to a certain set of standards, they really should make sure that they're willing to live by that exact same set of standards, too.

No. Society as a whole decides who's in, who's out. For centuries the gays were out and all the same sex marriage opponents were fine with that. Now the tides have turned and the homophobes are out. And good riddance because we lost some good people under the old tyranny.

Not everyone on this side of the argument is a tree hugging vegan liberal who thinks everyone should get along and form a consensus. I'm personally little more than an angry lump with fists and a strong sense of right and wrong. Appealing to some sense of balance you think I should have is a non starter. Show me a point in history where society was balanced and then we'll talk. I'm just hoping the people who hate unconditionally have to live under the tyranny of those who believe in real world fairness and real world equality.

Re: Torn and weary (on Brendan Eich and Mozilla)

#66

Post by dalke »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #31
brianchu wrote: post #11

Just so people are clear here, America has never had a right to free speech in the sense that a lot of people seem to be thinking. America has only ever had a legal right to free speech (and even then with many exceptions [1]); only government is bound by this. People tend to forget that the Constitution (and First Amendment) only applies to government. I haven't made up my mind whether Mozilla should have fired Bren…

You are absolutely correct that the private sector campaigns against Eich, Orson Scott Card, or Hollywood Communists were not violations of the constitutional amendment. But one can also appeal to a more general principle of free speech, which is ultimately what many people are doing. Scott Alexander has useful thoughts on this topic: http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/12/29/the-spirit-of-the-first... "A good response to…

That's a false equivalence, if only because Kathy Sierra received death threats. A threat of physical violence isn't an argument at all, and free speech doesn't extend to threats of violence. (Eg, http://www.cga.ct.gov/current/pub/chap_952.htm#sec_53a-62 has it as a Class A misdemeanor.)

As your own [1] points out, "Robert Scoble ... temporarily suspended their blogs in a show of support for Sierra." By your appeal to a "general principle of free speech", you surely must chastise Scoble's actions.

It's also a false appeal, because free speech does not stand alone, not even in the first amendment. The amendment lists several other rights, including the right to assembly, which protects freedom of association. We have a right to boycott. We have a right to picket. We have a right to call on others to participate in the boycott and picket. Those are free speech rights.

We have a right to quit a company, or stop volunteering for a company, if we don't like what it does. OKCupid has the right to prevent Firefox users from connecting to their site. These are parts of the freedom of association.

See http://www.popehat.com/2013/09/10/speech-and-consequences/ for the importance of freedom of association when talking about freedom of speech.

> Yet people often confuse these categories. It's one of the fundamental errors of free speech analysis that I like to write about the most. ... The foundation of "witch hunt" rhetoric is the notion that some free speech (say, Pax's) is acceptable, and other free speech (say, the speech of people criticizing and ridiculing Pax and his employer) is not. You can try to find a coherent or principled way to reconcile that, but you will fail."

Re: Torn and weary (on Brendan Eich and Mozilla)

#67

Post by tomelders »

Fice wrote: post #50
tomelders wrote: post #20

What world is this? When did everyone lose their minds and decide it was ok for some people to be Homophobes, but not for others? Can I be a racist if I'm a CEO? Am I free from criticism for my horrible beliefs just because I run an organisation that people like? Does donating $1000 to a movement that campaigns to take rights away form black people have any reflection on me? Can I be trusted to not let my world view…

Being in opposition to same-sex marriage does not make one a homophobe (even some gays are against it). If Eich did not express any aversion or hatred towards homosexuals, it is not justified to label him as a homophobe.

Some black people are racist towards black people. They're a minority though, so we don't let it muddy our definition of what racism means because that wouldn't be productive.

The same holds true here. Homophobic is as homophobic does.

Re: Torn and weary (on Brendan Eich and Mozilla)

#68

Post by tomelders »

lukasm wrote: post #60
tomelders wrote: post #20

What world is this? When did everyone lose their minds and decide it was ok for some people to be Homophobes, but not for others? Can I be a racist if I'm a CEO? Am I free from criticism for my horrible beliefs just because I run an organisation that people like? Does donating $1000 to a movement that campaigns to take rights away form black people have any reflection on me? Can I be trusted to not let my world view…

No one said it's ok to be racist or homophobic. The problem is lynching. I can clearly image similar case when someone hasn't done anything, but there is a semi-proof that he/she did. What if internet mob go after his/her family?

What if? What if they don't?

Re: Torn and weary (on Brendan Eich and Mozilla)

#69

Post by dalke »

daveqr wrote: post #24
brianchu wrote: post #11

Just so people are clear here, America has never had a right to free speech in the sense that a lot of people seem to be thinking. America has only ever had a legal right to free speech (and even then with many exceptions [1]); only government is bound by this. People tend to forget that the Constitution (and First Amendment) only applies to government. I haven't made up my mind whether Mozilla should have fired Bren…

People aren't concerned about the legal right to free speech here, they're concerned about the principle of free speech.

How do they reconcile the right of free speech by one person with the belief that others (eg, OKCupid) should not exercise their own rights of free speech and free association?

Surely you don't believe that the right of free speech means that people can never call for a boycott or participate in a picket when they disagree with the actions of an organization, or owners and employees thereof? The rights of speech and assembly are equally valued in the first amendment, with a long history in the US.

So far no one has been able to tell me how this is anything other than a successful boycott action by those opposed to Eich as a CEO.

Re: Torn and weary (on Brendan Eich and Mozilla)

#70

Post by tomelders »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #39
tomelders wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does. You do not get to chose the parameters of what makes a homophobe. The people who suffer at the whim of homophobes make that distinction. Opposition to same sex marriage is 100% homophobic. Same sex marriage doesn't hurt anyone. It's prejudice, plain and simple.

You do not get to chose the parameters of what makes a homophobe. The people who suffer at the whim of homophobes make that distinction. Your logic is flawed. Group A defines group B, and group B defines group A. As a result, there is no way to define membership in group A or B. Opposition to same sex marriage is 100% homophobic. Same sex marriage doesn't hurt anyone. It's prejudice, plain and simple. Does this apply…

I don't think you know what logic is for. It has very little bearing in the real world.
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