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The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

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Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#191

Post by kevingadd »

datapolitical wrote: post #39
kevingadd wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you get a pass on a politician with a record like this. http://www.ontheissues.org/house/Chris_Cannon.htm#Civil_Righ... It's like saying 'well, he's a white supremacist, but he has pretty good views on economic policy!' - if those issues are important to you (and they probably should be!) it's not reasonable to overlook them. You have to draw a line somewhere, even if you are occasionally willing to all…

He got primaried three times by guys even more right wing. My bet is that someone said, let's preserve sane republicans while we still can.

He simply does not qualify as a 'sane' republican. The lesser of all evils and all that, sure, but when both candidates are absolute monsters you really shouldn't fund either of them (even if, given no other option, you vote for one)

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#192

Post by hackinthebochs »

Karunamon wrote: post #188
hackinthebochs wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Religion does not hold a monopoly of any kind on the concept of matrimony. Neither does government, so why does it matter what government calls it?

Because the government definition is tied to various contracts and benefits.

But those contracts and benefits can be had without the word. Was Prop 8 attempting to permanently remove the ability to gain those benefits?

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#193

Post by seertaak »

dang wrote: post #140
Karunamon wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not qualified to tell the other side of the story. What a cop out. You're, like everyone else who disagrees with this, downplaying Eich's behavior and trying to turn activists into the "real" monsters for speaking out. Why the double standard? Why does one man, Eich, get a pass on speaking out for his personal political beliefs (with cash), but you demonize the the (hundreds? thousands? more?) people who did noth…

You should be ashamed of yourself. I appreciate the intensity of the issue, but personal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News. Edit: thanks to seertaak below for pointing out that this was trivial compared to what Karunamon was responding to. I get that it gives the wrong impression to admonish one person while ignoring something much worse. On the other hand, we (and certainly I) can't read all the comments, so th…

You really should be saying that to bluntly_said -- his/her comments are far more unhinged than Kuranamon.

e.g. "fucking PATHETIC" "yo FUCKHEAD" "FUCK YOU" "...you're a bully. A fucking FUCKHEAD bully"

Two wrongs don't make a right, but "you should be ashamed of yourself" is pretty tame compared to the above.

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#194

Post by anonbanker »

dfc wrote: post #165
anonbanker wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you can't make a 10-second soundbyte out of it? I sure can. Picture Scumbag Steve, if you will. ENCOURAGES PEOPLE TO BOYCOT MOZILLA FOR ANTI-GAY CEO. DONATES TO ANTI-GAY CAUSES.

As far as PR nightmare backlashes go your example is a walk in the park. I thought it went without saying that the sound bite needed to be accurate but I guess not. The donation was made to a politician, not to an issue group. These two are not equivalent. The inaccuracy makes it very easy for OKC to dismiss your response and no semi-decent journalist is going to discuss your inaccurate claim. Your response also suff…

So you take the Scumbag Steve hat, and photoshop it on Sam Yagan's head, then place the text I mentioned. I invite you to look into image-based memes, as it seems you're confused on their execution.

sound bytes are almost intentionally inaccurate. if you could take such a complex issue and fit it into twenty words or less, you're probably losing a lot, or it wasn't a substantial issue.

As far as PR nightmare backlashes go, the Eich one is a walk in the park. An efficient corporate PR campaign would have taken Eich's initial response, and ran with it, having Eich personally donate money to LGBTQ campaigns that aren't related to Proposition 8. That would have crippled the backlash, because half the LBGTQ's would've pointed to the donation as a sign that Brendan-Now is different than Brendan-Then.

Sadly, they didn't respond fast enough, or effectively enough. How many other CEO's have been ousted because of their Gay Rights stances?

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#195

Post by [deleted] »

baddox wrote: post #108
AlexMax wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but I find it incredulous that the only reason that some folks are unwilling to give LGBT folks the right to marry is because of what the state happens to call the practice.

Why is that hard to believe? A lot of people demonstrably oppose calling it marriage, even when homosexual couples already have the same legal rights and benefits as heterosexual couples.

[deleted]

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#196

Post by briantakita »

Karunamon wrote: post #160
briantakita wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> His actions show otherwise. Those who know him say he treated everybody equally. He set policy & a supported a system in Mozilla that promoted equality. His heart is in a decent place. We all have moral blind spots. He has his past. We all need to grow in some areas. Painting Eich as some "extremist" is disingenuous. > How well do you think a CEO would do if it came out that they were donators to Stormfront? Prop 8…

He has his past. If that was truly the case he would have explained this when asked about it. He did not. He quit his job rather than do this. Prop 8 had 52% of the vote. It is a mainstream opinion. With ads like this [1] I'm not surprised. His money went to support those, by the way. And you probably meant was . "ok" to be kneejerk judgmental. You and everyone else I've asked this question to seem to dance around it…

> You and everyone else I've asked this question to seem to dance around it. How is this any different than supporting any other kind of anti-equality thing?

He has not said anything hateful.

In many ways, I think his opinion is not conducive to equality. In fact, the notion of marriage is unequal. It's unequal to people who don't want to get married or are polyamorous. Also, there are many natural inequalities. There are many gray areas. Also, everybody has prejudices and promote inequality in some contexts.

However, just because someone has an opinion of inequality, doesn't mean he should be the target of a smear campaign.

Tolerance is important.

> Rejecting intolerance is the first step.

That's why I'm rejecting the gay rights movement's online bullying tactics. You don't get a free pass just because you were an oppressed minority in the past.

> Which holds about as much water as "sorry you were offended" in my book.

He said he is sorry he caused pain. He admitted to causing the pain and apologized for that. He did not turn the blame around to say your perception is wrong.

He is the target of your hate. Let go of your hate. Hate is the dark side...

> I have no problem what-so-ever castigating someone for bad behavior if it's actually proven that they did engage in bad behavior.

It's not proven that he behaved badly. Also, who is the proper judge of this? The mob always feels like they are the right judge. The mob always feels justified. How else could the mob justify the bad things that mobs do to their victims?

> you're mis-framing Eich's action as if it were a mere opinion or thought that crossed his mind one day

Have a rational dialog about this. Express how much pain Prop 8 caused. Express why this is an inequality & how that affects you. Don't act with vengeance.

That is why Martin Luther King & Ghandi were successful. They did not act like their oppressors. They had the moral high ground. If they acted with vengeance, equality would not be as far as it is today.

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#197

Post by scarmig »

aryastark wrote: post #185
scarmig wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're willing to donate $1000 dollars to a bigoted cause, you're a bigot. It doesn't matter if his religion tells him it's okay; he's still a bigot. It doesn't matter if gays make him feel squicky: he's still a bigot. If my religion told me "black people are children of Ham, therefore you should separate yourself from them" (an argument that was once used), you'd rightly call me a bigot. What's the difference her…

I'm sorry, but Prop 8 passed. By 7 million people. Boycotting Mozilla? Really? You need to talk about boycotting California . Making a scapegoat out of one single person for what an entire state did is fucking insane.

The number you're looking for is 599,602 people, not 7 million people.

Note that I've not said anything to support boycotting Mozilla or calling for Eich to get fired. I just don't like people laughing it off as just some good ole fun he was having.

Donating money--real money, $1,000--to a campaign of hate is bad, particularly considering the vile rhetoric it used those funds for directly. Bad bad bad. It's also bad to have voted for it, but just bad, not bad bad bad.

I don't think being a bigot means you're inherently a terrible person or that you should be fired from a position. That's situational. I say it was a bad move for the board to make him CEO in the first place--the rage and hurt that'd happen because of that was easily foreseeable--and I'm neutral/too lacking of information on Mozilla's organizational health on whether he should have been fired after he got the position.

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#198

Post by Karunamon »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #192
Karunamon wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the government definition is tied to various contracts and benefits.

But those contracts and benefits can be had without the word. Was Prop 8 attempting to permanently remove the ability to gain those benefits?

Which is a longer and more arduous process to fix. In the mean time, you've got a constitutional issue that must be addressed now.

California had a few options here.

* Redefine all "marriages" as "civil unions". Makes the religious folks and libertarians happy, but introduces a problem in that you've deleted something that every other state recognizes. How will marriages in other states carry over? How about contracts that recognize a marriage (out of state insurance comes to mind)? Etc? Those would all be invalid. You've also ensured that any union in California (ANYONE's, not just LGBT's) would be invalid in any other state because they're legally not marriages anymore.

I say this solution introduces what would be known in the packaging world as dependency hell. Too many other things rely on the first thing to exist in its current state. You've introduced a change that is going to break a lot of things without dealing with them first.

Bad idea all around.

* Amend the legal definition of marriage to include any two people. Simplest thing that could possibly work, ensures that marriages performed in the state will be recognized elsewhere and for other purposes. No dependency issues. Annoys the religious folks a bit, but religious views have no say in law anyways!

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#199

Post by AlexMax »

bluntly_said wrote: post #90
AlexMax wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but I find it incredulous that the only reason that some folks are unwilling to give LGBT folks the right to marry is because of what the state happens to call the practice.

I think the issue is that as long as the state endows rights to religious practice (marriage) there is a problem. If the state only gave rights and taxed civil unions, the churches cannot, by definition, control if other people get married. All they'd need to do is find a church willing to marry them, or start their own. To quote from another of my posts: --- I think once the legal implications are removed, churches…

> I think the issue is that as long as the state endows rights to religious practice (marriage) there is a problem.

Legal marriage and religious marriage are already not the same thing. That was the entire point of my statement - that legally, it didn't matter what the state called it because it is a separate institution. You can get legally married without a religious ceremony.

Re: The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

#200

Post by Karunamon »

bluntly_said wrote: post #164
mkr-hn wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prop 8 was part of a long-running--to this day--national campaign to create and maintain this separation across many jurisdictions with different takes on marriage and civil union. The campaign has employed every negative tactic imaginable. You have to look at it in that context to understand why it's still an issue, even if it seems okay on the level of one state. The trouble is, it's easy to give one class new thin…

But I think this is still wrong. Giving marriage any rights at all is respecting a religious practice in the government. I think we solve the problem not by forcing those who are religious to accept gays, or by forcing gay people to accept a different word for the same rights. I think we solve it by acknowledging that marriage should never have had rights, and forcing anyone who wants the rights currently afforded to…

A practice that religion happens to do - not a religious practice. Marriage did not originate as a religious ceremony, but as a legal contract to deal with things like childen and property.

The fact that various churches horned in on this should carry no meaning, or else you're setting a really bad precedent, namely that anything enough churches do cannot be legislated on in any way.

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