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Mozilla CEO Firestorm Likely Violated California Law
theodp (442580) writes "While the rise and fall of Brendan Eich at Mozilla sparked a debate over how to properly strike a balance between an employee's political free speech and his employer's desire to communicate a particular corporate 'culture,' notes Brian Van Vleck at the California Workforce Resource Blog, the California Labor Code has already resolved this debate. 'Under California law,' Van Vleck explains, 'it is blatantly illegal to fire an employee because he has donated money to a political campaign. This rule is clearly set forth in Labor Code sections 1101-1102.' Section 1102 begins, 'No employer shall coerce or influence or attempt to coerce or influence his employees through or by means of threat of discharge or loss of employment to adopt or follow or refrain from adopting or following any particular course or line of political action or political activity.' Corporate Counsel's Marlisse Silver Sweeney adds, 'Mozilla is adamant that the board did not force Eich to resign, and asked him to stay on in another role. It also says that although some employees tweeted for his resignation, support for his leadership was expressed by a larger group of employees. And this is all a good thing for the company from a legal standpoint.' As Eich stepped down, Re/code reported that Mozilla Executive Chairwoman Mitchell Baker said Eich's ability to lead the company had been badly damaged by the continued scrutiny over the hot-button issue. 'It's clear that Brendan cannot lead Mozilla in this setting,' Baker was quoted as saying. 'I think there has been pressure from all sides, of course, but this is Brendan's decision. Given the circumstances, this is not surprising.' Van Vleck offers these closing words of advice, 'To the extent employers want to follow in Mozilla's footsteps by policing their employees' politics in the interests of 'culture,' 'inclusiveness,' or corporate branding, they should be aware that their efforts will violate California law.'"
He fucking resigned.
how tolerant of you.
(posting anonymously because of the fear of backlash from others just as tolerant as you)
I may not agree with Brendan's position, but it is a scary precedent to get rid of people based on their personal beliefs and political activities.
--MyLongNickName
that protect ceo's and c-levels. the game is already stacked in their favor from the start. they can get away, almost literally, with murder in the US system. the world's tiniest violin is now playing for the poor little ceo's who didn't get everything they wanted.
its usually the other way around. you have to tip-toe around the c-levels so you don't offend them, lest you get handed your walking papers. they can hire and fire pretty much without challenge.
besides all that, though, he was not fired. he was asked to step down from the public and a percentage of the employees. no one in the company forced him to leave. there was no illegal act here.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
So if one of your employees makes a contribution to the Nazi party, you can't fire them for being the type you don't want around?
Don't say anything about the gays. Don't say anything about the blacks.
Those two groups are so virulently nasty about anyone who "goes against them" that it's absolutely sickening.
You're better off kicking a puppy and being filmed doing so.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I understand how law serves like a guide to what is just and right, but let's not turn it the other way around. Eich had to go in the eyes of the public, and that's the end of it. Also, he wasn't fired for his opinions, but because of the backlash from the community. His status as CEO was seriously harming the company.
If you don't want to be penalized for your political opinions, don't run around spouting off about them.
Right... the people should be quiet and know their place.
Really, you thought that through?
Mozilla *fired* Eich? First, he still works there. Second, he stepped down from his CEO position of his own free will. Third, it may be illegal for an *employer* to fire an employee in certain ways but (setting aside all the public pressure) even equating peer pressure of subordinate colleagues within a company with the company ("corporate person"?) acting as an firing employer seems extremely tenuous. Being a CEO, he'd have to fire himself to violate the law, wouldn't he?
Ezekiel 23:20
1) He resigned, he wasn't fired.
2) There was pressure to resign, or else be fired, sure, but the fundamental reason is that users were throwing tantrums and threatening a boycott. That seems like a legit reason to fire someone to me.
How do you color the whole issue as him only resigning, when three board members quit over his presence there. That's a lot of pressure from the company.
It looks an awful lot like coercion...
But, isn't it up for him to sue if he feels he did not resign voluntarily? It seems like he probably would not do so.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yes, I thought it through and it's the only tenable option. That and social pressure. Laws forcing you to retain douchebags like this guy are insane, completely irrational.
If a company starts firing people for e.g. supporting union organizations, good luck finding employees and good luck with the media shitstorm that goes your way.
Silly laws like California's could have put Mozilla in an impossible position.
The crux of the issue is that social attitudes are in flux on this matter. If you don't give people leeway to change, they will likely harden their positions.
And if you give some people leeway to change (eg- Obama, Hilary) and deny leeway to others (Brendan Eich) you are being blatantly partisan and unfair.
Had he donated $1000 to pro-gay organization and was fired - there would be wide action in his support....
But he donated to the wrong organization so he "resigned" - after external and internal pressure...
It sickens me... there is no more free speach... and some people clearly can be discriminated because of their political views...
Those laws are only supposed top protect those that hold the same opinion as myself, because I'm perfect and the opinions I hold are truth incarnate. People that don't share every single one of my opinions should never be allowed to work because they're wrong thus bigots thus evil.
There's so much wrong with your post that I think you don't know anything about the case in question OR how reality works. First off, Eich didn't "spout out", he stayed quiet. Prop 8's detractors simply hunted him down on the list of people who donated to Prop 8. Then he stepped down rather then pretending he was suddenly converted to the cause. HUGE difference.
Secondly, are you REALLY asking people to shut up about their political opinions or suffer penalty? That's like telling gay supporters of a decade or two ago to shut up if they don't want to be persecuted. You're basically trying to have it both ways while hiding behind pretty-sounding words to justify it. Which is disturbing to say the least.
Finally, yes, actually *firing* a person for making a donation to a cause you don't like is not something you can claim as the moral high ground. It may disgust you and I that Eich supported a cause we don't believe in, but get some damn perspective before you turn into the bigots you despise. Fighting for tolerance on one hand, while finding every excuse to be intolerant to your opponents on the other, is disgusting.
GLBT organizations have a perfect right to express their opinions, and even to use political and economic pressure to achieve their desired ends. The Mozilla foundation acted correctly in not bowing directly to this pressure. Mr. Eich acted both correctly and even (some might say) with noble altruism in resigning.
Understand the causes of actions - if you insist on placing blame, place it where it belongs. Mr. Eich was forced out by the GLBT community over his support for a bill which directly contradicted their political agenda. Their actions were within what is considered to be acceptable, and resulted in Mr. Eich sustaining a personal loss for his open support of a bill he obviously believes in. I don't think anybody here behaved badly or did anything wrong; but I believe that all involved should now be judged by their actions and their roles in this drama.
As it stands, I think he probably had a moderate chance of succeeding in a legal suit. At the very least he could of sued Mozilla over some workplace harassment law (not providing a safe workplace).
But with the quote from the Mozilla Executive Chairman: "'It's clear that Brendan cannot lead Mozilla in this setting,' Baker was quoted as saying." I would say any legal action over discrimination against Mozilla is now in his favour. To me that says that only reason he was not fired, was because he was given the option to resign, before they fired him. And Mozilla would/will find it hard to explain to the court how firing someone who was unpopular because of a political belief is completely different than firing someone for a political belief. I am not saying it is cut and dry, but he definitely seems to have a case.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Mozilla lost a great technically minded CEO who could have done some good things for the organization; which IMHO badly needs strong leadship right now.
Why because a bunch of the rabble could not deal with someone not sharing their opinions. Honestly I don't think anyone supporting same sex marriage supports equality at all. Government should not recognize ANY marriage. If you get married that should be entirely between you, your God(s), who ever else attends where you warship, and that's it.
It should not be your boss's business, nor the state's nor any courts. Government recognizing marrige does nothing but create a special class of people (married people), and there is no reason they should get the special treatment they do.
As far as children go, both biological parents should be considered to have parental rights and responsibilities, unless the father isn't known and nobody comes forward for in some reasonable time frame.
Everyone should be entitled to name someone (anyone) they wish to specify to share anything that exists as a spousal benefit today or those benefits should be withdrawn. I don't think anyone should have to file a tax return, but as long as we have tax returns EVERYONE should have to file individually.
So will I continue to vote against so called marriage equality; you bet I will because the last thing I want to see is the expansion of what is already a special class which should not exist in secular society.
By this line of "reasoning", if your CEO decides to run as mayor or get a new ballot initiative declaring some minority group as 3/5ths of a human or making it illegal for them to serve food due to being dirty (insert minority here)'s, then I guess the companies hands are tied and they can't fire him.
Yep, just like you also can't fire an employee for voting Democrat or being a pro-gay rights activist in his off-time. It cuts both ways, sparky.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
What if he was secretly an alien trying to take over the world?
Yes, I thought it through and it's the only tenable option. That and social pressure. Laws forcing you to retain douchebags like this guy are insane, completely irrational.
So, in conservative states, it should be perfectly legal to fire gay activists and those who donate to gay rights causes? Hey, social pressure, right?
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
So therefore a right wing company should have the right to fire gays, single mothers, and douchebags like you?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
This is the most idiotic meme of our times. By far.
Except he didn't say that gays were subhuman.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
If we can fire people for being "douchebags" outside of work, can we fire people for being gay outside of work?
Mozilla continues its downward spiral down the drain.
It's less about Eich and more about the fundamental rights of association that are being eroded in this country.
Employment is an association. I don't know how it gets more fundamental a human right than "I don't fucking like you, so I'm not going to give you my money to work for me." But somehow this has changed in America and a "job" is some thing the government controls, and you are just a steward of. Don't like felons? Tough shit - some areas now won't let you ask about it. Don't like gays? Too bad, hire him or else. Racist? Well, sorry - hire that other-race woman or else.
It's all bullshit, needless bullshit. Eich was a liability to Mozilla, period. It's not fair, he wasn't out proselytizing or burning crosses - sure. But he was a liability and Mozilla did not want to continue to employ him in that role. That should be their choice.
You can get blacklisted in this country for making a slightly off-color joke, or for "appropriating" a dance from another "culture". And yet we feel we need the government to step in and manage all employment in this country to an increasing degree.
Replace "California" with "South Carolina" and "Republican" with "Democrat" in your argument and think hard about what you're really advocating for. Political litmus tests for employment have been a big no-no for a damn good reason. Do you *really* want your employer digging into your political beliefs, with the freedom to shitcan you if he doesn't like them?
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Yes. It should be perfectly legal to fire anyone for any reason. What's amusing is that that's soooo crazy, right?
Only if you are affluent.
If you are a nobody, H.R. would make up something or wait until a minor infraction and can you.
And you'd have no recourse... because the company said it was for cause and there is no proof otherwise.
However, if you are affluent and a public person you can fight back.
This is reality for many in corporate surfdom today.
You bring Hitler to the conversation, I bring whites. You bring gays, I bring muslims. A black chief can't lay off a white worker because he is white, just the same as a white one can't fire a black one. A muslim can't fire a chirstian for being christian. NO, you can't fire someone because their beliefs, race, sexual orientation, gender or health unless that is something that endengers others in some REAL way or their status/actvity is ILEGAL.
So if your Nazi donates to a group which promotes totalitarian nationalism as a political view, you CAN'T fire him. If he donates to a group which promotes mere violence, goes around vandalizing houses or attacking people, then YES. If he insults someone at work due to their race or religion, then YES.
You should be able to fire anyone for any reason. What sort of bizarro world have we come to where _I'm_ the crazy one for thinking people should have the freedom of association to decide whom to give their money to in exchange for work?
Sure. Because he didn't really want to be CEO, and would have resigned anyway.
I don't know about California, but many places have laws against companies pushing employees to resign, too.
The 'public' , had spoken, and he ended up resigning. How would this law apply to the 'mob'?
The question is not whether this CEO has a right to "political speech"; he clearly does. The question is whether he has a right to "hate speech" or "intolerant speech." To be clear, I think all speech must be allowed under the 1st amendment, and "being allowed" has to include "being free from punishment." But let's say the CEO had given money to a political group that was trying to re-introduce ethnic segregation, or maybe trying to forcibly repatriate blacks to Africa. Would his contribution represent "free political speech" or would it represent "hate speech"? The former is protected under the laws cited but the latter is not (even though I think it should be).
[rushing to speakerphone] Janice, please tell all the coloreds and jews that they're fired. RightSaidFred99 said it's okay.
Came here to say this, this is the flip side of the coin. Any company could be helplessly sunk by a sufficiently offensive CEO.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I wonder how damaged Mozilla is by the Streisand effect for this whole debacle. If nobody publicized Eich's relatively small contribution to a political campaign from six years ago, nobody would know about any of this. I seriously doubt Eich had some kind of master plan for a gay purge at Mozilla. It is possible for one to be opposed to gay marriage without hating gay people, and chances are his political opinion would have no negative impact on Mozilla.
If nobody had said anything, Mozilla would probably sail along just fine. Instead, a big deal was made, and now you've got pro gay marriage people who were upset that Mozilla would ever employ such a gay-hatin' monster, you've got anti gay marriage people claiming persecution, and then the base of people who think it's much ado about nothing, anyway, because somebody's political opinions shouldn't have anything to do with their job.
Basically, everybody comes out of this smelling like shit, when if nobody had ever said anything, things probably would have been just fine.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
All humans have a right to free personal speech and should have the freedom to express themselves politically however they choose, within the bounds of the law. I don't support or condone his beliefs, I believe they are wrong-headed, but he has the right to be judged in the workplace on merit and merit alone. I realize this to be somewhat of a simplification, but the fact is the hammer can fall both ways, and I believe this man should have the right to express whatever idiot belief he wants and still keep his job.
That's right. If you're going to fire someone you need to think of a better reason than what they do on their own time outside of work.
If they are careful enough to not run afoul of HR rules regarding employee conduct and having a Hitler-free work place then you have to try writing them up for poor performance or transferring them to someone else's department. For the tricky situation where you have appointed someone as CEO without first checking on their background it is customary for the board to either set impossible performance goals and then replace him when he doesn't meet them, or politely ask him to resign in exchange for a small but undisclosed amount of cash.
If all else fails just wait until he goes into space and then forge his signature on a letter of resignation while he's off-planet. It can't possibly go wrong.
Nit-picking here: All of the definitions of a political campaign I could find (OK, I spent 5 minutes on Google) define a political campaign as a campaign for a candidate to get elected. They say nothing about ballot initiatives such as Proposition 8 which is a referendum on state law. Not sure how California law defines it but in my book, politics is people and corporations, organizations, laws and policies are not people.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
You (and a lot of people on the 'poor Eich' side try very hard to make it sound like he was like any other employee. He was not. He was the be the fucking CEO, the top leader and face of the company. He serves at the pleasure of the board.
First of all, in the context of 'the internet mob', conservatives use similar tactics all the time. They're FAMOUS for their letter-writing/calling to complain as soon as some talk-show host and/or pastor "rally the troops". All the put pressure on business to do as they want.
Secondly, not it's not ok to fire 'gay activists' and there are likely laws that say as much (I would hope). Again, that would be applicable if Eich was like normal employees, but he was not.
CEO types are very happy to point out that one of the reasons they are so well compensated is due to the 'uncertainties' surrounding their employment. Alright, there you go.
And, to my mind, the biggest point was not "how did you vote in 2008?" but "are you open enough to treating the people you intend to manage objetively, even if they are LGBT?"
Given his dodging about his feelings today, I'd suggest that even if he was forced out, the issue wasn't his vote, but instead, his ability to do his fucking job today.
I'm a nature photographer.
There's been a lot of misinformation being reported by various major news sites. Get the FAQs straight https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignation/
I'm thinking this line of thought is wrong, simply because Prop 8 was deemed unconstitutional, right? So, in reality, this guy was fired,err,resigned because he held views that conflicted with the law of the land. So essentially it comes down to whether or not he has the right to be the leader of a company when the company knows he supports a Proposition that was deemed to be unconstitutional. And we're supposed to accept that his rights were violated under the aforementioned labor laws? I don't think so. They didn't attempt to stop him from supporting the proposition, right? So where did they violate his rights? They didn't. They haven't. If he had been put through this scenario during the political campaign or anytime before the Supreme Court action, maybe he'd have a case. The flip side to this argument is what kind of exposure would Mozilla being undertaking if they allowed this guy to stay? I know that if I were gay and married, I would certainly be paranoid working with the man. And I don't think it would be unreasonable to feel the same about the company, since they chose a man with anti-gay views to lead the company. Following that line of logic, it seems likely that Mozilla, under his continued leadership, would have laid itself open to potential lawsuits. So who's violating the law? Mozilla by keeping him or Mozilla by inviting him to leave?
Totally, if those gays and single mothers are the CEO and the board feel it's not suitable for a single mother to lead the company.
Yes, freedom is _Scary!_. Douchebag.
Getting tax breaks isn't a basic human right.
employees get fired for virtually everything...the annecdotes are ridiculous
if an entry level new-hire at a software company dropped a grenade in the first meeting they were allowed to attend and said, "Our app doesn't make money because everyone knows it is spam"
**right in front of the boss/guy who invented the app**
and that guy got fired...or reassigned to something so bullshit that he quit...
would we even care or suspect something wrong happend?
in my mind Mozilla's CEO is the same
just b/c he's a CEO doesn't mean he is immune to the vagaries of contemporary employment
Thank you Dave Raggett
Involve the community when picking their leader, lest you draw ire from both within and without the community should you have to backtrack.
You really are a piece of shit. It's nice to see shit this smug. However, quit fucking posting, you disgusting choad.
Have a nice day.
"GLBT organizations have a perfect right to express their opinions,"
I'll be impressed if you can point at a signficant GLBT organization that actually did discuss Eich. As near as I can tell, the repsonse was entirely grassroots, and not limited to GLBT individuals.
I'm a nature photographer.
If you are required to not be a fascist or a communist to have a job, is that a political litmus test?
FUCK California.
He said he considers gays to be subhuman. We don't need that kind of person in our state much less running a hugely important organization. Those Republicans with their hate need to just get the fuck out of this state. They have openly called for our death so why are they still allowed freedom? They should be either be put in prison or shown to the border. At the start-up where I work, I've never heard a single person even try to defend these haters. Why do the Republicans that rule our state not do something to police their own?
Because, if we applied the same logic a couple decades ago gays would be considered mentally ill and anyone suggesting that committing them to mental institutions for rehabilitation or treating them with drugs was unfair would have been considered a "deviant".
"Of coarse the first amendment applies to unpopular speech, the other kind rarely needs protecting".
So, it's still okay to fire gay CEO's, then? I mean, if I'm in a conservative state and someone spots my CEO at a gay bar or notices that he's donated to some gay cause, he has to go. I presume you're good with that?
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Yep, sure is. Ever filled out a job application that asked if you were a fascist or a communist?
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Like it or not, funding a political campaign is not actively bringing you harm. It's taking part in the political process. If he puts a gun to your head, or breaks up your now perfectly legal wedding ceremony with a protest or violence, then we can have a different conversation.
By that same notion, every person who donated to Barack Obama's election and re-election campaigns should lose their jobs as well, because their candidate stood opposed to gay marriage at the same time as Eich's donation. Is that the direction we want our nation to go? Where every election cycle causes a backlash of political retribution by the winners? That's not a nation I want to live in.
I can agree with that for private individuals. You do not like someone you do not need to hire them. You lose that ability the moment you incorporate. You want protections of incorporation, then you also get regulated.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
This all started with the LA Times obtaining a list of all donors to Prop 8 and publishing it's contents as a searchable online database.
http://hotair.com/archives/2014/04/03/how-did-people-find-out-that-mozillas-ceo-donated-to-support-prop-8/
The law that requires that all political donors who donate more than $100 may be divulged is the issue here. So it would seem that if you want to donate and NOT face repercussions for having an unpopular opinion, then you should never ever donate more than $99 to any California Ballot Measure or Political Initiative based in California.
In this case, it appears that CA law regarding disclosure of political contributions has come head to head with CA Labor Code. And considering SCOTUS' recent decision to consider monetary campaign contributions as free speech, it also would potentially have Constitutional ramifications (not for Mozilla, but for the State of California disclosure policy) So in this case, there is likely fuck-all Eich can do about it unless he wants to make a major stink about it in Federal Courts, at his own expense and with no possibility of personal gain.
I'd argue that it was more about the straight allies of the LGBT community than the LGBT community themselves. OKCupid is run by straight dudes, and they're not a front for any LGBT organisation that I know of.
This was a delightfully broad-based protest, not stemming from any group in particular.
It is, in fact, why I find it so absolutely irritating that bloggers keep going on about how 'damaging' this is to 'free speech'. This was free speech WORKING. This was a whole bunch of people speaking out and saying that it's no more acceptable for CEOs to hold this kind of opinion on equal marriage as it would be for them to hold a similar opinion on interracial marriage.
Why is it OK to have a hate campaign against Eich and what he believed in?
Either you are against hate campaigns and truly believe in difference of opinion, or you start a hate campaign yourself and hypocritically drum someone out of work through the very kind of hatred you claim to deplore.
It really is that simple. One bigot left Mozilla - but EVERYONE remaining who did not quit in disgust is a bigot also. Were I am employee of Mozilla I would have resigned alongside him, even though I am on the opposite side of the prop 8 debate. I find it sad that no-one there seems to have any strength of character.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Politics: noun plural but singular or plural in construction
activities that relate to influencing the actions and policies of a government or getting and keeping power in a government
the work or job of people (such as elected officials) who are part of a government
the opinions that someone has about what should be done by governments : a person's political thoughts and opinions
" but get some damn perspective before you turn into the bigots you despise"
Too late.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Why isn't there more conservative anger that Eich folded and quit under pressure, especially when California law protected him?
To restrict or strip away would imply this was something they had, which is not the case.
Marriage is not a right, basic, civil or otherwise. (don't care what the USSC says about it.)
Google. They support their budget by more than 90-percent. Guess what dickwad was going against Google's charter. I'll give you a fucking hint - his job title was CEO.
Bigot? Not really. He's not opposed to gay people. He just wants them to prevent them from ruining the (religious) institution of marriage. The govt. and the courts did not invent marriage, religion did. So the courts have little power or right to redefine marriage to include same-sex partners.
Let's take a look at OKCupid's CEO as well.
http://www.motherjones.com/moj...
In 2004 Sam Yagan donated $500 to Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah). Rep. Cannon voted for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, against a ban on sexual-orientation based job discrimination and for a prohibition on gay adoptions.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
The first part is that there are basically two groups of people: those that feel they should be able to do whatever makes them happy as long as what they're doing doesn't adversely affect others, and those who feel they have the right to tell others what they can and can't do regardless of impact on themselves.
Make whatever convoluted case or slippery slope argument you want, Adam and Steve getting married has zero actual effect on anyone else. So what you have is a CEO basically giving his social opinion that he feels something is wrong that people who work for him feel is okay. My last company allowed employees to wear shorts to work because it was 120 out in the summer. One day someone brought that up in a room with a vice president in it and his comment was "Yeah, you're allowed to do it...but I think its damned unprofessional". Half the people in the room were wearing shorts. Word got around and nobody wore them anymore. So what a senior manager says has a significant effect on workers, right or wrong, rules/laws or not.
Second part is that roughly half the people/customers/programmers/business owners/executives believe one way on this and the other half believe the opposite. You're therefore alienating half the people that work for the company and half the people it works with. Not a good idea from any perspective. Sure, the ones that feel like you do will rally behind you while the other half walk away. Probably okay if you're making chicken sandwiches. Not okay when you're trying to manage a major software company.
Bottom line: keep your social opinions to a personal level and keep them out of a professional environment. You can make all the legal arguments you want. The VP still thinks shorts are unprofessional and chances are if you wear them, you're going to be getting the crap jobs if he notices.
What is really strange is that people seem to forget that he supported a law that passed.
Frankly the firestorm smacks of the black lists of the 1950s.
Someone supports a political concept that you do not like or you even feel is evil and you get drummed out of your business.
And let us be really honest. Stalinist Russia was evil and they had the largest influence in the US communist party from the 1930s up.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
You'll never get through. The modern left (I don't even use the term "liberal" any more, since liberty isn't in it) is immune to history or reasoning about the future. Immediate gratification and freedom from consequences of (left-compatible) actions is the core belief set here. Maximizing well being of generations yet to come? Not even.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The stunning implication is that in some states other than California it is not illegal to fire someone because of how they voted!!!!!!!!
The land of the free?
All of those idiots will be looking for new jobs as soon as Brendan Eich sues them to oblivion anyway. Wanted to be the better men? They should've come out and -DEFENDED- him, showing that the way forward is to get along, even if we have different views. This will be a slam dunk discrimination lawsuit, with a nice big settlement.
Eich refused to try to manage the controversy by even stating he had moved on from his former position much less actually changing his position. If Obama still was sticking to that position after things entirely changed nationwide you bet people would be screaming their heads off in exactly the same way.
Well shit, I expect you to get the noose and storm his house any day now. But obviously people like Eich aren't like other people. Maybe we could codify him being 3/5th or something like that.
If we're speaking purely business ethics, and assuming widespread customer loss to the point where it's significantly detrimental to your bottom line...
Absolutely.
It's great when businesses can stand up for what's right and moral and socially progressive. That's not what they're for, and if you allow a single individual - no matter their title - to drive a company into the ground, well, frankly - the board of directors should be waterboarded.
So, question: what does a company do with a senior executive who's harming the company because large numbers of valuable employees and executives don't want to work with him, or at a company where he's in charge, because of his political views? Nothing in California law requires individuals to ignore political views when deciding whether to associate with someone. And it seems to me that deciding to let someone go because he's causing too many other employees to leave is perfectly allowable. So what's a company to do in such a case?
Government does recognize marriage so by voting against marriage equality for all what you are really saying is you support privileges for the people that already have them.
Marriage is a civil institution. People with religious delusions want everything to be about their cults, but reality doesn't work that way.
Of course the courts have the power to redefine civil marriage.
Yes, it's correct. That's a bigoted perspective, in that it pretends your religion is the only one, then uses it to justify taking a basic human right. Your worldview being painfully simplistic shouldn't affect other people, and you shouldn't have the right to vote for laws that take others' rights(and you should also choose not exercise your vote in that way, morally speaking).
Bigots are wrong and terrible people, you're wrong and a terrible person, but that doesn't mean you should be fired(or forced to resign).
Mary Kay Lotourneau ring a bell???
If you're an executive or high-level manager at Koch Industries and become a gay activist, I would fully expect you to be shown the door.
What I don't understand is Christians don't own marriage..all religions have some form of it. Some of them even allow same-sex marriage.
Further, the Catholics basically had same sex unions among their monks!
This dude shouldn't have gotten fired though. No one should be fired for holding a particular belief (even if it's offensive to some), as long as they aren't "in people's faces" about it.
If he was going around the office saying "fuckin fags shouldn't get married" then yeah can his ass. But, if all he did was donate and/or support anti-gay movements in his personal life...no one has any right to damage his professional career for that!
Gay CEOs are likely smart enough to stay away from highly conservative industries in highly conservative states. Eich apparently isn't that smart.
How'd that work out for you, mate?
I feel that Mr.Eich was compelled to resign not by his employer, but by the GLBT community. They exerted political pressure which would have impacted the Mozilla organization, and Mr. Eich made a personal decision to shield the organization from that political pressure.
GLBT organizations have a perfect right to express their opinions, and even to use political and economic pressure to achieve their desired ends. The Mozilla foundation acted correctly in not bowing directly to this pressure. Mr. Eich acted both correctly and even (some might say) with noble altruism in resigning.
Understand the causes of actions - if you insist on placing blame, place it where it belongs. Mr. Eich was forced out by the GLBT community over his support for a bill which directly contradicted their political agenda. Their actions were within what is considered to be acceptable, and resulted in Mr. Eich sustaining a personal loss for his open support of a bill he obviously believes in. I don't think anybody here behaved badly or did anything wrong; but I believe that all involved should now be judged by their actions and their roles in this drama.
Ok, cool. So how do I boycott the GLBT community to show my distaste? Wait, I can't cause such badthink, that makes me a hatemonger!!
Ironic because the treatment of this person and his political free speech has been treated with so much intolerance - from a group who whats tolerance from everyone. It goes both ways and shows what kind of extremists are involved in this debate. Those who called for him to step down are no better, and are perhaps worse, than he is. He has his view point and yet doesn't treat gays as less than human. At the same time, because of his view point, he IS treated as less than human.
I'd settle for reserving the word "hate" for, I don't know, actual hate?
as w/the various "isms" when the various "enlightened/sensitive/multicultural/whatever" groups engage in a race to the bottom to lower the bar for applying a given label you unavoidably dilute its potency until it's effectively meaningless ("rape culture" is my personal favorite cliche du jour).
does that mean Eich's right? HELL NO! my best man was gay (yes, my spouse is a woman) & I've even photographed a gay wedding in Whistler (spontaneous/unplanned between friend of wife & his partner) but if you're going to apply the same label which used to be reserved for klan level people/actions (inciting/participating in actual violence) to someone who's merely a little behind the acceptance curve & working within established legal frameworks (which legislatures & ballot initiates are even when misguided or even unconstitutional) then don't act surprised when sympathetic moderates like myself roll our eyes & ignore you when you use it in the future!
again, I can NOT state this clearly enough: Eich's wrong, gays should (& will) be allowed to marry/have full rights/etc but hyperbole is counterproductive!
Let's explain the difference with super elementary graph theory. Have each adult woman (whether black or white) and each adult man (whether black and white) be represented by a node. Now draw an edge between every pair of person that would be allowed to marry if they were single. The graph is connected when interracial marriage is allowed but same-sex marriage isn't. It isn't connected when interracial marriage is not allowed. This means that not allowing inter-racial marriage divides the population in two sets and no one belonging to one set can ever lawfully become family with any one belonging to the other set. So forbidding inter-racial marriage is segregatory while forbidding same sex marriage isn't.
TLDR, in a world where same sex-marriage is not allowed, two individuals are either related, or could marry if they were single or are both marriable to a third person (not both at the same time obviously since polygamy is illegal). This is not the case when forbidding same-sex marriage.
Not only does marriage pre-date your religion, who do you think gives you the marriage certificate/license (hint, it's not your religion)? Since society dictates religion, it's society that defines marriage. If you doubt that, ask yourself when was the last time you stoned anyone. Many things listed in the bible and right by religion are illegal, including selling your daughter and slavery. Why is that? Because society decided to change it.
More importantly though, Prop 8 was NOT about granting gay marriage, it was phrased as gay marriage so opponents could push it easier, most of whom were from out of state. Prop 8 was about removing gay's right to a civil union, which they were already allowed to do. That's oppression, which what Eich supported and why the court struck it down. There is also word that this may not be what broke the camels back anyhow. He also supported anti-Semitic candidates, and they knew if that broke, the sh*tstorm would have been even worse.
And contrary to what many think, gay marriage foes are not celebrating, this wasn't good for anyone, but how would you feel about someone in power who actively tried to take away your rights? My guess is that you wouldn't exactly welcome them with open arms now would you? This wasn't ancient history, and this fight is still ongoing.
If someone is going around the office saying "fuckin fags should get married", they should also be fired.
THL phish sticks
*gay marriage backers (not foes)
Get some fucking perspective people. This guy's (small) donation had zero effect on the proposition's outcome, nor did it have any effect on the Mozilla foundation (before anyone knew about it). All of his contributions to Mozilla have been exemplary and accepted until someone found out he supported pop 8.
Someone took a non-issue and cried "biggot", in effect doing more harm to Mozilla and Brendan Eich than was done by the donation itself.
The "Moral Authority" that has convicted Brendan Eich is unleashing a powerful weapon and setting a terrifying precedent in the U.S.: exercise free speech (read lobbying, money as free speech) and be ostracised.
It is comical that the "Moral Authority" on this issue fights for "Equality" by denying to others.
Sure, if the Board of Directors wants him or her gone, that's it. That's why CEOs get the big bucks, so that they can go at any moment. Often that comes with extra compensation payouts. If you have reason to believe you can be fired at any time, you'd want to get something in your contract about that.
Again, CEOs do not and should not have the same protections as regular employees, because they compensated to not have those.
This is reality today, nothing's actually changed.
A court may actually decide that Non-profits can terminate employees for activities "incompatible with and adversely impacting
the mission and purpose of the organization."
If California wants to make a test case....Im sure a lot of people would love to take this to Federal court.
No, this was free speech failing. This was a case of punishing an individual for his political actions. The people speaking out were not discussing the issue, they were saying that if you don't agree with us, we will attack you personally.
I disagree. There's good reasons for protecting people from discrimination according to certain classes; the whole idea is to prevent classes of people from being stuck in an underclass because no one will employ them.
However, it's also important that people be qualified for the jobs they're in. For instance, discriminating against black people is normally bad, but what if the job is to be a model for clothing targeted at white people, or an actor for a product that only certain white demographics are interested in? Conversely, what if the job is to model hair accessories that only black people would be interested in; should white models be excluded? As far as I know, in jobs like this (modeling, acting), employers have very wide latitude. A black actor isn't going to get very far suing Stephen Spielberg because he couldn't get hired to play the part of Abraham Lincoln, nor would male actor get far suing Spielberg for refusing to cast him as Lincoln's wife.
Eich was not just some low-level worker, he was the CEO (briefly). As such, he's the public face of the company, so his political positions absolutely do reflect on the company as a whole. To me, that means that the company has every right to scrutinize his public political positions, and to remove him if the customer base rebels and decides they hate him and are boycotting the company. The same isn't true of some low-level coder, or the janitor; these people are (more) easily replaced, and aren't paid nearly as much either. Being the top boss of a company carries a big paycheck and a lot of privileges and visibility, but along with that there's downsides, such as a lack of privacy and being subject to the whims of the board. Don't like it? Don't apply for the job. Stay a low-level manager. It's just like being a celebrity. If you're a celebrity making millions of dollars per movie, or an outspoken politician, you have no right to complain that you have no privacy. It's part of the territory. If you value your privacy that much, stay the heck out of the limelight. No one forced you into that job.
Does labor laws apply for CEO position in California? In my country, positions like CEO and chair in board of directors are held outside of labor laws, based on specific mandate contract.
Maybe, maybe not. If you're a nobody, HR likely doesn't give two shits what political campaigns you donated to, as long as you don't make the national news and drag your company's name into it. If you're a CEO and you make international news because of your political views and donations, expect trouble.
This was free speech WORKING. This was a whole bunch of people speaking out and saying that it's no more acceptable for CEOs to hold this kind of opinion on equal marriage as it would be for them to hold a similar opinion on interracial marriage.
let me consider that statement...
Free speech works by "a whole bunch of people" saying someone else's (ceo or otherwise) opinion (speech) is unacceptable "free" speech. My brain hurts!
The modern left (I don't even use the term "liberal" any more, since liberty isn't in it)
Is THAT what they're claiming now, that liberal stems from liberty? That's a new one. I always thought it came from their stance that they can "read-in" whatever they want (ergo a liberal enterpretation) into the constitution.
Yes, and the people pushing "separate but equal", with separate bathrooms and water fountains for black people, also didn't exactly say that blacks were subhuman did they?
There's an old saying . . . "Four boxes to use in defense of freedom. Soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order."
If you're CEO and your political beliefs are going to reflect on the company and become the subject of international news stories, yes.
True. Permissible (even encouraged) under the current US political/governmental system.
it was maggot backlash.
Yes, I use maggot as a derisive term, it stands for people who are offended by those that do not agree with them. Maggots are prejudiced against those who do not agree with them. Maggots then act out in negative ways trying to force others to bend their opinions to match their own.
In this case, it was certain members of the gay and lesbian communities and some of those that support said community.
People have a right to their own opinions. People have a right to practice their religion and vote their consciences.
That is why I consider these people maggots. They believe that because they take offense at what someone else believes that they have the right to take away the rights and freedoms of the person who *offended* them by disagreeing with them.
These maggots are bigots, spewing vitriol and hatred. These maggots are the problem with today's society. These maggots are doing their damnedest to strip away constitutional rights in favor of some false assumption that nobody can say or do anything that is offensive to them.
Idiot maggots.
You know what else is an association? Marriage.
Whoever used their rights and abilities to enforce their agenda on Mr. Eich, the Mozilla Foundation and (by extension) all of us should be identified and made to answer for their actions. The right to do a thing does not equate to the right to do so without regard for the consequences. We can all use the same rights and methods against those responsible. I wonder if anybody at "OK Cupid" is listening?
Marriage is a civil institution. People with religious delusions want everything to be about their cults, but reality doesn't work that way.
Of course the courts have the power to redefine civil marriage.
It's not quite that simple. For centuries there was no separation of church and state in Europe, so it is difficult to say whether marriage was religious or civil as they were one and the same. To further complicate matters, prior to the church instituting it's view of marriage on the people, one could only get married civilly with the express permission of the king, governor or whomever was the legal authority. It was the church that stated that people are free to marry whomever they chose, with certain restrictions (ie couldn't be previously married, free consent, etc.). The church's influence in Western society and culture wasn't just about marriage. It also extended to education (both lower and higher, including universities and the like), legal systems, social norms, philosophy, research and science and numerous other areas that touch modern life. Why can't you marry your first cousin? It's illegal. Why is it illegal? Because the church forbade it long before any monarch or government declared it wrong.
And that really is how things work. Like it or not, pretty much all of modern society has been influenced by religious systems.
"Where is the outrage over that?"
Fucking everywhere. There was a lot of backlash to that from various liberal/progressive/Democratic sources, and Obama ultimately ended up making statements in support of Prop 8. It was irrelevant to the election because McCain also believed marriage should only be between a man and a woman.
Let us identify those responsible and subject them to their own tactics. Those tactics are legal and even acceptable here in the US. Distasteful, but there is a certain aspect of "poetic justice" here.
In the most liberal state in the country prop 8 had 52% voter support in 2008 which is just 6 years ago... All it said was "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California" That is all it said. It was not an attack against gay people, just a decision to confer the legal benefits, recognition and title of marriage on men and women who marry. I think it is great that gay couples feel more included in society because they can share the title of "marriage" with straight couples now, but these are different types of relationships.
No, he's right. This is free speech working - and in order to keep it working, we (those of us who disagree with their speech or their tactics) have an obligation to make an answer, to exercise our free speech.
Honestly the entire thing is moot at this point but, from all of the comments I've read, nobody seems to have mentioned that his contribution to Prop 8 could be based on his personal religious beliefs.
If anything (and there is no signs of him doing so at this point), he could press on the Federal level a case of discrimination for violating his Civil Rights based on the religious aspect alone.
He would probably also win if there was even a slight whiff of him having been pressured into resigning because of this. Race, religion, gender = the big three when it comes to discrimination lawsuits and highest on the no-no scale of what companies can fire for/pressure over.
@Mindless Drivel: 100% of Twitter posts ever Tweeted.
There's no hate campaign against Eich.....Address what I've actually advocated or STFU.
Classic. A new record.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What a fascinating, near-perfect being you must be!
Yes, it's correct. That's a bigoted perspective, in that it pretends your religion is the only one, then uses it to justify taking a basic human right. Your worldview being painfully simplistic shouldn't affect other people, and you shouldn't have the right to vote for laws that take others' rights(and you should also choose not exercise your vote in that way, morally speaking).
Bigots are wrong and terrible people, you're wrong and a terrible person, but that doesn't mean you should be fired(or forced to resign).
Two issues you bring up are germane in this discussion. First, you state that you shouldn't have the right to vote for laws that take others rights - well, the whole thing about same sex marriage is whether or not people are denied equal protection under the law if the state does not recognize two men or two women who want to marry each other are kept from doing so. From the state's position, marriage is a civil contract and denying somebody the ability to enter into said contract may violate equal protection. I say may, because the Supreme Court hasn't ruled on that issue, yet, and until it does, it could go either way (although my money would be that they say it does violate equal protection). Marriage, in the eyes of the state isn't about love, it isn't about friendship, it isn't about companionship or anything like that. It is simply a legal contract between two people (which is why most countries now have civil unions to describe the relationship between the parties instead of marriage, which comes from the term Holy Matrimony, which has obvious religious overtones).
While one cannot make a valid judgement related to your first point, mainly because it is not up to the people to decide, but the courts (if it were up to the people, they could easily vote against same sex marriages and often have, so majority, evidently, doesn't rule), your second point is valid. And that is (to paraphrase it), bigots are wrong. On the surface that seems simple, but what it really says is that it isn't that religion is the culprit here, but those who use religion to support a wrong position. It may seem like mincing words, but in reality, religion, like any other philosophy, is neither wrong or right. However, the people who subscribe to that philosophy still choose how to act.
Only a minority of the christian religions condemn homosexuality. Most mainstream protestant religions and the catholics do not do so in their doctrines. Therefore, all of this anti-religious sentiment found on slashdot and elsewhere is misdirected and should be focused on the individual committing the act, not to everyone who might subscribe to that religion or philosophy. Lumping all people of religion into a group and assigning traits to that group is just as bigoted as doing so to gays, or blacks, or any other group.
You simply can't fight bigotry with more bigotry. It just won't work.
Obama didn't get a pass, there was no better alternative - the only other option was McCain, who was even more strongly against gay marriage.
Further, Eich was given plenty of leeway to change. He chose not to change. If at any point Eich had made any indication that he had changed his perspective, this "firestorm" would have died down.
Company have no morals they are here to make profits. That's why we have so many rules to force them as a society to do stuff they would not do on their own on pure economical ground. For example all tragedy of common like air pollution, or even not hiring children to work in mines, or pay the same a woman and a man, or not discriminate based on skin color.
As such If the CEO political position are such that the customer will massively impact the company , then if the CEO really has the responsibility associated with the (usual) high salary, he should leave on his own on pure economical ground for the company. And that include your case.
Now on the moral position, it is much more iffy depending on what sort of moral you adhere to. In the above case I would say "screw the bigot customer" and try to reposition the company toward non-idiot and keep the CEO no matter the skin color or gender or religion or sexuality or cis/trans or yes indeed politic or whatever people find to discriminate. But it is much harder to define a general point.
In this specific case, even if I tend to be against idiot bigot living in the 19th century like Eich, but I tend to think that he should not be forced to resign (he was not as far as i can tell) but should resign on his own when his own private life negatively impact the customer base (which he did).
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I would contend that just because your rights have been denied for a long time, does not mean they are not rights.
The real point is this little shitstorm started not because of any Prop8 views, but because some employees were scared for their jobs. Not because they are gay, but because of their projects. Mozilla as a company is more bloated than Firefox. Outside of the core suite (browser, email, FirefoxOS) they have a slew of technically useless "social" projects that do nothing for the bottom line. For instance, OpenBadges. WTF is this shit? And why does it need a team of 6 people (only one "tech" person, but three project leads), and over two years in development with nothing but some pretty pictures and a confusing video to show for it?
I feel Eich, being more technically minded and devoted to the core products than these hipster, feel-good social experiments, would have dropped these resource wastes in order to hire more real developers for the core projects.
Look into the job titles of all the people who originally posted to twitter. None of them are actual developers, and most, if not all of them are on these non-technical social projects. Also note that not one of them actually mentions Prop8, just "culture and mission". It was the tech press that made the jump from "culture and mission" to anti-gay.
as the church that stated that people are free to marry whomever they chose, with certain restrictions (ie couldn't be previously married, free consent, etc.).
Don't be foolish. Polygamy was banned fairly recently, consent wasn't actually required of the woman who was considered chattel, and even age restrictions are civil not religious. There is nothing in the bible about how old a person, especially a woman, must be to wed.
Why is it illegal? Because the church forbade it
Why did the church forbid it? Because earlier religions forbade it. Why did they forbid it? Because inbreeding resulted in deformed offspring and being ignorant as they were, they attributed it as punishment from the god(s) du jour.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
That stopped being true the minute a church made it policy not to marry a couple without a valid government marriage license.
Gay CEOs are likely smart enough to stay away from highly conservative industries
Yeah, if they know what's good for them, amiright?
He said he agrees with the Republcians and Nazis that we do not have the same rights as breeders. That is calling us subhuman. If you disagree with that, then you are defending Republicans and Nazis. He also said they shouldn't be allowed to have benefits for their spouses. That's an appauling position given that he was in a position to deny LGBT benefits for their partners. He also said he believed he could fire them without having to pay them unemployment. That's horrible. Having his kind ruling a company is a huge risk just as it is a huge risk for any other company to intentionally allow a Republican to rule them.
If you pushed for Eich to resign, are you still using ReiserFS?
I can be moderated as Inciteful...
Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from the consequences of your speech. We have to balance the need to let people support unpopular opinions with the need to prevent people from secretly subverting the government. Ultimately if you want to influence public policy you have to be willing to stand up and do it publicly.
So, it's still okay to fire gay CEO's, then? I mean, if I'm in a conservative state and someone spots my CEO at a gay bar or notices that he's donated to some gay cause, he has to go. I presume you're good with that?
Well, considering that most "conservative states" are also "right-to-work" states, meaning that either the employer or employee can terminate employment at any time without having to give a reason...
It would be legal, if that's what you mean by "..presume you're good with that."
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Correction:
Instead of "right-to-work," I mean to say "at-will employment."
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
...to the Kool Aid swilling, fudge packing geeks of the Open Source world.
There's an old saying . . . "Four boxes to use in defense of freedom. Soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order."
Since the screaming left owns the first 3, and has made the final prohibitively expensive, I have no other choice but to just enjoy the decline
They do have that right. And we also have the right to call the campaign against him what it is: more bigotry and hate. I tend to think we need less of that, not more.
So therefore a right wing company should have the right to fire gays, single mothers, and douchebags like you?
I won't get into the subjective "right/wrong" part of the argument, but I will point out that in many states employment is on an "At-Will" basis, which would make it legal for said company to fire whomever they want, moral justification notwithstanding.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
The Left is unprincipled and has a decidedly totalitarian bent.
While I agree that the firing of Mozilla's CEO is a really dangerous precedent, there's nothing at all wrong with being "intolerant" of a bigot. I hear this argument all the time and it's so stupid that I find it hard to believe that people actually argue this in good faith. Surely you recognize the difference between being intolerant of someone for what they are (what they were born as) vs their actions/beliefs.
Would you be intolerant of someone who believes all non white men should be slaves to white men?
How about people who believe that all muslims deserve to die?
What about people who want everyone below an IQ of 100 to undergo forced sterilization?
Of course you should be intolerant of these people. They are awful people and their sense of decency and humanity is messed up.
I'm not at OKCupid, (don't even have an account there anymore), but I totally agree with you about taking responsiblity for one's actions.
I'm a nature photographer.
Which makes them an interesting foil to the "modern" (and I use that term very loosely) right, with it's core belief set stuck anywhere from 1000 to 600 years ago, depending on whether they're more focused on their invisible sky wizard, or bringing back feudalism (with the starring role in jus primae noctis being your friendly neighborhood corporate entity^H^H^H^H^H^Hperson).
Clowns to the left of us, jokers to the right (or vice versa, if you prefer...)
That individuals, rather than advocacy groups, called for his resignation is really beside the point in this case. Individuals have an even greater recognized right to speech than corporations (regardless of current "corps are people" rulings from the Supreme Court).
It's not a black and white issue, it is complicated. "Marriage" as a civil institution is what's messed up. Civil unions are the civil institution, whereas marriage is a social institution (with various ethnic, religious and other traditions involved). The equality that people want in marriage is in regards to civil equality for the most part. Ie, issues in regards to adoptions, death benefits, hospital visitations, joint property ownership, tax benefits (or penalties), and so forth. It really was confusing about what the difference in California law was between civil unions and marriage, other than the words.
I think the institution should be split up. You get both a civil union in order to get the legal benefits, and also get a religious or other ceremony for the social benefits. And couples are allowed to get both, just one, or neither.
What's worrisome to me is that this has a big chance of backfiring. Sure, in San Francisco and Hollywood it is easy to come to the impression that gay rights is now mainstream. But the reality is that the majority of US residents are still somewhat negative about gay marriage. It is great that gay rights are advancing, but it is also very easy for them to be rolled back. Right now there is a lot of anger out there about judicial activism in this regard, as all the states that allow gay marriage have done so because of court rulings rather than the ballot box or large movement of public opinion.
In California prop 8 was overturned basically due to a loophole; the governor's refused to defend the law in court. Yes that sounds good on the surface but has a lot of nasty consequences. First, other states have been drafting laws against gay marriage intended precisely to avoid similar legal problems. Second, it opens wide the doors for governor's you don't agree with to use the same lack-of-enforcement as a de-facto veto of a proposition. We're not always going to have a liberal governor in California.
Eich may or may not be a bigot, but you surely are one..
Maybe his definition of bounds is different than yours?
Maybe not everyone thinks that the KKK is the same as the group he gave money to?
> People with religious delusions want everything to be about their cults, but reality doesn't work that way.
Way to flamebait. Good thing you're on the party line or you'd have gotten modded down.
The simple fact of the matter is, that everyone wants everything to be about their beliefs, "cult" or not. In a democratic society we work out (or are supposed to) something that works as a good enough compromise, but at the end of the day it's basically all arbitrary crap. I doubt you'll find a law on the books that derives itself from anything much like pure reason... They're really all there because people didn't like one thing or another, and wanted to make sure that wasn't allowed. "That's annoying" "That's mean" "That's weird" "That cost me money", etc. Really, "against my religion" is probably one of the rarer reasons for a law to be on the books. When it comes to gay marriage, I quite honestly think that more people are against it because "That's gross" rather than any religious reason; they just use religion as an easier point of debate.
If a company doesn't want certain people representing it in public as their public face, which is exactly what the CEO is, they have every right to not place those people as CEOs. CEOs are not normal employees, and in other countries don't even have regular employment contracts (I'd be surprised if they do here in the US too), and are not subject to the same worker protections. There's different rules for people at the top.
You are going off the plane....you have a golden parachute in one hand and your lawyer's number in the other... which one you going to use?
Choose your own CEO adventure!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Andrew Sullivan — a prominent Illiberal — has drawn some fire upon himself by claiming, "we are no better than the anti-gay bullies who came before us."
While Andrew's employment remains secure, I take an exception with this statement. Though there surely were (and remain) anti-gay bullies, I can not find a single case of a CEO being fired (or forced to resign) simply for being either a homosexual himself, or for supporting a homosexual cause. The only thing, that comes close is the US military — but even they stopped doing it over 20 years ago, when "don't ask don't tell was implemented".
This makes today's Illiberals not "no better", but worse than the "bullies of the past". Much worse...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Reading constant defense of Eich under the guise of protecting free-speech speaks volumes to why this is even still an issue. I can't wait until this is looked back upon as a form of persecution and every body championing "traditional values" will have their day in the mud. The most ludicrous part is that for most politicians who are propping up this unjust opposition to equality, their position's are probably completely unfounded in belief and are little more than talking points to get uninformed voters roweled up.
You would be instantly booted from office for saying "X people should not be able to marry" where X is any type or group of people. But for some reason "Gay people should not be able to marry" is completely okay for 50% of people. Such an assertion should be seen as abhorrent as "Black people must sit at the back of the bus" but for some reason it's not.
This is not a "Political View", it is a dangerous and divisive sentiment that is retarding progress and destroying lives.
Has anyone noticed how much faster Slashdot is when view with Chrome?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
You have it backwards. In European cultures, marriage was a religious institution first. It wasn't later when the government got involved and civil marriages came into existence.
Your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
It's easy to criticize. But what were they supposed to do?
I don't know about a political organization, but in terms of politically visible persons: George Takei was fairly vocal in this (with lots of discussion from his supporters/detractors in regards to that as well). Sometimes it seems that an official political "organization" versus "group with figurehead" is a blurry line sometimes.
You lose that ability the moment you incorporate. You want protections of incorporation, then you also get regulated.
You shouldn't have to forfeit your rights and submit to arbitrary restrictions imposed by a third-party just to exercise your natural freedom of association and act as a group.
The protections of incorporation are really fairly limited. It's not an absolute defense; if you cause harm which can't be made whole out of corporate funds, incorporation won't help—you can still be made personally liable for the damage. The benefits of incorporation mostly come down to simplified tax accounting and clarifying the scope of each party's responsibilities when entering into contracts. The first part is a solution to a problem created by government in the first place, and the second doesn't need government at all, just a mutually-agreeable arbiter to settle disputes.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
What kind of severance package did Eich get. Somewhere in a contract of a multimillion dollar CEO has to say they will lose millions if they leave by quitting before the contract is over but, if they are fired/removed by the board they get the full contract plus a severance package. Would not put it passed that based on contracts they say he quit in the PR spin but at the bank he is still on the payroll.
LOL at your misuse of the word 'minority'... I think you mean 'non-white'. WHITE people are a minority - in terms of the WORLD population, but I don't suppose that matters to you, does it...
Nobody has the right to FORCE themselves into the company of anybody else on Earth. But you don't believe in freedom of NON-association, do you.
If Eich said "Same sex marriage is not for me" that's one thing. But he said "I want to pass a law that denies gay people the right to marriage". That, dear sir, is bigotry. Being against bigotry is not intolerant, it is required behavior of any moral person.
Resist the Gaystapo!
Actually marriage is a joke nowadays. I think having same sex marriages just tops it off as the silliness it has become. In the old world it had a purpose but nowadays it's a pointless thing. I recently watched some show where women were discussing love and marriage and the consensus was that they didn't care as much about marriage but wanted the "big wedding." I think that sums up modern marriage nicely. I don't care much about this subject anymore but I wish the government would just get out of the institution of marriage. Let people call themselves married if they want to and they can leave anytime they don't want to be married anymore. It's pretty much what happens now anyways. Divorce is all about property rights and child custody and money anyway. Let's just quit with the entire government involvement and save a bunch of taxpayer's dollars. I don't care if people marry their goldfish, just leave the State out of it.
Where does it end? I suppose we could just do away with elections and voting, eh? After all, some number of people will not be as wise or enlightened as you, why should they be allowed to vote, or to express any opinions at all?
Mr. Eich was forced out by the GLBT community over his support for a bill which directly limited their freedom to marry the person of their choice
FTFY. Would you really take no action if someone tried to pass a bill saying you were not allowed to marry your wife because of the colour of your eyes? Would that be your "political agenda", or just you standing up for your basic rights?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Gay people have been persecuted for a very long time, and we finally realized if we want our rights recognized we may just have to use the other side's play book.
We will be more than happy to leave the bigots alone - we don't give a fuck what they think - until it affects us and our lives. Once this is over, and even the bigots admit, we are pretty darn close, the bigots can go back and sit and spin all they want and we won't care.
Sometimes in a war, you have to do things you may not like to win, but when something like our lives are at stake, you have to make that choice.
One overpaid jackass CEO quit his job. Boo fucking hoo. I'm sure some bigot company will snatch him right up. His Mercedes and vacation home are just fine. Do you have any idea how many millions of people have been fired, murdered, tortured because they were gay? Giving us equal rights (oh and don't give me that "you have equal rights to marry someone of the opposite sex" bullshit) is the last major step to the fucktards out there having no choice but to leave us the fuck alone.
We didn't start this war, but we sure goddamn as well are going to finish it.
He wasn't fired, he left. The employees protest did not violate this law for the same reason that this law exists in the first place: The political actions of an individual employed by a company aren't controlled by that company. Mozilla had no authority to either order or forbid their employees to protest Eich's appointment.
Well, it would depend entirely on his reasons for taking over the world. I have an open mind about these sorts of things.
... if he had given money to the local chapter of the KKK?
Political litmus tests for employment have been a big no-no for a damn good reason.
Sure. In 9 states. In the other 41, it's legal. In Washington, California, Colorado, Michigan, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, Louisiana, and Florida it's illegal to fire someone for political activity or for not voting for your employer's preferred candidate, or for belonging to a particular party (one or more of those protections, depending on the state).
The linked blog post is by an employment attorney, so it's reasonably sure to be correct. Some states are more specific than others about what specific political activity can not be used to justify firing. Some extend protection to all activity. Others are specific only to voting. Your Republican in South Carolina example is perfectly legal.
Mitchell's blog post is still up yet even Mozilla employees defending Mozilla admit it is misleading. This blog post is causing huge damage and it is shameful that you will not take it down. Mitchell can not be allowed to continue damaging Mozilla and needs to be fired.
Will Mitchell's views be allowed to damage the company? If so why?
Sure, marriage is a religious institution untouched by civilized, secular society, which is why we still have forcibly arranged, polygamous and/or incestuous marriages that cannot be divorced, rape is punished by forcing the victim to marry the rapist, and adultery is punished by stoning. The courts and the government have no power to redefine or recognize marriage, which is why the non-existing divorce cases are never decided by secular courts, courts never handle custody battles, and there is no such thing as a joint tax statement.
This is literally the same argument racists used a few decades ago to argue against letting black and white people marry.
Drop that first sentence and you've got yourself a good argument. It will never happen as long as the protestants are in control, but it's a nice idea.
The problem is that you've conflated it with the wrong reason. Mozilla needs a strong CEO, yes, however the first thing a CEO is is a manager of people. You cannot effectively manage people of mixed composition if you genuinely believe that a certain percentage of them are not deserving of basic human rights. If he was a member of the KKK, would you expect him to treat black employees equitably? If it was public knowledge, would black employees even expect him to treat them fairly (even if he did, would they believe it - knowing he was KKK)?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
By no measure this statement accurate. He didn't leave because he wanted to.
And this was marked insightful? Do me a favor, look up one of the major reasons England became a protestant country.
Oh what? A large portion was because the catholic church wouldn't grant the king a divorce? But I thought marriage wasn't a religious institution!
Fact is, it's very much so a religious institution. The fact that government even recognizes it is because it was a convenient way of applying legal protections on things such as child support.
Do us all a favor, open up a history book and read up on religion, you might find just how influential it actually is. And when reading this, remember that all this happened before your government existed.
What good is freedom of speech if you can't speak your mind without being vilified by everyone?
de Tocquerville even warned that freedom of speech is useless unless the speaker is allowed to voice their view without being persecuted for it.
He even closed "Democracy in America" with: "Tyranny in democratic republics does not proceed in the same way, however. It ignores the body and goes straight for the soul. The master no longer says: You will think as I do or die. He says: You are free not to think as I do. You may keep your life, your property, and everything else. But from this day forth you shall be as a stranger among us. You will retain your civic privileges, but they will be of no use to you. For if you seek the votes of your fellow citizens, they will withhold them, and if you seek only their esteem, they will feign to refuse even that. You will remain among men, but you will forfeit your rights to humanity. When you approach your fellow creatures, they will shun you as one who is impure. And even those who believe in your innocence will abandon you, lest they, too, be shunned in turn. Go in peace, I will not take your life, but the life I leave you with is worse than death.”
Freedom of speech is useless without the tolerance to allow a person's views to be heard, without persecution. Unless you can voice your view without persecution, "You will retain your civic privileges, but they will be of no use to you" is literally true - you can voice your view, but you will suffer for it, what good is it?
It's perversion of the spirit of the first amendment to say "You have freedom of speech, but not freedom from its consequence."
I may not like what I consider ignorant drek spouted by Neo-Nazis, KKK, certain Westboro Baptist Church members, etc. I may think they are personally the worst filth humanity has to offer. But I am willing to fight to give them the right to spew their bile and to protect them from those who seek to silence them by whatever means necessary. Anything less amounts to tyranny by the majority.
And that's precisely what is being done here - Eich voiced a view - years ago, and now that what was then the minority is now the majority, he is being punished for it.
The very cornerstone of freedom of speech is being willing to protect those whose views we hate, and the ability to exercise their right without fear of backlash or persecution.
I'm not saying Eich is left starving... far from it. The point is that nobody should feel a threat to their person, livelihood, or property because their views -- however unpopular, ignorant, or wrong -- are expressed.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
Are we still pretending that donating money to prevent American citizens from marrying the person they love is just a "political belief"?
You know what would be really shitty? Someone codifying into law a political belief that denies a group of citizens the ability to make medical decisions on behalf of an incapacitated spouse.
Look, I disagree with plenty of things people believe or say. We agree to disagree and move on with our lives. Actively donating money to bigoted causes that seek legalize your views at the expense of mine crosses the line of polite disagreement into "You're an asshole."
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
Don't confuse the "modern right" with the "Baby Boomers on the right". The aging right is stuck with the values of their 20s. No surprise there. And the horrid GOP is drawn mostly from the oldest. But that's not the modern right. There's very little mention of invisible sky grandfathers in the under-50 crowd (the belief may still be there, but it's rarely presented as argument for policy).
And you joke about feudalism, but at it at least was a reciprocal arrangement with duties that went both ways.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
What about people who currently oppose polygamy and incest? Are they subhuman too? This is getting too confusing to keep up with. Why don't you just tell us all what to believe so we won't accidentally believe the wrong thing?
The real question is why do you insist on creating a subclass of single people in the first place? Wouldn't everyone want a loved one to be able to visit you in the hospital or larger tax "refunds" or the ability to give gifts without the other person incurring taxes or getting a tax-free inheritence or numerous work-place benefits or...
I think a lot of people are mislabeling the CEO as an employee. The CEO is the _employer_, not the employee. While the CEO might serve at the pleasure of the board, everyone else in the company serves at the pleasure of the CEO. And while everyone is harping on free speech, a CEO's position is as much political as it is business. And being political that means how the public views the person is as important as what the person does. That's why the CEO's make the big bucks.
Under both federal and California law it is illegal for non-profits to contribute to political campaigns. For example, religious organizations organized as non-profits contributing to California proposition campaigns. Do you _really_ want to follow up on violations of California law?
sPh
Marriage is too closely tied to religion and culture. It needs to be completely left up to people to decide on their own. The government needs to institute support for only civil unions with no restrictions on anyone, and leave "Marriage" up to individuals to do on their own, in a way not recognized nor controlled by the government.
Yep, sure is. Ever filled out a job application that asked if you were a fascist or a communist?
Although I'm not old enough to have had an application that asked if I was ever a member of a communist party, a colleague of mine is old enough and once when I was over at his house, he showed me the carbon-copy of such an application he filled out...
Oh yeah, that was an application for a US government civil service job (not military, or top-secret), although he told me that was a common question on many Job applications of the day (he said the grocery packer job he applied for had the same question, although he didn't have any actual proof of that in hand).
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignation/
Gonna be hard to legally blame this on Mozilla if they really offered him another position and he quit anyway.
Posting as AC since the hounds of political correctness are running killing anything in their path. The GLBT community is overplaying their hand. It's interesting to note that it took so little time for them to move to being tyrants themselves. Since they like civil rights comparisons I'll use that. There was a marked shift between the approaches of MLK and people like Jesse Jackson. The GLBT community has clearly moved from a more noble quest about equal rights to a more hatred based "getting even". They are a more modern Jesse Jackson. And just as Jesse lost his ability to do much of anything since he clearly a joke, so too will GLAAD run out of supporters.
Yes, people have been pair bonding, but what we hold as a modern notion of marriage is not what the groups you mention and is directly descendent of what the church taught was Holy Matrimony. As for consent, from the start, the woman had to consent freely. Whether her consent was given freely or not is open for debate, but the whole reason people are asked if they take so and so as their husband/wife, came directly from the catholic church. That is the consent portion.
As for polygamy, the early christian church continued the ban of it because they still thought of themselves as jews and it was banned under the Torah. It isn't a recent thing at all.
As for the age of marriage, I didn't mention it, however, both the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament state that one should not marry a child. A woman was considered a child until her period started. As such, without giving a specific number, scholars agree that women could marry somewhere around age 14, give or take personal development.
I would contend that just because your rights have been denied for a long time, does not mean they are not rights.
Whie I agree 100% with your statement, it doesn't matter. There is not a right to marry. Even the courts have upheld that. From the court's perspective, this isn't about marriage at all, it is about the legal rights automatically bestowed on the couple once they get married. Most of those rights can bestowed manually, through things like power of attorney, etc., but in marriage, it happens automatically.
Simply put, the courts don't care about marriage. From the legal perspective, the discussion is about the establishment of contracts. Nothing more and nothing less.
Boycotts are protected as free speech under the first amendment of the US Constitution .
Brendan Eich resigned, as a result of the backlash. We don't know if the board would have terminated him if he did not. That just didn't happen.
Would that hypothetical termination have violated California law ? It's unclear.
Wouldn't the ongoing boycott of Mozilla because of its CEO would have been reason enough for the board to terminate him, whether this boycott was due to some political or non-political action of his ? I guess we will never know.
-- Julien Pierre http://www.madbrain.com/blog
Sure people might think that, but there isn't any substantive difference between the Klan of the 21st century and the people opposing same sex marriage. Both groups propagate fear, hatred and irrationality for their purpose. Both groups are opposed to equal rights for everybody and neither group has anything resembling a rational reason for it.
Now, if you're comparing them with the Klan of the '20s into the '50s, I think you'd have a point, there's been very little violence on the issue compared with the Klan back in the day.
When animals evolve the the point where they can engage in informed consent, then beastiality might be OK. Polygamy is outlawed for the simple reason that there are serious social problems that come from it. Basically when there's marriage between pairs of consenting adults, just about everybody has a shot at marriage. However, when you allow one man to marry 3 wives, all of a sudden the supply of single men decreases by one whereas the supply of single women decreases by 3, making it so that there are now 2 men that can't get married. The FLDS had a practice of kicking out about 2/3 of the males in order for things to work out.
The point though is that when it comes to consenting adults, there really shouldn't be much say from anybody else.
It's not a black and white issue, it is complicated. "Marriage" as a civil institution is what's messed up. Civil unions are the civil institution, whereas marriage is a social institution (with various ethnic, religious and other traditions involved). The equality that people want in marriage is in regards to civil equality for the most part. Ie, issues in regards to adoptions, death benefits, hospital visitations, joint property ownership, tax benefits (or penalties), and so forth. It really was confusing about what the difference in California law was between civil unions and marriage, other than the words.
No, marriage is a civil institution. It is also a religious and social institution. Civil unions have not existed in English/American law until they were created to give same-sex couples rights without calling it marriage. The legal institution has always been called "marriage".
No. Bigotry is being unable to see beyond or alter your beliefs. Eich may be guilty of that, but there are bigots out there who can't change their beliefs that being anti-gay is an unforgivable, life-long affliction that must be purged from the collective psyche lest we all become bigots.
Intolerance makes the world go 'round, no matter if you're on the brightly-lit gay side, or the dark and oppressive anti-gay side. It doesn't make one's cause look good to have mindless zealots incapable of nuance asking others for nuance. Saying you're anti-bigotry doesn't make you a moral person, if you're really just a bigot of a different sort.
Intolerance will never end as long as we're intolerant. Just saying you're "intolerant of intolerance" is childish and backward thinking. You must be intolerant of harmful intolerance, and the spreading of intolerance. Going after Eich for a few grand of donations is fine, but doing it the way it was done only incites more bigotry and intolerance.
If that's what you really want, good luck winning your quest. History if full of well-intentioned and morally superior heros who went too far on the verge of their victories and lost it all.
Function of marriage is to identify, assign and protect property-rights for natural born children of hetero-couples. Mak it easy on them to excel! Any couple owning significant property is likely more-able than most of their fellow citizens. They will create the most value in the future, thus strengthing the state. Expect the same of their children; marriage grants these children special rights w.r.t. their parents property so they may more easily generate future value (for the state). The state puts a **property wall** around well-blooded children ... expecting a future payoff! Childless or non-property-owning citizens or faghgboiz may 'rut-in-the-rushes down by the riverside' for all the value they likely produce for the state ---- without genetic children that's NONE going for'ard. Marriage is a **don't care** item for them.
Would you still old that position if he was fired for supporting "gay marriage"? Should it be Mozilla's choice to fire a man for having sex with other men?
I tend to think that it should be, both in this case and in those other cases. All too many people forget that blacks were not forced to sit in the back of the bus because the bus companies wanted it that way. They were forced to sit in the back of the bus because the government passed laws mandating it. There is evidence that if those "Jim Crow" laws had not existed, segregation would have gone away on its own.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
This. Let's get the list of anti-gun supporters next and start getting them fired. Don't take my rights away, and don't tread on me.
I don't care if he was supporting a bill to impose shariah on California, or give tax breaks to encourage polygamous marriage, or circumcise all males that enter the state. I don't have to agree with him, I can campaign against him, but it is still his right to think that.
The right to free political involvement is where all other rights come from. Once you permit someone to be harassed for their political beliefs, no-matter how abhorrent they are to you, then whatever your rights are will soon become subject to the whims of those who have the most power to harass their opponents.
Being against anything to the extent that it overrides your civility is the basic core of intolerance. History has been full of groups who have seen their cause as being more important than basic civility such as KKK, Taliban, Supreme Harmony Society, Hutu militia, Red Guards, some US Civil War era democrat politicians, and the result has always been roughly the same. To my knowledge Eich was not practicing uncivil behavior towards gays by discriminating against them or using slurs against them, he just supported a bill. This bill, you might believe is discriminatory in nature, but that decision in a democracy is up to the people and their representatives, and at the very least we all have the right to put forward any question for the people to decide on.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
Yes, that's it. The pro-gay side is just as bigoted as the anti-gay side. They oppose opposite -sex marriage, beat up and spit on straights, refuse to rent apartments to them, ban them from churches, and call them morally depraved. Oh wait, no they don't.
Yeah, now that you mention it, the GLBT community mostly seemed to not care too much about the whole thing, and at least some of them even sided publicly with Brenden.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
My God look. gmhowell wrote more than 1 line! He's been nspired to literary genius (not). Thinking? Forget thinking. It's not for you gmhowell. You might hurt yourself. Lmao.
Picture that. Hahaha! I'm gonna steal the bit about confused tying your shoes.
WTF? Are you seriously claiming that only Christians have marriage? That the last marriage I witnessed wasn't real due to being a Hindi marriage with Gods that have nothing to do with Christ. Or that my marriage is not a real marriage because neither I nor my wife are Christians?
Every culture has marriage in some form or another, usually with the blessings of the local religion. Remember that Christianity is a Johny come lately religion based on nothing besides a collection of contradictory books and is no more relevant then any other religion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
it was over before the real humans got involved...gays are at best 5-8% of the world
they dont marry and have kids like marraiage is about as much as your love of one another...end of storry
get a govt paper for unions big deal move on...
its all distraction form the real issues like the economy , debt and nsa spying
In California prop 8 was overturned basically due to a loophole; the governor's refused to defend the law in court. Yes that sounds good on the surface but has a lot of nasty consequences...it opens wide the doors for governor's you don't agree with to use the same lack-of-enforcement as a de-facto veto of a proposition.
I was worried about that for a while, but after reading through the supreme court's decision, I don't think it's a serious issue. Essentially what the supreme court did was extremely non-binding, and a fancy way for them to say they didn't want to overturn the law without committing to rule the same way in the future.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
From the NYTimes interview: `When asked if Mr. Eich might step down if the controversy surrounding his political donations and his beliefs continued to grow, Mr. Eich said he served as chief executive at the request of the board of Mozilla, and it would be up to those members to decide his fate. “I serve at the pleasure of the board. I would have them ask me to step down,” he said. “Until then I have to be C.E.O. 100 percent.”'
The obvious conclusion then is that the board (illegally) pressured him to resign.
Marriage is marriage, where does this bullshit about civil unions come from? You live in a relationship with someone for long enough and that's considered a common-law marriage, especially if you publicly declare it. The State can issue documents that make it even more legal and the Church can also issue documents that make it OK for your religious views but marriage is marriage.
Most Western Democracies have equality laws which make it illegal to discriminate, laws that were passed by legislatures or such including being part of Constitutions, of course Judges are going to rule against discrimination, at least in a Constitutional Representative Democracy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
WTF? Are you seriously claiming that only Christians have marriage? That the last marriage I witnessed wasn't real due to being a Hindi marriage with Gods that have nothing to do with Christ. Or that my marriage is not a real marriage because neither I nor my wife are Christians?
Every culture has marriage in some form or another, usually with the blessings of the local religion. Remember that Christianity is a Johny come lately religion based on nothing besides a collection of contradictory books and is no more relevant then any other religion.
No, that is not what I am claiming. However, the modern western notion of marriage is the form handed down from the Holy Roman Empire that was the Catholic Church's version. Yes, other religions have marriage and have always had marriage, my point was merely in context of the predominant Judeo-Christian version that was adopted by the secular western society.
Well I mean in that instance the f word implies he's just excited about gay marriage.
even the courts have upheld that
*gasp*
I don't think you've reviewed the case law at all.
9th amendment protection has long been extended, often as a specific example, to right to marriage.
The equality that people want in marriage is in regards to civil equality for the most part. Ie, issues in regards to adoptions, death benefits, hospital visitations, joint property ownership, tax benefits (or penalties), and so forth
Not really. Here in Australia, all those things aren't determined by an official marriage, but whether the law considers you partners. Marriage makes your partners, but so does sexual cohabitation, and the rules are applied equally to homo and heterosexual couples. The marriage rules were changed a while back to deal with the increase in cohabitation without marriage.
But even so, there's still a big push for allowing homosexual marriage, despite it not offering any legal or technical advantages.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
People can be opposed to changes in marriage for reasons which are not religious.
It doesn't matter what the supreme court did. If the state is the only entity that can defend a challenge to a law or prop voted into effect by the people, then when the state refuses to defend it, the challenge will always prevail.
Suppose the people voted for a law that said ever citizen of the state shall be entitled to a two year degree at any state college and i challenge it, if the state doesb't defend the law, i automatically win. Now the law is void~ not because of my posistion being the right one, but because the state never officially said i was wrong. Now imagine any law and any governor who orders the state to act or not.
But all of a sudden allegations that marriage is only the first step and the final plan is mandatory gay sex education in elementary schools do not sound so far fetched. I have and will donate to political causes others may not agree with, for example school choice. I sure hope that a donation I made as a private citizen would not some day preclude me from being CEO of a company. If Hobby Lobby doesn't have corporate religious freedom to restrict health insurance, perhaps OkCupid should be penalized for boycotting based on a political viewpoint.
You can boycott the LGBT community by not marrying someone of the same-sex.
Also, by leaving the rest of us who did alone, rather than try to take away our rights, as Prop 8 did.
-- Julien Pierre http://www.madbrain.com/blog
The solution to polygamy is gay marriage! Lots!
Also reverse traditional polygamy - one woman (probably a domme) and several men (usually all but one slaves)
Also polygamous gay marriage. The possibilities are endless!
What we have here is a failure to imaginate.
Hilariously ironic captcha: buggers
We're drifting away from that. For my marriage, I went to the government office, payed $35 and got a marriage license. Then arranged for a marriage commissioner (basically government) to show up ($75 + mileage), say some non-religious words and my wife and I said some words, pieces of official paper were signed and witnessed and we were married. Note that it was always considered marriage, not civil union or such.
My son has probably never touched a bible and probably couldn't quote any of it. The religous stuff he did go through was more practical, such as being presented with a paddle at 13 yrs in case of finding himself up the creek and the other religious stuff was always presented as to why these beliefs existed. (Mostly revolving around respect with rites that were handy in a society that had no writing)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Sure, it is your right to call the backlash hate, but that doesn't really make it so.
If that's hate, I'd love to know what you call the "Yes on 8" video ads that called gays dangerous to children, etc ?
http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/04/04/brendan_eich_supported_prop_8_which_was_worse_than_you_remember.html
Please watch them before answering.
-- Julien Pierre http://www.madbrain.com/blog
But the reality is that the majority of US residents are still somewhat negative about gay marriage.
Nope. Gotta stay up on the news...
That said, I agree with you about splitting the two. In an ideal world, that would be the way to go. Unfortunately, I could imagine a lot of people suddenly being upset that their government sanctioned "marriage" suddenly has become a government sanctioned "civil union."
What if we replaced gay with Jew/Muslim then would there be all this talk of free speech being violated? Persecution is persecution with any way you segment the population.
Supporting a traditional definition of marriage is not the same as treating people with disrespect, and it is the attempt to paint the proponents of traditional marriage and criminal homophobes with the same brush that gets people labelled as bigots, rightly so.
I am literally 3000 tokens away from the chaotic crossbow --Stephen
US is different, you can cohabitate and not be considered "married". Although if you stay cohabiting long enough then it can turn into a "common law marriage". Though that is really only enforced if one of the couple insists on it; typically this situation arises because a couple really doesn't want to be married but then some legal problem arises to force the issue (child custody after a split for example). That's where civil unions helps out straight couples too as there are a lot who just don't want to bother being married and would rather do things the Australian way.
No. He only donated lots of money to a campaign that would pass laws legalizing the status of gays as subhuman.
Which is a billion times fucking worse.
Yes, that's it. The pro-gay side is just as bigoted as the anti-gay side. They oppose opposite -sex marriage, beat up and spit on straights, refuse to rent apartments to them, ban them from churches, and call them morally depraved. Oh wait, no they don't.
Actually, they do all those things. They even have an epithet for them: breeders.
That's because standing is paramount in pursuing cases. The state and the individuals being married are the main parties affected in a marriage contract. The Supreme Court properly identified that everyone else who wanted to intervene to prevent gay marriage were self-important busybodies who would not actually be personally affected in any significant way (compared to the requested imposition on equality rights of the prospective spouses) if Joe marries John Doe or June marries Julia, and who should therefore butt out.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
This was a delightfully broad-based protest, not stemming from any group in particular.
Shenanigans. This was a very clever advertising campaign.
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
Yes: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it (Evelyn Beatrice Hall, regarding Voltaire's beliefs)"
The antidote to bad speech is more good speech.
I agree "chilling precedent" is a risk here. What could it be next? Using campaign finance disclosures against Progressive Democratic or Green voters? So, there is wisdom in the CA law on that.
From here about me BTW:
http://www.fec.gov/finance/dis...
"FERNHOUT, PAUL
KUCINICH, DENNIS J
VIA KUCINICH FOR PRESIDENT INC.
06/30/2003 500.00 26940295925
09/21/2003 250.00 26960140255
STEIN, JILL
VIA JILL STEIN FOR PRESIDENT
10/22/2012 250.00 13964633282
Total Contributions: 1000.00"
Yet I know in some sense that does foreclose some opportunities laws or not -- although it may also open others. There was also a time in the USA before the secret ballot when people would sometimes even have to fight their way through to the polls. It's not clear to me the secret ballot even is worth it if the cost is vote fraud via voting computers and also not being able to vote via the internet. Still, there was a chilling effect a bit in knowing any campaign donation would be a matter of record, it's true. I live in a very staunch Republican area. Although in looking at that record I do regret not donating to Cynthia McKinney's campaign as a matter of record (although I did vote for her against Obama). I think I was still a bit disillusioned supporting Kucinich where he seemed to cave on antiwar stuff at the Democratic Convention. Still, we homeschool which Republicans tend to support and Democrats tend to work against somewhat as Democrats push expanding compulsory prison-like public schooling. Republicans have tended to support digital rights a bit better than Democrats. Greens tend to be a bit anti-technology whereas I would like to see better technology. I feel Kucinich actually made more sense coherently given his stated beliefs and personal religion back when he was against abortion (even if preventing abortion in the USA may not be practical culturally or legally or politically). McKinney has her own anger management issues apparently like at an ID checkpoint (not saying sometimes anger is not justified though). Sometimes we don't have the combination of choices we might wish for -- or even know exactly what we might wish for. Possibly the deeper issue is that, compared to other Western democracies, the USA has only two parties -- far right (Republicans) and center right (Democrats). It's hard to make good choices with such a limited set of options. And even left/right is a little arbitrary, since there is no reason that, say, opposition to abortion should go with Republicans. Once could almost just as easily imagine the Democrat platform arguing for the sanctity of life from conception with collective responsibility for care and Republicans arguing for the individual right to choose with an individual responsibility for care. Same for many other arbitrary constellations of political alliances which differ in other countries.
Although, it sounds like from what others write here that Eich was a controversial choice even before he took the position for various reasons, including both for management style and also on technology vs. marketing. And it sounds like some of the propaganda for Proposition 8 was essentially gay bashing. Things are so rarely black and white. If Eich been less controversial, and if Proposition 8 commercials had been less indirectly gay bashing, then it seems possible Mozilla might have said something like "Mozilla takes no position on the protected speech of employees; however Mozilla endorses inclusiveness and diversity" (or something like that).
Still, it is ironically interesting that 50 seconds into the third video here (pro-Proposition 8) the actor (?) says "It's already
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
This is literally the same argument racists used a few decades ago to argue against letting black and white people marry.
Would you please stop this "gay is the new black" nonsense. It's offensive.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
No he said "I want to pass a law that prevents a judge from forcing this state to redefine marriage."
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Regardless of what some advocacy organization says, when the vote is put to the people more often than not the bans pass.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
If the state was all that liberal, it wouldn't have passed Prop 8 in the first place.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
It's hypocrisy of the highest degree. Eich's career was just lynched for holding the same position that Barack Obama held at the time.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Mozilla is major TOAST. They butt fucked themselves and Eich will have the last laugh as Mozilla bellies up like a dead carp in SF Bay.
HO RI FUK
BAND DING OW BANG DING OW
LOL
You have and had the same rights as everyone else.
I want to marry Salma Hayek. I can't. Not only because she has no idea of who the hell I am but because she's already married.
In order to enter into the institution of marriage, one needs to have an eligible partner. That means someone who can legally consent, is not of the same sex and is not currently married to someone else.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
the reality is you're wrong, and among youth it's hugely in favor of marriage equality
well if you honestly think that it must be true
The problem with 99% of the defenses of Eich is that they pretend he was a working stiff instead of the boss. And also ignoring the power he had over other employees, including gay ones.
Eich wasn't fired,
In California prop 8 was overturned basically due to a loophole; the governor's refused to defend the law in court. Yes that sounds good on the surface but has a lot of nasty consequences. First, other states have been drafting laws against gay marriage intended precisely to avoid similar legal problems. Second, it opens wide the doors for governor's you don't agree with to use the same lack-of-enforcement as a de-facto veto of a proposition. We're not always going to have a liberal governor in California.
You are not correct in your representation the situation. In California, Proposition 8 was defended in court at the trial level by its proponents. It still lost. The federal appeals court then asked the California Supreme Court if the proponents of a ballot initiative defending it in court was permissible. The California Supreme Court said yes, the proponents of an initiative could do that. The appeals court declined to overrule the trial court.
Then the US Supreme Court decided to punt on the issue.
So the trial decision still stands, on the basis to be found in Judge Vaughn Walker's decision, which was NOT that the case was undefended.
https://ecf.cand.uscourts.gov/cand/09cv2292/files/09cv2292-ORDER.pdf
See there.
But no, I do want a governor and an attorney general to act according to their conscience, and to refuse to act in a way that they feel is unconstitutional. Those who would behave otherwise? Guess what? They'll find the legal justification to do what they want anyway(see the Supreme Court in this case), so why pretend that men with virtue need to be constrained from saying no to something they believe to be wrong?
In any case, no, the loophole you argue was NOT the basis for the judge's decision at all.
In this country, it used to be socially acceptable to hate blacks and discriminate against them.
That is no longer the case.
In this country, it used to be socially acceptable to hate Jews and discriminate against them.
That is no longer the case.
In this country, it used to be socially acceptable to hate Italians/Irish/Chinese/Catholics and discriminate against them.
That is no longer the case.
Homophobia is at the place where racial or religious discrimination was at a long time ago: unacceptable in polite society.
It was often that way with slavery, inter-racial marriages and even savages keeping their stuff. It's a problem with democracy, too easy for an organized group to remove the rights of others which is partially solved by things like Constitutions with Bills of Rights but even then a large enough majority can remove rights.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
It all came out in the end:
Idiot. People aren't "special" for finally having the rights you've always enjoyed. Blacks weren't "special" after the passage of the 13th Amendment or the Civil Rights Act. Non-property owning men and women weren't "special" after Universal Suffrage. Etc.
> Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from all consequences.
In the case of anti-discrimination laws, it *does* mean freedom from being fired (or constructively dismissed, as is the case with a "voluntary" resignation) for who you donate to. This isn't a case of someone "refusing to buy" anything (Mozilla is free), but harassing someone one to the point where it's an intolerable workplace.
That *is* illegal and long has been.
It was Brendan that made it clear to Mitchell. She was offering him all sorts of options to remain, and he got angry that she wasn't accepting his resignation.
Why doesn't OKStupid fire all their employees who don't support same sex marriage? They'd be lying if they said there aren't any.
When liberals do it, it's okay.
could it be?
If the state is the only entity that can defend a challenge to a law or prop voted into effect by the people
The supreme court didn't rule that to have happened. That is, they didn't say the state is the only entity that can defend a challenge to a law.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Please look up the definition of bigotry before you spout off your nonsense. Also stop pretending that the required behavior of any moral person to be against the bigotry YOU dislike.
It is intolerant to not tolerate, and that includes being intolerant of bigotry. That is not what we're fighting about, however. Eich does seem bigoted with respect to the issue of "non-traditional" marriage (lovely BS term that). However, don't conflate bigotry with some mere magic word that will win you debates.
Everyone has things they are bigoted about. The real problem is that he seems intolerant and acts on his bigotry in ways that cause problems for others. We are fighting INTOLERANCE. The very thing you are redefining as "the required behavior of any moral person" by twisting the meaning of words beyond their breaking point.
Regardless of what some advocacy organization says [...]
Like The Washington Post and ABC News?
Actually, as of late, they haven't been passing. Again, you have to stay up to date. There are a bunch of legacy laws that need to be overturned, granted, but you're not seeing any new laws banning gay marriage in the last year or two--the last ban was back in 2012.
its bigotry by proxy hiding behind "religion", why are these people so bothered by other peoples lives, why can't they just live and let live and stop poking their noses into other peoples business.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
I have to agree. No matter how much of an asshole view a person has, they should be able to act on their belief within the law without being condemned for it. The thing that really gets me is that they took it to his employer. If you have a political problem, fight that problem on the political stage. Don't bring that crap to the workplace!
> I'll be impressed if you can point at a signficant GLBT organization that actually did discuss Eich.
How about the ones who sued to get the list of voters in order to allow this sort of thing?
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Judge-Prop-8-donors-have-no-right-to-anonymity-2323493.php
Yeah, I'm a little disgusted that OKCupid stuck their nose into this...
I understand the guy is responsible for the initial short-sighted (non)design of Javascript though.. that's enough reason to fire him.. the language is still trying to overcome his incompetence!
No, that's like sacking someone for being black or jewish.
If the cause he/she donates to is a cause to prejudice to someone for who they are then they should be outed in the same way as Eich.
If the gay CEO sees that being gay in a bigoted community is destroying the company business then maybe its a business decision for CEO to resign in the same way Eich has done. Life is tough at the top (sometimes) when you have to put the business before personal.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Dude, get over yourselves. The guy stepped down. Even if he was fired, it was because the public didn't want him as CEO. There's no law that you have to keep a CEO that the public doesn't like just because the reason they don't like him involves politics.
Fred Phelps, is that you???
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Are you Fred Phelps's wife?
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Back in 2000, the Democrats jammed-through a law making it so nobody can get teaching credentials in CA without first being indoctrinated with a class in gay-tolerance. In 2011, California Democrats put in place laws to mandate that CA schools teach positive things about gays, and banned teaching ANYTHING negative about homosexuality... you cannot legally tell kids the truth in California schools if that truth involves homosexuality and it's something negative (like the stats on longevity for gays vs straights for example). The LGBT activists out here have been VERY busy and very goo at hiding their actions from average parents who are busy-as-hampsters-on-a-wheel just trying to hold jobs, make house payments, pay taxes, feed and clothe the kids, etc. California has become an evil trash heap and the taxes have to keep rising to pay for all the societal wreckage; at the end of the day, you cannot be both socially liberal AND fiscally conservative because all the people damaged by libertine life choices require hugely expensive social safety nets like the BILLIONS we have to spend on healthcare for all the folks who end-up HIV positive.
Incidentally, the "Gay Marriage" effort is, indeed, intended to dismantle/destroy traditional marriage. Progressives lie about this all the time, of course, because a central tenet of their political ideology is that the truth is flexible and the ends justify the means. This was NEVER about equality; men always have had the right to marry a woman provided neither neither the man nor the woman was already married, both were of age, and both consented - there was no "homosexual" test applied to a man to deny him this right. Marriage was never defined by "love" (though friends and family of those who married hoped the couple would love each other) as evidenced by the huge numbers of "arranged marriages", "marriages of convenience", "shotgun weddings" etc in history. The relationship was designed for procreation and the raising of children. Two adults who just want to live together, share stuff, and get frisky do not need the extra structure of marriage that families having and raising kids need. What gay advocates are demanding is something new: the right for a man to marry another man. There's no legitimate right to have this logically-absurd, biologically-toxic, non-conjugal whatever it is declared legitimate as a marriage, no matter how frequently two (or more) "consenting adults" (plus the optional assorted blow-up toy, fence post, farm animal, robot, or corpse (for extra excitement perhaps?) - hey it's all just "sexual orientation") engage in it. Calling it "marriage" will never make it marriage just as I will never become a Martian even if I insist that I am one. Insisting more loudly, or more frequently, or getting a corrupt judge to support the claim will still not make me a Martian. The Supreme court could declare me a Martian and the president could sign a proclamation to that effect... but I'd still not be a Martian.
It's pretty funny that some people have gotten to the place where they think refusing to give some one a piece of paper with a stamp and the words "Marriage Certificate" on it is bigotry.
It's really a slap in the face to people that have faced real actual bigotry.
Well, if you don't support my right to say that marriage should be for any two people (friends, coworkers, whatever I want) then you are a bigot too.
Those Republicans with their hate need to just get the fuck out of this state.
Actually a lot of those who voted for prop 8 were Democrats. Remember this same state went for Obama during that same election, and prop 8 still won the majority vote.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
I think you are missing the point. The issue is not that Eich was wrong and bigoted to contribute towards a campaign that would outlaw gay marriage, I think most people would agree with you on this.
The issue is rather that, instead of simply being against bigotry and speaking out against it, his opponents engaged in a 'hate-campaign' and boycott which crosses the line from simply being against something and speaking out against it, to engaging in destructive and equally intolerant behaviour.
Your freedom of speech rights (and other rights) only work if it is respected *always*, not just when it is convenient. Its like the legal system, it only works if the rapist is afforded the same rights and protection under 'due process' as everyone else and if some lawyer is willing to defend that defendant and his rights, even if they do not like or agree with the defendant.
That is the thing about doing what is right for society and protecting freedom, rather than doing what is expedient or popular in your particular community....it is hard and often comes with a lot of baggage and conflicting emotions.
Personally, I think Eich's opponents became that which they despise, without realizing the hypocrisy of their actions...
Free speech means you will get taken to task for saying horrible things. Nothing about free speech means there won't be consequences.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
The people speaking out were not discussing the issue, they were saying that if you don't agree with us, we will attack you personally.
You'e making a false difference, where none really exists.
People are saying they don't want to work for an asshole. That's fine too. The coporate veil is a legal fiction. If you'e an asshole IRL, then you're an asshole, end of. Suddenly being a corporate employee does not wipe the slate clean from 9-5.
People are saying they don't want to do business with an asshole too. That's also fine too. There are people I won't do business with also.
The thing is: the point of speech is to convince people to do things, otherwise it's pointless. If everyone ageed that he was being an asshole but then made no change in their actions, what would be the point.
The point about free speech protections is to be free from government sanctioned (i.e. legal) violence for what you say. Insisting that people treat you the same no matte what you say is not what fee speech is about.
He's suffered no violence and there's a big debate on the matter going on. That is free speech working exactly as it should.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
All humans have a right to free personal speech
Yep.
d should have the freedom to express themselves politically however they choose, within the bounds of the law
Yep!
I believe this man should have the right to express whatever idiot belief he wants and still keep his job.
And that's where the problem lies, and where I disagree. The thing is being an asshole IRL does not get wiped clean 9-5 merely by being in a company. Since you've given a general argument, we can prod the bonudaries to see how far it goes.
So apparently it's within the free speech laws of the US to declare that one grouping of people "should" be killed. It only steps over the bounds into solicitation of murder when you say a specific person should be killed.
Imagine a hypothetical situation where you have a company with a significant number of key employees falling into a category targeted by real wing nuts, say Jews. The you get a CEO who in his off hours is known ot rant and rave about the Zionist Imperialism and how all Jews should be killed.
Well, now you have a bit of a problem. What do you do. The thing is you can't have both keeping their jobs. Tose key employees aren't going to work for a company where the CEO espouses views about how they should be murdered for their beliefs. In fact they'd have a good case for construtive dismissal. Or you eject the nutty CEO for holding his views.
What do you do?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Ok, one more time for the slow among us. The Sjpreme court's take on it is not impkrtant. Its the failure to defend a law passed by the people that is. Any law can be defeated if no one defends it and the state has a duty to do so but faied to do it.
Imagine the sstate's smoking regulation being challenged by big tobacco and no the governor decides not to defend it. Imagine the off shord drilling ban having the same circumstances. They win by default and the law is overturned even if everyone in the state unanimousely voted for it.
there should line between tech and politics, but it's very difficult. Brendan was one of the Founders of the Mozilla Foundation, I think he does believe what Mozilla stands for, it's sad that he left. I still believe in the Manifesto "People are needed to make the Internet open and participatory - people acting as individuals, working together in groups, and leading others. The Mozilla Foundation is committed to advancing the principles set out in the Mozilla Manifesto. We invite others to join us and make the Internet an ever better place for everyone." Here's the link to the Mozilla Manifesto: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/a...
Eich wasn't fired/resigned/whatever because he expressed a political opinion He resigned because the reaction both inside and outside of Mozilla to that action was having serious, negative repercussions for the organization. If Steve Jobs had showed up at One Infinite Loop in full Nazi regalia one day, one might also argue that he was just expressing his political opinion. The fact that half the business world suddenly stopped buying Macintoshes in protest is key here. Would the CEO's right to express his admiration of Nazis (or at least Nazi fashion) be more important than the fact that he was tanking the company? Should the Board simply sit back and watch the entire company die because they don't want to "break the law"? This is quite idiotic. I'll speculate that if Eich had expressed regret or a change of heart, the whole thing would be done by now and he'd be working. But he chose not to, and this has led a lot of people (including three board members) to signal their great displeasure. For those looking to blame the "gay lobby," I would suggest they think this through more carefully. Gay people don't want to be treated badly, so when they see someone in a prominent position acting like that's ok, they react sharply. If Mr Eich had given money to an anti-Hispanic organization and people protested, would they want to say, "Oh, that's just appeasing the Latino Lobby"?
So you'll be campaigning for all of the black and hispanic CEOs who supported Proposition 8 to be fired as well?
Imagine the sstate's smoking regulation being challenged by big tobacco and no the governor decides not to defend it. Imagine the off shord drilling ban having the same circumstances. They win by default and the law is overturned even if everyone in the state unanimousely voted for it.
The governor who did that likely wouldn't get re-elected if the law was important and popular. Would you care to provide a reason why free and fair elections are not a sufficent check against that behaviour?
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Why is it that it's now imperative "we" have diversity in colour, creed, religion, sexual orientation but diversity in opinion and belief, if it doesn't gel with diversity of colour, creed, religion, and sexual orientation is bad? Stupid. The desire and drive to normalize homosexual behaviour is brandishing those who don't affirm this behaviour as bigots. It's OK if some people don't find the idea of two guy humping OK. It's not normal. It's permissible, but it's not what nature intended. Flame me all you want, but the force an issue down society's throat at all costs is stupid.
by the single issue, bully, heterophobes
"Rapidly losing the will to live here."
If not a joke, your contributions would be missed, whether agreed with or not. See also my comment to someone else related to depression: http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
And on the value of public disagreements: ..."
https://sites.google.com/site/...
" The theory Dan Sperber suggested--the argumentative theory of reasoning--proposes that instead of having a purely individual function, reasoning has a social and, more specifically, argumentative function. The function of reasoning would be to find and evaluate reasons in dialogic contexts--more plainly, to argue with others. Here's a very quick summary of the evolutionary rationale behind this theory. Communication is hugely important for humans, and there is good reason to believe that this has been the case throughout our evolution, as different types of collaborative--and therefore communicative--activities already played a big role in our ancestors' lives (hunting, collecting, raising children, etc.). However, for communication to be possible, listeners have to have ways to discriminate reliable, trustworthy information from potentially dangerous information--otherwise speakers would be wont to abuse them through lies and deception. Listeners must have mechanisms of epistemic vigilance. One way listeners and speakers can improve the reliability of communication is through arguments. The speaker gives a reason to accept a given conclusion. The listener can then evaluate this reason to decide whether she should accept the conclusion. In both cases, they have used reasoning--to find and evaluate a reason respectively. If reasoning does its job properly, communication has been improved: a true conclusion is more likely to be supported by good arguments, and therefore accepted, thereby making both the speaker--who managed to convince the listener--and the listener--who acquired a potentially valuable piece of information--better off.
Our evolutionary account is much more in touch with the prevailing view of the evolution of human cognition. According to this view--alternatively named the social brain hypothesis, or the Machiavellian intelligence hypothesis, among others--most of human cognition evolved to answer the demands of our social world.
And:
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes....
"We do not claim that reasoning has nothing to do with the truth. We claim that reasoning did not evolve to allow the lone reasoner to find the truth. We think it evolved to argue. But arguing is not only about trying to convince other people; it's also about listening to their arguments. So reasoning is two-sided. On the one hand, it is used to produce arguments. Here its goal is to convince people. Accordingly, it displays a strong confirmation bias -- what people see as the "rhetoric" side of reasoning. On the other hand, reasoning is also used to evaluate arguments. Here its goal is to tease out good arguments from bad ones so as to accept warranted conclusions and, if things go well, get better beliefs and make better decisions in the end."
So, thanks for being part of that process. In any case, hang in there, there is a chance it might get better.
Also, tangentially, on things "getting better" and depression and being in a minority:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...
"Its goal is to prevent suicide among LGBT youth by having gay adults convey the message that these teens' lives will improve."
Example:
"It Gets Better - Princeton University"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
But that sentiment can apply to lots of things given a life so full of
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
So it's okay to fire someone for being conservative and supporting conservative causes, but not for being liberal and supporting liberal causes? Okay, got it.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Are we still pretending that donating money to prevent American citizens from marrying the person they love is just a "political belief"?
Considering that it's still a contentious legal issue in most of the U.S. and is largely split along party lines, yes that's exactly what it is. That may change in the future, but, for right now, it's very much a political issue. And the people on the right think they they're every bit as morally justified in this as those on the left. And I personally don't want to see people losing their jobs over this very fucking politicized holy war, be they a Prop-8 supporter in CA or a gay rights supporter in TX.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Lol.. so we are a lawless nation unless someone can get elected to fix something. kind of like term limits in california and the current governor. You would hope an election would fix it but you would likely be wasting your time.
But not only that, someone will have to duplicate all the effort and expense to redo the law and it will have to go up against court precedent which will make it unenforcable until it is changed. Precedent also limits the ability to challenge the premise of the nullification of the law. It may be that some laws could never be recreated unless a judge ignored precrdent. It opens a can of worms that are dificult to gather up and put a lid back on
The default needs to be uphold the law and then maybe we wouldn't have a billion laws on the books not being enforced and every politicial screaming there should be a law about that whenever it is broken.
$1000 is not a lot of money in a campaign that took millions in, and Prop 8 said nothing about gays being "subhuman".
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I disagree that you don't have the same rights as "breeders". You too can choose to be heterosexual and to breed, same as anybody else.
The benefits are for the *children* and *parents of children* in an attempt to have the human species continue. I am aware you are philosophically opposed to the species continuing; but that doesn't give you the right to insist that others can't continue the species.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Correct, they didn't. What said that blacks were subhuman was the US Constitution- where they were specifically listed (along with women and Native Americans) as being 3/5ths of a human. I don't see anybody pushing to claim that homosexuals are 3/5ths of a human, do you?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Not unless he's posting from hell.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
This is a ridiculous straw man you're building here, and please do note where I said that I was making somewhat of a simplification. The correct example for you to make would be something to the effect of "Knowing that he holds these personal beliefs, can he be trusted to not exempt or exclude homosexual employees, from XXXX due to their yyyy...." To which my answer is that, yes, this is certainly a valid concern. But I can't imagine that this man was hired off the street with no previous examples of his character and actions to draw from. So where's the line for you? At what level is personal speech "acceptable"?. What is "the right level" of tolerance? Let's take it further: "what is the right level of patriotism?" "What is the right level of morality?" "what is the right level of piety?" Just because you and I agree that LGBT crowd should be allowed to marry gives us no right to impose those beliefs on others, and to do so is wrong.
The Bay Area is one of the liberal places on the planet. The Fresno area, not so much. Eich isn't living in Fresno or Sacramento, he lives and works in the Bay Area.
Are you joking? Polygamy is *allowed* in the Torah, see http://www.jewishencyclopedia.... and http://www.chabad.org/library/....
Living among monogamous pagans is a much more relevant factor.
multiple marriage (regardless of which sex is the single) = polygamy [ok so far]
"reverse traditional" by which I assume you mean one Female, multiple Male marriage = polyandry [note same root as android, etc. Literally "many men."]
the far more common one Male, multiple Female marriage = polygyny [note same root as gynacologist. Literally "many women."]
McFly777
- - -
"What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them?" -Marilyn Pittman
Barack Obama is a politician. They're free to hold offensive views and many are rewarded for it, it's part of the job.
And they weren't really the same position either. The most anti-gay-rights thing Obama ever did is to state that "Marriage should be between a man and a woman." About as close to the fence as you can get on the anti-gay-rights side. Later he denounced those views and has made many pro-gay-rights statements and actions.
Eich donated to a campaign to strip gays of an existing right to marry and has been completely unapologetic about it. Not the same position.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
This is a ridiculous straw man you're building here, and please do note where I said that I was making somewhat of a simplification.
Turnabout is fair play. It is precisely because you were making a simplification that he responded with his own.
You call his simplification a strawman? He probably feels the same for yours.
The correct example for you
That's actually evidence that it is you who are constructing a strawman. You're making up an example for him, putting words in his mouth and arguing against that, instead of what he actually said.
Just because you and I agree that LGBT crowd should be allowed to marry gives us no right to impose those beliefs on others, and to do so is wrong.
None of us imposed any beliefs on others. We can't legally do it even if we wanted to. I can't call up Eich and tell him he's fired. Nor can you, or anybody else who whined about him
Yes, to put it poorly, all people did was WHINE. Whining doesn't have legal powers. Me whining at you imposes nothing on you. You can laugh me off as some random AC troll. Or you could get mad and respond with your own speech. Or you listen and seriously reconsider your beliefs and take action. The choice is ultimately yours.
It would have been perfectly fine (and legal) for Eich to refuse to resign. "I did nothing wrong. If you (Mozilla) fire me I'll sue for wrongful dismissal". He choose not to.
In the same way you can't imagine he was just hired off the streets, I can't imagine a man of his caliber succumbed to make that decision under coercion.
I understand that position, but it's not practical. The government has an interest in recognizing marriage, it provides framework for a number of legal and property issues that otherwise would require everyone to produce and maintain multiple legal documents. Look into the statistics of estate planning, percentage of people that draft a will, power of attorney's, etc etc.
This is a ridiculous straw man you're building here,
It's not a straw man, it's reductio ad absurdum. Quite different.
and please do note where I said that I was making somewhat of a simplification.
Yes, but you'd simplified it so far that what you said didn't work. Unfortunately I did not know the more complex thing you were thinking.
To which my answer is that, yes, this is certainly a valid concern. But I can't imagine that this man was hired off the street with no previous examples of his character and actions to draw from.
But there's more than that. Mozilla is a very public organisation and a charity dedicated to "doing good" in some regard. There's also the problem that mozilla employees who have opted to work at such a place not being happy working for someone who is a known bigot. The thing is you get to choose to have one or the other but not both working for you. Who do you choose?
So where's the line for you? At what level is personal speech "acceptable"?
Circumstance dependent, of course. At a certain stage, I'm not going to do business or work for someone who is too far over. It's always easy to identify things far to the side of the line.
What is "the right level" of tolerance?
That's an easy one. I'm happy to tolerate (from a legal point of view) anyone that doesn't try to restrict the freedom of others. Your freedom ends where my nose begins and all that. From a personal and professional point of view, I don't like assocating with assholes.
"What is the right level of morality?"
Your freedom ends where mine begins.
Just because you and I agree that LGBT crowd should be allowed to marry gives us no right to impose those beliefs on others, and to do so is wrong.
That's the thing though: Eich was the one using the force of law to impose his beliefs on the LGBT crowd, not the other way around. He funded a law which prevented people he'd never see or never meet from marrying. Of course he's free to do that if he likes, and I'd never dream of trying to use government sanctioned violence to prevent him from doing so (a qualm, you'll note that te doesn't share). However, I see no reason why anyone should choose to associate with someone like that if they don't wish to.
Free speech is generally about preventing government sanctioned violence against the speaker. It allows the speaker to say unpleasant things about others, and of course on the flip side, it allows others to say unpleasant things about the speaker. Free speech doesn't say you get to keep your friends etc.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
No, it's enough to say something needed to change, but that need not be the resignation of the CEO. It could be an open discussion with the employees to assuage their well justified fears that someone who had acted, not spoken, against the interests of themselves and their peers would not do it again. As an adult he took actions, he is responsible for his actions and his words, even if it comes with a consequence he may not have wanted or intended. Mozilla the company didn't create the situation and actively tried to help him. His reactions to the consequences for his actions caused the issues. He didn't get a handle on his message, and it got away from him.
: a person who strongly and unfairly dislikes other people, ideas, etc. : a bigoted person; especially : a person who hates or refuses to accept the members of a particular group (such as a racial or religious group)
Your definition of bigotry differs from that of all respected sources. Therefore, the remainder of your argument is invalid. You also say...
Intolerance makes the world go 'round'...
To which I say, what world do you live in? I imagine if you were a Jew in 1939 living in Germany, or a native american in 1800 living in north america, etc, you may have a different opinion on the effect of intolerance and it's value to society.
Regardless of whether we agree with someone's political, religious, or frankly any belief is NONE OF OUR BUSINESS. Last I checked this is America where we have freedom of speech and are free to believe what we like. You're saying basically that anyone that donates money to a campaign for a candidate or cause that you're not in favor of is wrong. That my friend is also bigotry. If he was forcing his views and beliefs on the company and the employees then yes, that's wrong and cause for dismissal. He believed something was wrong based on HIS BELIEFS and regardless of what the rest of us think he's got every right to do so. You don't have to like it. You don't have to use a product he's responsible for. THAT'S YOUR CHOICE! Get it? By the way, I suggest you don't use any web enabled device because Eich invented JavaScript as far as I know. You wouldn't want to use a web page that had JavaScript on it that was invented by a bigot.
Prop 8 was to reign in judicial activism.
And since when are politicians entitled to additional rights?
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
So this article is typical bullshit.
... all the states that allow gay marriage have done so because of court rulings ...
That statement is false. Only 1/3 of the 18 US jurisdictions where same-sex marriage is legal got that way due to court rulings. 2/3 are either by legislatures or by direct popular vote:
- 3 (17%) by popular vote (ME, MD, WA)
- 9 (50%) via legislatures (VT, NH, DC, NY, RI, DE, MN, HI, IL)
- 6 (33%) via the courts (MA, CA, CT, IA, NJ, NM)
In addition to these 18, there are 5 more states that currently have stayed rulings on SSM (UT, OK, VA, TX, MI). Assuming all of these soon move into the 1st camp, this still only brings the % via the courts to 48%, leaving 52% due to either elected representatives or directly by the people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
FWIW, here's a map of recent public opinion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...
If Eich said "Same sex marriage is not for me" that's one thing. But he said "I want to pass a law that denies gay people the right to marriage". That, dear sir, is bigotry. Being against bigotry is not intolerant, it is required behavior of any moral person.
Lies. The point is that marriage grants preferential treatment. If someone claims that the reason of this preferential treatment should be having children (or trying to) and not just being in love, this is perfectly reasonable and does not discriminate LGBT people simply because they couldn't get similar rights by being in love - they also can make children like everyone.
Hence, Brendan Eich's position is not "anti" gay or in favor of "discrimination", and does not collides in any way with Mozilla's principle of inclusiveness - regardless of what the pink fascists may say.
So when judges rule in a way you don't like it's judicial activism?
Politicians don't have additional rights, they have different job conditions. For example if you were a bartender you could use adult language with customers and not get fired, while if you were a mascot at an amusement park you couldn't. I can't show up to work in a french maid outfit and keep my job while a stripper can. I could, however, star in porn videos in my free time and keep my job while a Disney pop idol couldn't. Are you getting the idea? In some jobs there are restrictions in what's allowed both on and off the job for PR reasons.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
There's very little mention of invisible sky grandfathers in the under-50 crowd (the belief may still be there, but it's rarely presented as argument for policy).
Very little direct mention as argument for, maybe, yet it still *informs* most of their policy. Those that aren't blatant corporate cock-sucking, at least (and yes, I know, the majority of the policy on "both sides" falls into that latter category).
You say that like it's a bad thing. Why would policy informed by a strong moral compass, work ethic, and sense of responsibility be bad? I'm for anything that builds an expectation that adults are expected to be responsible, to plan for stuff that can go wrong and work to prepare for stuff going wrong, and to act as if our choices in life have real and profound consequences. Plus the religious tend to be more charitable, and I'd like to see charity come back into favor (at the expense of some other guy should be forced to give his money to the poor, which is not charitable at all).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Here is an English lesson for you.
bigotry
bigtr/
noun
noun: bigotry; plural noun: bigotries
1.
bigoted attitudes; intolerance toward those who hold different opinions from oneself.
"the report reveals racism and right-wing bigotry"
Let me make it clear for you: One who is intolerant toward an act, in this case marriage, even if it's done by a specific group, cannot be called bigot. In order to be called bigot, he would need to be intolerant toward people. You make faulty assumption that being intolerant toward gay marriage = intolerant toward gays. Let me know if you need a lesson in logic too.
Resistance is futile.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Brenden invented Javascript and has remained very active in that community. He has DEMONSTRATED the ability to engender an active ecosystem which is what Mozilla requires. To weigh that against a political contribution 6 years ago is insanity and nonsense. The strident call for his resignation bodes very poorly for the validity of LGBT concerns and suggests an underlying coercion that is coming to the surface now that they consider themselves in the ascendant.
Be More, Be Manly, The Manly Geek Ubergeek Extraordinaire Blogger: www.manlygeek.com/blog Podcaster: podcast.man
The mis-characterizations of those who oppose same sex marriage shows a lot of close-mindedness. The first step to pursuading someone is to understand their point of view.
Society has an interest in advocating stable families that provide the proper environment for children. Government plays a role in that advocacy, and democracy is a process by which different opinions come to a workable agreement.
The religious argument is not about bigotry. Religious people have an opinion about what constitutes the proper environment for raising children. Though single-sex families can be nurturing, there is a rational argument that children are best served by having both a male and female role model.
Too often the argument for same-sex marriage revolves around the idea that people should act on any feeling that they have. Religious people, who focus on self mastery and a divine purpose, see that argument as debasing.
So stop with the name calling, and engage in a useful discussion.
Okay, they the GLBT community members who took part in this are hypocritical bullies who are using their newfound political favor to engage in the same acts they used to condemn loudly when they were done to their members.
For what it's worth, I'd be equally pissed if Eich was "forced out" for being gay or for donating in opposition to Prop 8. That would be equally wrong to do this for those reasons.
Okay, then when the political winds change you would also consider it "free speech working" if a CEO is forced out because he supported gay marriage once 6 years prior? Because that would be the exact same thing that happened with Eich for a reversed position.
Why would policy informed by a strong moral compass, work ethic, and sense of responsibility be bad?
The "strong" part. Anything done in excess becomes bad.
A strong moral compass leads to identity politics and prejudice. People form groups that fight each other based on their moral values. Pro-life. Pro-choice. Gay marriage. Drugs. etc.
Work ethic is a moral value. A strong work ethic leads to strong class divide, with people judging each other as lazy or don't "deserve" their wealth because they didn't meet up to one's work ethic. This is a major reason leading to class warfare.
A strong sense of responsibility leads people to act upon their prejudices. Those other people are lazy and don't share our morals, and it's our responsibility do DO something about it! Think of the children!
In an environment where strong moral compass, work ethic, and sense of responsibility are present, you know who thrives the most? Politicians.
"When everyone is looking for gold, it's a good time to be in the pick and shovel business"
Politicians will play to your morals. They'll pretend to share your work ethic. They'll manipulate your sense of responsibility to give them more power and money.
Funny thing about discrimination law is that it doesn't prevent discrimination, it merely trains people what not to say. The OP says that clearly. What would be illegal was implied but carefully never said explicitly, and it is hard to prove intent. I knew of a case many years ago where it looked like a line manager was choosing people to lay off who had used the company medical benefits, such costs come directly off the bottom line, but nothing was provable because no intent to do that was stated, meaning in public. The result is that the law is an aid to people who discriminate.
We are lucky that many people who lead like to be liked and almost worse than being fired outright is to be shamed. At least if the CEO has a disagreement with the board and the shareholders, he can rationalize that he did the best he could, but if he knows that according to his own standards he made a mistake or did wrong that he feels shame for it, then he may resign on his own accord. That is good. It levels the playing field between ordinary and powerful people.
I wish you hadn't posted anon, you made a brilliant statement about everything wrong with forcing Eich out of office. Every future thread about this topic should start and end with your post.
Why is Californian law an issue? Mozilla developers are located all around the world, as are Mozilla users. This is a world-wide Open Source software development community, not a USian business.
Work ethic is a moral value. A strong work ethic leads to strong class divide, with people judging each other as lazy or don't "deserve" their wealth because they didn't meet up to one's work ethic. This is a major reason leading to class warfare.
Hahaha! That's what the words "lazy" and "deserve" mean. You wanna? You better work bitch! Not a class divide thing at all - people from all classes can be found working hard (like it's a profession).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The question of who invented it is complicated and probably irrelevant. The question of how to disentangle government and religion here is much more important.
Marriage has a whole range of legal effects, many of which are difficult or impossible to replicate without marriage. Because of that, deliberately restricting marriage to that which is defined by one or more religions is establishment of those religions, and hence unconstitutional.
I really don't care whether the term "marriage" is kept as a legal term that churches use (perhaps in a slightly different way) or if it's replaced legally by some other term and relegated to informal and/or religious usage. I care about the legal effects, and who the effects apply to is much more a political than religious question.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
...in this setting,' Baker was quoted as saying... Doesn't sound like she gave him much of a try at it unless you believe the 'It was Brendan's decision' part. Wouldn't a newly minted, first-time CEO want to give it the old college try and see where the chips fall after some open (and lengthy) discourse?
I'm not following your logic. You say that Eich did something that was within his rights. At that point, numerous people complained about him, which was within their rights as clearly as the donation was within Eich's rights. You seem to be implying that Eich has free speech but should have immunity from consequences, while the people who complained about him should suffer consequences for their complaints. Why does Eich get the free pass here?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
What does Stalin have to do with this?
BTW, his influence over the Communist party was weaker until around September 1939, when quite a few Communists quit because of Stalin's alliance with Germany, and the Party switch from "Hitler is evil" to "Hitler is all right". The people who were OK with that were mostly just taking Stalin's orders.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
It may be difficult for a gay to lead some companies effectively, in which case there are reasons not to select one for CEO. Satisfied?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Supporting a traditional definition of marriage is not the same as treating people with disrespect
Cognitive dissonance at its finest. Oppressing people is fine as long as they're the ones you think should be oppressed or because oppressing them is traditional?
All you have to do is put yourself in their shoes. If 90% of the country was gay and forbade you from marrying a person of the opposite gender because marriage had always been for same-sex couples, would you feel oppressed? If a gay person's spouse could visit them in the hospital, could claim tax write-offs and could inherit easily from their spouse and make medical decisions for them, but you were denied those things because your marriage was considered nontraditional, would you feel oppressed?
Ok, one more time for the slow among us. The Sjpreme court's take on it is not impkrtant. Its the failure to defend a law passed by the people that is. Any law can be defeated if no one defends it and the state has a duty to do so but faied to do it.
The state has a duty to follow the constitution. Can the agents of the state be made to defend a law they believe is unconstitutional?
Think about it.
http://hotair.com/archives/201...
Obama wasn't on board until about 2012 as well, he must resign too.
Because the communists of the black lists where people that aligned themselves with a political group that was unpopular and arguably evil and proven wrong by history.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
So when judges rule in a way you don't like it's judicial activism?
Not always but in this case it was. The judge was not impartial. He was a gay man who exploited his position to further the cause. It wasn't just his vision of what ought to be, it was a decision in which he had a personal stake. People get bent out of shape that Clarence Thomas used to work for Monsanto, it would be like if he still consulted for them while on the bench.
For example if you were a bartender you could use adult language with customers and not get fired, while if you were a mascot at an amusement park you couldn't.
If there are behavioral guidelines in place, that's true.
I can't show up to work in a french maid outfit and keep my job while a stripper can.
If there's a dress code where you work.
I could, however, star in porn videos in my free time and keep my job while a Disney pop idol couldn't.
Two words, "Morals Clauses". Three more words "Disney uses them".
Are you getting the idea?
Yes. That you're grasping at straws.
In some jobs there are restrictions in what's allowed both on and off the job for PR reasons.
This has nothing to do with that. This was legal, ethical behavior that took place several years before he was employed by Mozilla. After a modern-day witch hunt and lynching, he was forced out of a job that he was eminently qualified for and that's wrong.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
A "traditional" definition of marriage also includes a marriage between a man and 17 women, or a man and an eight year old girl.
You'll forgive me if I don't give a shit about what a "traditional" definition of marriage looks like.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
i am not anti-gay marriage, but if i was on the bubble and someone like you was trying to convince me towards it, you would have the opposite effect.
Please tell me that is sarcasm because if not then you really are a fool as marriage was around before religion (at least the ones around and practiced today) That and the government recognizes a marriage even if a non religious person preforms the ceremony
I must respectfully disagree. By simply campaigning against him, he may consider himself harassed. Free speech, to be really free, must have license to offend.
There is no reasonable definition of harass here, that's the real problem. It's basically what you could probably get a civil jury to agree with, and I think we've all noticed how split right down the middle this whole case is. Is it harassment if 90% of the Mozilla user base stops using the product? Is it harassment to write a letter to the board protesting their choice? Is it harassment to stand outside their offices with a placard chanting? If he feels harassed he has every right to file protective motions in a court of law, I doubt he'll be following that up though.
As for your uncivil points, a lot of people would argue that 'yes' he was being uncivil when he donated money to that cause. Other people would disagree (maybe me included). People are going to have their say, and California criminal codes don't trump the constitution of the land.
Nice post though, made me stop and think for a minute. It's a shame we have to tolerate the horrible, nasty, venom filled, bigoted, hurtful, degrading and insulting free speech to allow all the other good stuff. But it's well worth that offence and harassment.
Homophobes and racists using the same language and the same arguments for their bigotry does not make "gay the new black". It just makes bigots the new bigots. A surprising twist.
Of course its okay when YOU do it ... just not when the other guy does it.
Fact: 52% of the state agrees with him. As such, thats how we decide things in this country, remember?
Its funny how you'll use the word bigot for anything that is in disagreement with you, but its okay and even Greeeeat! when you do it yourself.
You're a hypocrite, regardless of how politically correct you think yourself to be.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
I really like some players like OkCupid urging users to abandon Firefox, but yet we have this: OKCupid's CEO Donated to Anti-Gay Campaign Once, Too
Hypocrisy.
Not really at all. Because, you see, morality has a hierarchy. The right to labor is a bit higher than the right to punish sin.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Not always but in this case it was. The judge was not impartial. He was a gay man who exploited his position to further the cause. It wasn't just his vision of what ought to be, it was a decision in which he had a personal stake. People get bent out of shape that Clarence Thomas used to work for Monsanto, it would be like if he still consulted for them while on the bench.
I guess we'll need asexual judges since by this logic, a straight man (or woman?) would be equally unfit to rule on the case.
So you seem to be upset that there was nothing in writing that said "while employed with us as the face of the company and highest-paid employee, being a horrible bigot and donating to bigoted causes will be considered a fireable offense due to the loss of business from public backlash." Well after this I'm sure all CEO's contracts will have such clauses, so the board members won't have to choose between stepping right onto the wrong end of a lawsuit or hurling themselves against the 38th floor windows. And he wasn't forced out of the position anyway. He could have stayed on and gone down with the ship.
I also find it hilarious that you compared this to a witch hunt or lynching. We're not so far past those that you wouldn't know the original meaning of those words. It's just hilarious how the most powerful group in any society always has a massive persecution complex.
"This guy's donations to a bigoted cause brought a boycott onto his company and he was pressured to leave the position for it!?!? THAT'S JUST LIKE BURNING HIM ALIVE FOR BEING UNPOPULAR OR BEING HANGED TO DEATH BY AN ANGRY MOB FOR HIS SKIN COLOR!!!"
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Hahaha! That's what the words "lazy" and "deserve" mean. You wanna? You better work bitch! Not a class divide thing at all - people from all classes can be found working hard (like it's a profession).
Learn to read. I didn't say work ethic is a "class divide thing". I said it leads to it. Nothing you said contradicts what I said. In fact, it enhances it
Yes, you can find people working hard in all class. This is how class divides start.
The have's think they work hard, so they antagonize the have-not's who question the system. They convince themselves that the have-not's are just "lazy"
The have-not's think they work hard, so they think the it's the system's fault they aren't getting rich, and any rich who defends the system must be complicit on the system. They convince themselves that the rich don't "deserve" their wealth.
The have's think they work hard, so they antagonize the have-not's who question the system. They convince themselves that the have-not's are just "lazy"
That's the opposite of strong values: that's hypocrisy. Those with a strong moral compass and strong values recognize hard work wherever they find it. Those who lucked into money don't, and are thus mistaken about "lazy".
The problem you complain about stems from the lack of moral commitment, not an excess of it.
I've never met anyone who falls into the "class divide" mindset/trap you mention who wasn't themselves "lazy". It's excuse-making, or worse it's a line swallowed whole from others' excuse making.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
That's the opposite of strong values: that's hypocrisy. Those with a strong moral compass and strong values recognize hard work wherever they find it.
No, it is precisely when you have strong moral compasses and strong values that you fail to recognize hard work in others.
Because you have strong values, you become biased against those who do not share those values. Whatever hard work they did won't be recognized.
To a person with strong moral values in pro-life, for example, wouldn't recognize any hard work by pro-choice, and vice versa. That abortion doctor isn't doing work. He's MURDERING unborn children!
I've never met anyone who falls into the "class divide" mindset/trap you mention who wasn't themselves "lazy".
The plural of anecdote is not data. That speaks more to your own values and biases. You don't recognize the hard work of those who "fall into the class divide", so you just dismiss them all as lazy and making excuses.
Hahaha. The old "I'm right, and any argument you make against me is flawed because you're wrong, and thus none of your data or arguments are trustworthy" rhetoric. Begging the question while poisoning the well.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Of course the Supreme Court's take is important. The Constitution of the USA is the supreme law of the land and the Supreme Court provides a verification check that all laws are consistent with and do not violate the Constitution.
While the people may be capable of using referendums to pass laws that violate the constitution, if the state believes that that law violates the constitution then why should the state be forced to waste court and legal resources defending a law that they know is going to be eventually stuck down? Since when are conservatives in favour of useless waste of government resources? Oh I guess it's OK when those wasted resources are spent defending their pet bigotries.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
" If 90% of the country was gay and forbade you from marrying a person of the opposite gender because marriage had always been for same-sex couples, would you feel oppressed? "
would the same country allow us to have a legal union allowing us the same rights? just not a term used by those believing gay is the only way approved by "their god"?
fucking usually IS a precursor to marriage.
he was fired for bad judgement
just like in my new hire embarrasing the boss/founder example...even though its true it's still bad judgement which is enough to get you fired in the "vagaries of contemporary employment"
think twitter...twitter is speech...if a person sends a dick pic via twitter they might be fired depending on their job
that's ***legal***
those are two examples but the point is he had *bad judgement*
is it fair? i'm not addressing that question b/c I don't know the details of his hiring in the first place...maybe he had been warned internally, maybe all Mozilla are like him...no way for us in this discussion to know
he apologized...that should be noted
Thank you Dave Raggett
Hahaha. The old "I'm right, and any argument you make against me is flawed because you're wrong, and thus none of your data or arguments are trustworthy" rhetoric. Begging the question while poisoning the well.
Projection.
It was you who first asked the question: "why would policy informed by a strong moral compass, work ethic, and sense of responsibility be bad?" You're the one who assumed that you're right and rejecting my data or arguments.
See you here http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... you bigmouthed little nobody...
APK
P.S.=> Have the balls to show up there in the link above to reply to it (& NOT days later like you did, LONG after I left that thread!
NOW, in the link above, I simply tore you apart in it vs. your "so-called 'points'" that you "amended" bogusly, changing your parameters/constraints there!
(& I am going to rip you a new asshole there YET AGAIN, publicly, for your BIG mouth you little shit - prepare to be utterly humiliated, publicly...)
... apk
See you here http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... you bigmouthed little nobody...
APK
P.S.=> Have the balls to show up there in the link above to reply to it (& NOT days later like you did, LONG after I left that thread!
NOW, in the link above, I simply tore you apart in it vs. your "so-called 'points'" that you "amended" bogusly, changing your parameters/constraints there!
(& I am going to rip you a new asshole there YET AGAIN, publicly, for your BIG mouth you little shit - prepare to be utterly humiliated, publicly...)
... apk
See you here http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... you bigmouthed little nobody...
APK
P.S.=> Have the balls to show up there in the link above to reply to it (& NOT days later like you did, LONG after I left that thread!)
NOW, in the link above, I simply tore you apart in it vs. your "so-called 'points'" that you "amended" bogusly, changing your parameters/constraints there!
(& I am going to rip you a new asshole there YET AGAIN, publicly, for your BIG mouth you little shit - prepare to be utterly humiliated, publicly...)
... apk
See you here http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... you bigmouthed little nobody...
APK
P.S.=> Have the balls to show up there in the link above to reply to it (& NOT days later like you did, LONG after I left that thread!)
NOW, in the link above, I simply tore you apart in it vs. your "so-called 'points'" that you "amended" bogusly, changing your parameters/constraints there!
(& I am going to rip you a new asshole there YET AGAIN, publicly, for your BIG mouth you little shit - prepare to be utterly humiliated, publicly...)
... apk
See you here http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... you bigmouthed little nobody...
APK
P.S.=> Have the balls to show up there in the link above to reply to it (& NOT days later like you did, LONG after I left that thread!)
NOW, in the link above, I simply tore you apart in it vs. your "so-called 'points'" that you "amended" bogusly, changing your parameters/constraints there!
(& I am going to rip you a new asshole there YET AGAIN, publicly, for your BIG mouth you little shit - prepare to be utterly humiliated, publicly...)
... apk
See you here http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... you bigmouthed little nobody...
APK
P.S.=> Have the balls to show up there in the link above to reply to it (& NOT days later like you did, LONG after I left that thread!)
NOW, in the link above, I simply tore you apart in it vs. your "so-called 'points'" that you "amended" bogusly, changing your parameters/constraints there!
(& I am going to rip you a new asshole there YET AGAIN, publicly, for your BIG mouth you little shit - prepare to be utterly humiliated, publicly...)
... apk
Right, right. You claim that X is bad. I ask "wait, why is X bad? Please justify" and I'm the one with blind assumptions?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
You claim that X is bad
No I didn't.
I'm the one with blind assumptions?
Well, you did assume I'm geminidomino...
If Mozilla has an open culture then they would be open to someone wanting proposition 8 and someone not wanting proposition 8. Thus they would be open to someone supporting monetarily proposition 8 or supporting an organization against it. Mozilla should not call themselves open if they allow for a one time donation to affect and change all the work that Eich did for the company. Reinstate Eich. Reinstate Eich. Reinstate Eich.
Yes, that's it. The pro-gay side is just as bigoted as the anti-gay side. They oppose opposite -sex marriage, beat up and spit on straights, refuse to rent apartments to them, ban them from churches, and call them morally depraved. Oh wait, no they don't.
Actually, they do all those things. They even have an epithet for them: breeders.
That's an extremely small minority, and is like saying that white people like lynching black folks (or like saying straight people like to lynch gay people for that matter). Don't tar an entire group of people for a couple bad actors.
I'm a gay person and I've been around many gay/bi/etc people through much of my adult life, and I've only ever known one person who used that epithet.
In California prop 8 was overturned basically due to a loophole; the governor's refused to defend the law in court.
California's Prop 8 was overturned because it was ruled (rightly/wrongly) in federal court as being unconstitutional under the US Constitution Amendment 14, which is why a state constitutional amendment can be considered "unconstitutional." The state refused to appeal or fight that ruling.
First, other states have been drafting laws against gay marriage intended precisely to avoid similar legal problems.
Those states are in trouble as well, as they may also run afoul of the 14th amendment.
The real question here is whether the states can define marriage, and if so how the federal government can handle multiple definitions of marriage as it also has a stake in marriage benefits.
Regardless of what some advocacy organization says [...]
Like The Washington Post and ABC News [washingtonpost.com]?
Are they journalists? Well then they're likely super-leftist too.
(I'm not even sure how I would tag this post. A combination of super-cynical and sarcastic?)
I wish I hadn't already commented on this thread when I have mod points. This is too enlightening to leave at Score: 0.
According the online Etymology Dictionary, "liberal" stems from Latin liber, meaning free (for a man). What did -that- mean? Essentially, something which was liber was "suitable for a free man," or gentleman, which is why "liberal arts" are titled to that -- arts for a gentleman as opposed to a tradesman. The middle ages saw some interesting definitions for liberal, both positive (selfless, noble, abundant) and negative (unrestrained, extravagant). It attained it's more current definition during the Enlightenment, meaning "free from prejudice, tolerant."
Yes, because what they think is not necessarily what is real. I think Unicorns are neat. See where I'm going?
It's the process not the end result that is most important. If you allow any law to be left undefended, you allow any law to be left undefended. Suppose there is a law that says all traffic not separate by a solid wall median must come to a complete stop when school buses are loading and unloading children unless in designated zones which have a speed limit of 20mph or less. Now suppose everyone but a trucking company supports this law but it makes them late for their deliveries so they pay a governor a lot of campaign contributions and then take the law to court claiming it unconstitutionally impedes their right to travel and participate in commerce.
So if the governor decides not to defend this law because for 500K he became convinced it was unconstitutional, it is gone and likely not to be brought back without a lot of hassle. But if the court says it is unconstitutional, then it is. If they do not, you have a chance to make your case again to the appeals court and maybe even to the supreme court. But you cannot step in for the governor and say wait a minute, this is a good law because children sometimes dart in front of traffic right after exiting school buses. It has to be the state or government doing it.
Nobody's saying "don't hire that guy". However there are situations in which somebody may not make a good CEO.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
That's the thing you see, they would have to buy off the governor and the judge. They could try judge shopping by carefuly choosing the jurisdiction in which the case is tried. In the end whether a law is popular shouldn't matter, but whether it follows established constitutional precedent does.
But even if the scenario played out as you said, the difference is that anybody who had had a child injured due to an incident where a car didn't stop for school bus would have had standing to appeal the ruling striking down the school bus law. If nobody can prove standing by showing that they were actually harmed (as opposed to not being allowed to promote their bigotry) then yes the state by default gets the chance to look at the ruling on prop 8 and say: the judge is right and the prop is garbage so no point throwing good money after bad.
Prop 8 was bought and paid for by religious fundamentalists who were upset that other people that they don't like might have the chance to be happy. There was plenty of precedent that indicated that piece of toilet paper shouldn't get the time of day at any jurisdictional level.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
Now there can be problems with the standing requirements for legal challenge, and that's when you get into issues of national secrecy Catch-22s, such as with the Patriot Act, where the people who are being harmed aren't allowed to demand access to any evidence that would show that they are being harmed. But that's quite different from allowing everybody with an axe to grind free rein to butt into the business of other people who they otherwise would have no dealings with.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
Excellently said. This is the unspoken truth that people have a hard time recognizing.
In the modern world people want to feel as though they don't have to make a choice. That everything is obvious. That you can just put everything under a microscope and it becomes clear. This is simply a failure of the people running with the herd to own their wishes/choices and jump out there with that. We are devolving into invertibrates.
No one has to buy the judge off. The judge is only allowed to consider evidence presented so if no one said this is good law and defended it, the judge could only consider the evidence challenging it. Its a done deal.
Also, people with injured kids would not have standing. They can petition a new law but the challenge would be done and over with. You cannot challenge a court ruling on just any grounds. Once the ruling is made, there has to be some sort of error or prescribed circumstance to challenge the ruling. They may however be able to sue the state if it doesn't claim soverein immunity.
Amicus curiae briefs during the original trial?
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
I doubt it would get that far. Without anyone to objecct, they would win on summary which is before any of that is introduced
Sorry buddy. You are just trying to make up for your lack of ethics. If you really want to take a good look at yourself, as yourself this.... "At what point would I ignore public opinion and/or law"? Would you have ignored public opinion and law when it was legal to own black people? Or would you be a slave owner? Would you beat those damn women who want to vote? Or would you stand by their side? Would you turn in your Jew neighbors because the law says you have to? So what is it? Would you follow those laws if there were in place today?
You can have freedom of speech, in the free speech zones. However, if you step outside them we'll starve your family?