Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO • Hacker News Board

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#821

Post by fakeanon » Fri, Apr 04, 2014, 2:05 AM UTC

>Our organizational culture reflects diversity and inclusiveness. We welcome contributions from everyone regardless of age, culture, ethnicity, gender, gender-identity, language, race, sexual orientation, geographical location and religious views. Mozilla supports equality for all.

_Unless one of your cultural or religious views is that marriage is between one man and one woman._ We're inclusive of everyone! Unless you voted for something we don't like... I'm not saying you should hire anybody, but don't pretend like you will then don't.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#822

Post by nickonline » Fri, Apr 04, 2014, 2:08 AM UTC

hkphooey wrote: post #655

xaa wrote: post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a problem with the very idea that a mostly apolitical organization like Mozilla should have a sweeping political/social/cultural alignment. If Eich were opposed to net neutrality, or against open internet standards, etc, those would be damning beliefs for someone in the Mozilla CEO spot. Gay rights, however, have nothing whatsoever to do with Mozilla. (I agree with you that Hobby Lobby would fire a pro-gay-rig…

Bingo. It seems that some Mozilla employees and members of the public deluded themselves into thinking Mozilla was some kind of political charity fighting for social causes, rather than being a technology company.

No one is deluded into thinking Mozilla is a political charity.

They most certainly are a technology company and everyone knows that, so are the companies behind Chrome, Internet Explorer and Safari. As far as I know none of the CEO's behind those companies are openly anti-gay marriage.

The public, and the employees of Mozilla have expressed that this is not an appropriate view for the CEO to hold and will move to other offerings if he is left. He used his freedom of speech to speak out with his wallet against gay marriage. Just as the consumers and employees have expressed that they will use the free market to go to competitors if he is not ousted.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#823

Post by cookiecaper » Fri, Apr 04, 2014, 2:09 AM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #764

cookiecaper wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that support for Prop 8 has been misrepresented as "hate" of gays, and that gullible young people have been tricked to support the gay agenda in the first place, and also to believe anyone who disagrees with that agenda is a "reprehensible bigot". If "gay rights" are really so self-evident, let's confront the haters and explain in a clear, concise manner why their beliefs are invalid. The thing is that…

Trying to strip civil rights from people for no rational reason may, for some individuals, may not be motivated by hate. But if you're on the receiving end of it, I'm not sure it makes much of a difference. It would be great if you could solve civil rights problems by patiently explaining obvious facts to people. But that's not how it works. If you think you can do better than current gay rights activists (who have m…

I think the gay rights activists have to resort to bullying precisely because their case is not supported by rationality. I also do not believe that this is a "civil rights" issue, nor do I believe that same-sex marriages should be legal. In fact, I don't even believe homosexual behavior should be legal.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#824

Post by silencio » Fri, Apr 04, 2014, 2:11 AM UTC

blindhippo wrote: post #815

incongruity wrote: post #735

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't paint all Christians with a broad brush. I, for one, support gay marriage, as do many others. Just say'n. On the other hand, I also think it'd be completely valid to say that the government shouldn't be in the 'marriage' business at all (gay or straight) and it should only handle contracts -- aka civil unions. One could then parse "marriage" to be something reserved for whatever church/belief system/pers…

"Marriage" IS a civil contract. This is the entire point of the institution. And considering the Government is the embodiment of and the centralized authority for our society, it very much should be at the center of marriage. A "marriage" is a multifaceted social institution that has civil/economic implications (first and foremost) and cultural implications as varied as the number of people on the planet. To state th…

You wrote the comment I was about to write, but I would also add: plenty of groups have come up with modifiers or completely new names to describe their marriages as they differ from the civil meaning of "marriage", so I'm not sure what the big deal is about putting the burden on (for example) religions to come up with something other than "marriage" by itself to use if sharing it with lgbt people getting married is just unimaginable for some reason.

See: handfasting, "celestial marriage"/"eternal marriage"/sealing etc. from Mormons (but having different names for their own marriage rites wasn't enough to stop them from supporting Prop 8 I guess...), common law marriage if you want to take the government out of the equation...

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#825

Post by pdabbadabba » Fri, Apr 04, 2014, 2:15 AM UTC

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…

Yeah, and here's a third thing: Prop 8 support is mainstream TODAY! Sure, maybe it's extremely unpopular among the hackernews crowd (including myself) but let's not forget that Prop 8 support is hardly fringe. Prop 8 actually passed! In California!

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#826

Post by bethling » Fri, Apr 04, 2014, 2:16 AM UTC

phaus wrote: post #729

amadeus wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

>Sorry, you're just wrong. There is no language in prop 8 that has to do with the concept of civil unions. Let me start by saying that I find both scenarios (pro-civil union/anti gay marriage and plain old anti gay marriage) equally reprehensible, but your logic is flawed. I'm an atheist married to a young-earth Christian, so I get to hang out with quite a few other young-earth Christians. The logic behind prop 8 is…

But we can look to states like Washington - where there were 2 votes - 3 years apart on gay unions. One established domestic partnerships with all the state-granted rights and responsibilities of marriage. The other legalized same sex marriage.

They both passed with nearly identical results. To me that indicates that a pretty large percentage (at least in Washington) of the electorate that opposes same-sex marriage, opposed anything - no matter what it's called.

Yes, there are some people who really are concerned about the name of the relationship, and he might be one of them. However, based to the Washington results, they seem to be in the vast minority of those who oppose same sex marriage.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#827

Post by cookiecaper » Fri, Apr 04, 2014, 2:17 AM UTC

ScottBurson wrote: post #761

gfodor wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are someone who believes gay people should be allowed to form civil unions, but are offended by the idea that those unions be called marriages, supporting prop 8 is consistent with those views even though it doesn't mention civil unions. I have no idea why Brendan donated $1,000 to support prop 8, and I'd be skeptical that he'd do so if he didn't actually have much stronger beliefs than the civil unions point.…

> If you are someone who believes gay people should be allowed to form civil unions, but are offended [emphasis added] by the idea that those unions be called marriages ... then you still see gay people as fundamentally different from and less than straight people. There's no way out of this. EDITED to add: Also, what's happening to Eich isn't happening just because he made that donation. As furious as I was about Pr…

>... then you still see gay people as fundamentally different from and less than straight people.

/s/gay people/homosexual behavior/g

/s/straight people/heterosexual behavior/g

Societies have a right to regulate the private behaviors of their citizens, including (and in fact especially) sexual behaviors. Societies also have the right to determine which sexual and interpersonal unions they will bless and which they will not.

Public homosexuality is a behavior, not a biological trait. People aren't administered a test to check for a "gay gene". It only comes up when a person engages in homosexual behavior.

Under your argument, it is not possible to make anything legal or illegal, and we must simply say, "You see thieves as somehow less than non-thieves, and that makes you a bigot. Thieves can't help it, there is a biological imperative that they engage in theft."

You may state that you believe theft is more damaging than private sexual behavior, and others may disagree with you. A dialog could be had if one side wasn't so busy trying to bully the other into submission with name calling like "Well, if you don't agree with me, you're automatically a bigot".

The point is that behavior is being regulated here. People are being punished or rewarded based on their behaviors, not unchangeable biological traits like sex or race, and not private philosophy or the exposition thereof like religion. There is nothing wrong with laws precluding certain sexual behaviors or laws refusing to solemnize and acknowledge certain sexual unions.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#828

Post by MisterBastahrd » Fri, Apr 04, 2014, 2:18 AM UTC

xaa wrote: post #699

clavalle wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Let me put it a different way, since the term "free speech" admittedly has many different connotations. My day job is as a scientist. In science, individual researchers put forth many different ideas, some right, some wrong. Over time, we come to a consensus on which ideas are right and wrong, and the right ideas are kept and the wrong ideas are dropped. However, we don't blackball people who had the wrong ideas: on…

Employees don't want to work for people who use their wealth to campaign for discrimination against their co-workers, and businesses don't want to do business with companies whose CEOs are known to campaign for discrimination against their employees.

If you're the CEO of a company and you are a known bigot, you are a a ticking HR timebomb. Eich can find plenty of jobs in the industry, but he isn't fit to lead as CEO given his prejudices and his unwillingness to admit his mistakes

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#829

Post by hackinthebochs » Fri, Apr 04, 2014, 2:19 AM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #749

hackinthebochs wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but if you are actively working to remove existing rights from other people How is opposing redefining marriage (in the context of law) working to remove existing rights of people? Its framed in terms of removing rights/civil rights because it suits the cause. But this characterization is not supported by a dispassionate reading of the issue here.

Untrue. If you read Judge Walker's decision against Prop 8, or the recent judgment against the Michigan Marriage Amendment, you'll see that both Prop 8 and the MMA failed because they violate the 14th Amendment's grant of equal protection: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Protection_Clause In particular, both Prop 8 and the MMA failed to meet the Rational Basis test: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_basis_revi…

I voted for gay marriage in the last election in my state, but honestly that rationale seems extremely strained. Yes, government has a legitimate interest in defining marriage as it confers certain benefits to certain people. The "rational basis" test should not be one that questions the validity of the exclusions/inclusions within the law, but rather if the government has a legitimate interest in law in question. It should not have been the burden of the proponents to prove that the government had a rational basis for excluding gays from marriage.

Re: Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO

#830

Post by quasque » Fri, Apr 04, 2014, 2:26 AM UTC

FreedomFan wrote: post #596

This is awful. I never thought I'd see the tech community target a person like this for a witchhunt because of what are presumably religious beliefs. Eich did nothing illegal. All he did was exercise his First Amendment right. There's no reason to believe that he would ever allow his personal beliefs to affect his decisions as a CEO. Basically, this is thoughtcrime.

No-one is saying he did anything illegal, and this certainly isn't 'thoughtcrime' - he actively donated money to a bigoted cause, an action incompatible with the values of the organisation that he was the public face of. That is the core issue here.