The Federal Prop. 8 Trial / Gay Marriage Catch-All

bandit0013 wrote:

The mob has forced someone out of a job based on pure conjecture. Also again we have equivocation between support for prop 8 and the KKK. So you're basically saying that 51% of California voters are the equivalent of KKK members. That is absolutely ridiculous and you know it.
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I notice that no one has said anything about how this is damaging to the political process, since support for positions is being punished. I guess we're all ok with that? In an age where employers are asking for potential employee's facebook logins should we now expect them to start asking for historical political contribution lists? Is that the world we want to live in?

Multiple people have said that they disagree with you on how damaging this is the political process. You appear to be ignoring us because we're not saying what you want to hear. I know you like to ignore it, but the situation that happened is different from the hypothetical situations you present. The title he held is incredibly relevant to why people were upset. When he was CTO, people cared, but not as many and not as much, as his political views weren't terribly important to him being able to do his job. When he became CEO, they became much more important. Especially since they ran counter to the company's stance on the subject. It's hard to build an inclusive and respectful atmosphere if the CEO thinks many of his employees shouldn't be able to get married to their significant other.

Also, I'm perfectly comfortable calling anyone that voted for Prop 8 a bigot.

gore wrote:

I also find the "Obama defense" poor. Obama was wrong on this issue and was a worse leader because of it - nobody should give him a pass on that. But at least he came around eventually, which Eich was careful to never do.

A spot on point, but just an important bit of clarification here.

While Pres. Obama certain was against gay marriage at the time of the Prop 8 campaign, he was absolutely, unequivocally against Prop. 8. He never once expressed support for the measure and, in fact, made several statements in public blasting the initiative as divisive and unnecessary.

The former CEO of Mozilla contributed $1,000 to the Prop. 8 campaign.

Anyone suggesting that there is some equivalency between Obama and Eich on the issue is not paying attention or is being deliberately obtuse.

Phoenix Rev wrote:
gore wrote:

I also find the "Obama defense" poor. Obama was wrong on this issue and was a worse leader because of it - nobody should give him a pass on that. But at least he came around eventually, which Eich was careful to never do.

A spot on point, but just an important bit of clarification here.

While Pres. Obama certain was against gay marriage at the time of the Prop 8 campaign, he was absolutely, unequivocally against Prop. 8. He never once expressed support for the measure and, in fact, made several statements in public blasting the initiative as divisive and unnecessary.

The former CEO of Mozilla contributed $1,000 to the Prop. 8 campaign.

Anyone suggesting that there is some equivalency between Obama and Eich on the issue is not paying attention or is being deliberately obtuse.

An example I can think of is former Senator Robert Byrd. Byrd was an avowed racist and segregationist, and an open supporter of the KKK. The difference is he in later years recanted his earlier views and was very open as to how much he regretted his earlier views. He's a public figure whose views progressed, and people forgave him. Overt racism used to be endemic in this country, and, as years have gone by, people have changed their views. Those people who have publicly changed their views are forgiven.

Had Eich come out and expressed regret for his bigoted views, people would have shrugged and let it go. He didn't. The simple fact is there is no difference to a large segment of the population between expressing support for racism and expressing support of bigotry towards the LGBTQ community. There is no difference in my mind between anti-gay bigots who voted for Prop 8 and people who think interracial marriage should be illegal. Same difference. If it had come out that Eich had said he thinks the races should stay segregated, it's not like anyone would have objected to him being lambasted. I fail to see how this is any different.

Stengah wrote:
bandit0013 wrote:

The mob has forced someone out of a job based on pure conjecture. Also again we have equivocation between support for prop 8 and the KKK. So you're basically saying that 51% of California voters are the equivalent of KKK members. That is absolutely ridiculous and you know it.
...
I notice that no one has said anything about how this is damaging to the political process, since support for positions is being punished. I guess we're all ok with that? In an age where employers are asking for potential employee's facebook logins should we now expect them to start asking for historical political contribution lists? Is that the world we want to live in?

Multiple people have said that they disagree with you on how damaging this is the political process. You appear to be ignoring us because we're not saying what you want to hear. I know you like to ignore it, but the situation that happened is different from the hypothetical situations you present. The title he held is incredibly relevant to why people were upset. When he was CTO, people cared, but not as many and not as much, as his political views weren't terribly important to him being able to do his job. When he became CEO, they became much more important. Especially since they ran counter to the company's stance on the subject. It's hard to build an inclusive and respectful atmosphere if the CEO thinks many of his employees shouldn't be able to get married to their significant other.

Also, I'm perfectly comfortable calling anyone that voted for Prop 8 a bigot.

And it's not just this viewpoint. You guys keep forgetting that. I'm going to say this again. He was instrumental in helping to drive Netscape into the ground, and was bidding fair to head Mozilla with his ideas on the new Firefox OS.

When he was CTO, his ideas only really hurt mozilla.org internally and there were other checks on him. In fact, in that position, having him there would be a blessing in some ways. A technical echo chamber is bad for putting out a good product. And he has technical chops; he invented Javascript. Now, whether your regard that as a good move or not is another thing.

However, as CEO, he had the ability to take his ideas and run with them outside the company in a way he never could have as CTO. His being the public face on this just made matters that much worse.

So you're basically saying that 51% of California voters are the equivalent of KKK members. That is absolutely ridiculous and you know it.

They are exactly equivalent to people who voted for KKK policies and candidates in the South.

Malor wrote:
So you're basically saying that 51% of California voters are the equivalent of KKK members. That is absolutely ridiculous and you know it.

They are exactly equivalent to people who voted for KKK policies and candidates in the South.

I would say that "exactly equivalent" is a bit of a stretch. The KKK are not just an extremist hate group, they are also the people who, in the light of the cultural shift away from brutal racism, stick to their prejudices. California voters would only be "exactly equivalent" if they did the same thing.

bandit0013 wrote:

There was quite a bit of debate going on as to whether marriage is or is not a human right. So accusing him of being a human rights violator is a pretty strong stance to take.

It's a human right. You might think the issue is still up for debate, but you would be as wrong as someone who fought school integration or mixed marriage in the 60s.

bandit0013 wrote:

How many CEOs lost their jobs for their Augusta memberships? They didn't admit any women until 2012. Again though, I'm seeing this attitude from some forum members here that someone who has issues with a definition of a legal contract is now equivalent to a KKK member. How many gay people did Eich lynch or put burning crosses in their yards? I must have missed that part of the history.

Augusta is about as exclusive as you can get with only about 300 members. But it still stands. The club was forced to change its rules to allow women. Well, I should clarify and say the club willingly changed its rules after having its name dragged through the mud in the press because of its policies and having two years where no corporation would sponsor or buy advertising in its tournament.

The club is free to maintain its antiquated views, it just needs to accept the associated consequences.

And you did miss that part of history. Most likely because of of some combination of your age, religious identification, or political leanings. But both public opinion and the courts have said that denying same sex partners the ability to get married is the same as old school racial bigotry. There's no defensible reason for doing so.

bandit0013 wrote:

17 states have gay marriage, you have a strange definition of majority consensus. (I support gay marriage btw)

Look at the recent court rulings, bandit. Where anti-gay marriage laws or state constitutional amendments have been challenged, they have been found unconstitutional. The federal government has weighed in and said it supports gay marriage. The anti-gay marriage crowd has put up their best arguments and they have been found woefully lacking. This means that none of the states that currently have laws or constitutional amendments prohibiting gay marriage will survive the inevitable court challenge. It's nothing but a matter of time (and legal fees).

Again, this front of the culture war is over and the "family values" folks lost.

bandit0013 wrote:

Again, there isn't a shred of evidence that he ever mistreated an employee or used his position for nefarious political purposes. He made a donation to a political group before he came into his position, and now is being removed for something that happened many years ago.

These types of things should not happen in a free society. It also shows why political donations, just like votes, should be private. Intimidation in the democratic process is never good.

All he had to do was say "I was wrong and at that time I thought I was doing something right, but it's clear now that I was being a bigoted douche trying to deny people the ability to get married." But he didn't. Which means he still thinks that gay people shouldn't be allowed to get married, which means he thinks gay people are second-class citizens (and all the political and social baggage that carries with it).

Societies determine their norms. Twenty years ago being gay was considered extreme or abnormal. Now it's not. There's nothing different between Eich and an old racist. They are still free to have and say their views. The only thing that's changed is that the rest of the society they're part no longer holds those same views and will actively (and rightly) shun those that still do.

I think it is important to point out that the Prop. 8 campaign wasn't just about denying the right to marry to gay people in California. The baggage the pro-Prop. 8 people brought with them was horrible.

I would remind everyone of the jaw-dropping testimony of Dr. Bill Tam during the Prop. 8 district court hearing where he championed just about every nasty stereotype about gays possible including that we recruit and molest young boys with reckless abandon (because he read that on the Internet).

There were also plenty of people involved in the Prop. 8 campaign who were very much in favor of reparative therapy for gays and lesbians to "cure" them of their "same sex attraction disorder," and saw the passage of that initiative as emboldening their position.

Some context on the Mozilla thing. http://blog.finette.com/on-mozilla

Interesting to see how it plays out, starting to see a lot of rumblings of organizations pushing to boycott Mozilla for the dismissal. Lose/Lose situation imminent.

bandit0013 wrote:

Interesting to see how it plays out, starting to see a lot of rumblings of organizations pushing to boycott Mozilla for the dismissal. Lose/Lose situation imminent.

It was already lose/lose as soon as he was promoted. He was not dismissed.

Apparently, there was already a huge internal blowup about this, in 2012. If you read the relevant code of conduct, it sounds very much like they made major changes to the text directly in response to the original situation with Eich.

By and large, I think it's a good text, and I think individuals' political donations shouldn't be brought into the workplace. But when you're the CEO, it's different... you're both the public face of the company, and the person who has to motivate the troops.

And, ultimately, it's the troops that really matter, in a tech company. If people boycott Mozilla, it doesn't matter all that much, because they weren't giving Mozilla anything, anyway. But if the programmers won't work for the new leader, that's a direct and ongoing problem, possibly a disaster if they lose enough people.

For the Mozilla project, one or two gifted programmers will probably be more important than all the conservatives in the entire world.

bandit0013 wrote:

Also we should note that it wasn't like there as a mass revolt at Mozilla. I'm pretty sure it was less than 10 people.

I look forward to hearing your reasons for this number - in part because I know two people at Mozilla, and my impression from them is that Eich was in fact a broadly unpopular appointment.

Regarding the voters for Prop 8--just because you can dredge up someone worse does not let them off the hook.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

Regarding the voters for Prop 8--just because you can dredge up someone worse does not let them off the hook.

Yeah...anyone who voted for, let alone financially supported, Prop 8 is persona non grata, IMO, unless they genuinely recant.

The SCOTUS has refused to take up the case of the wedding photographer in New Mexico who refused to provide photography services at a gay wedding based on religious grounds and, thus, violated New Mexico's public accommodation laws which includes protections based on sexual orientation.

The photographer appealed to the SCOTUS who officially turned down their request to hear the case:

The U.S. Supreme Court announced on Monday it won’t take up a case in which a New Mexico photography business alleges its rights were violated when it landed in hot water for refusing to shoot a same-sex wedding ceremony.

In orders published Monday morning, the court listed the case, Elane Photography v. Willock, without comment among as the cases it won’t consider.

Going into business means you follow the rules and laws you agreed to do when you applied for and was granted the license.

There are several bakers in Oregon weeping bitter tears this morning because they - GASP - have to provide services to all people, including those filthy homosexuals.

Dan Savage had the right of it. He stated (ranting about the "religious freedom" bill in Arizona) that the baker in question could have simply (and legally, in Arizona) hung a sign outside saying that they do not want homosexuals as customers. And the homosexuals would most likely stay away. But then so would all of their straight family and friends as probably would the neutal people who don't like discrimination in general. So this bakery doesn't want to do that because they want all of that other business.

Interesting... So SCOTUS wouldn't take up that case of "religious persecution," but they took up the hobby lobby one. I wonder if that could provide any way to read the tea leaves of what their decision will be when it comes to hobby lobby.

JC wrote:

Interesting... So SCOTUS wouldn't take up that case of "religious persecution," but they took up the hobby lobby one. I wonder if that could provide any way to read the tea leaves of what their decision will be when it comes to hobby lobby.

Big businesses have more political clout than small businesses. /tealeavesread

Nate Silver has written a blog post on Prop 8 financial support among silicon valley employees. Eich's contribution is kind of striking when you look at the statistics for other similar companies:

At Intel, 60 percent of employee donations were in support of Proposition 8. By contrast, at Apple, 94 percent of employee donations were made in opposition to Proposition 8. The opposition was even higher at Google, where 96 percent of employee donations were against it, including $100,000 from co-founder Sergey Brin.

Intel as a strong pro Prop 8 company is rather surprising (despite it being rather "stodgy" by tech standards), but check out the Google and Apple figures. Eich's position on this issue is clearly not in line with a lot of tech workers in SV, at least among the "hipper" companies.

JC wrote:

Interesting... So SCOTUS wouldn't take up that case of "religious persecution," but they took up the hobby lobby one. I wonder if that could provide any way to read the tea leaves of what their decision will be when it comes to hobby lobby.

In their cert petition the photographers didn't argue that the law was invalid due to the free-exercise clause (they argued that below, lost on that ground, and didn't appeal), they argued that they were being compelled to "speak" in a certain way. They (not sure if their was a distinction between the LLC and the individual photographer) then procedurally bungled that argument by including various religious motivations and excuses to support their free speech argument. So the denial of cert may be due to the mangled way in which the issues that were subject to the cert petition were litigated in the lower courts.

TLDR - the substantive issue may not have factored into denying the cert petition. This case and Hobby Lobby present different constitutional questions - Hobby Lobby religion, this case (would have been) free speech.

See http://www.scotusblog.com/2013/11/ph... for a brief summary.

nel e nel wrote:
JC wrote:

Interesting... So SCOTUS wouldn't take up that case of "religious persecution," but they took up the hobby lobby one. I wonder if that could provide any way to read the tea leaves of what their decision will be when it comes to hobby lobby.

Big businesses have more political clout than small businesses. /tealeavesread

Not as much political clout as it is scale and importance. If they take Hobby Lobby and make a large precedence out of it and deny all the small fish that show up, that will cause all these smaller cases to be decided in the lower courts guided by this one decision from them rather than them seeing the same bloody case over and over again.

It's actually how they work on almost every topic, and how their caseload has been structured all the way back to John Jay.

The SCOTUS is a PITA, but for once this is them doing their job in an intelligent, efficient fashion.

OkCupid's CEO Donated to an Anti-Gay Campaign Once, Too [MotherJones]

Edwin wrote:

OkCupid's CEO Donated to an Anti-Gay Campaign Once, Too [MotherJones]

Interesting. When can we expect his resignation?

Dimmerswitch wrote:
bandit0013 wrote:

Also we should note that it wasn't like there as a mass revolt at Mozilla. I'm pretty sure it was less than 10 people.

I look forward to hearing your reasons for this number - in part because I know two people at Mozilla, and my impression from them is that Eich was in fact a broadly unpopular appointment.

I was referring to the number of workers who tendered resignation or walked off the job.

There's a significant difference. The CEO of OKCupid gave money to the campaign of a Congressional Representative. That Representative won and went on to vote on three anti-gay initiatives.

The MotherJones editor should be spanked with their keyboard for coming up with that headline.

I was referring to the number of workers who tendered resignation or walked off the job.

Next, you'll demand evidence of employees who committed suicide, because that's clearly the only way they could really refuse to go along with Eich as the CEO.

(hint: They don't have to actually leave to be bitterly opposed to a change in leadership. They might decide to try to undo it from within before leaving -- which, as it turns out, appears to have worked.)

Bigotry is, for good reason, not a protected class. While some may dissemble and call it a "political stance," it's just bigotry.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

Bigotry is, for good reason, not a protected class. While some may dissemble and call it a "political stance," it's just bigotry.

Yeah, you may not like that the boss was fired over his bigotry. I can certainly understand that. But, as always, freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences. Also, yeah, that MotherJones article is ridiculous. Without knowing the OKCupid CEO's reasoning for supporting a candidate, we can no more say he did it to support anti-gay rights efforts as we can he did to support lower taxes, "entitlement" cuts, or any other number of conservative leanings.

bandit0013 wrote:
Dimmerswitch wrote:
bandit0013 wrote:

Also we should note that it wasn't like there as a mass revolt at Mozilla. I'm pretty sure it was less than 10 people.

I look forward to hearing your reasons for this number - in part because I know two people at Mozilla, and my impression from them is that Eich was in fact a broadly unpopular appointment.

I was referring to the number of workers who tendered resignation or walked off the job.

Okay, that'd be a pretty important thing to clarify, as the way your original statement comes across is verymuch not that. (It reads like you're being dismissive of this as an issue because less than a dozen people felt it was a problem, especially since "10 people" is so oddly specific).

As pointed out above, there's a pretty big gap between opposing someone's appointment as CEO and being willing to quit over that person's appointment - doubly so, since there was such a small interval between the appointment and Eich stepping down.

My impression is still that Eich's appointment was broadly unpopular among Mozillans, and that when the scope of that sentiment became clear to Eich he (to his credit) realized he would be unable to effectively lead the organization and resigned.