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from the i-guess-they'll-unfriend-mozilla dept.
The controversy around Mozilla's new CEO Brendan Eich continues. Eich made a personal $1000 donation to California's Yes on Proposition 8 campaign in 2008. Now, dating site OkCupid has started redirecting Firefox users to a page explaining Eich's views against marriage equality, and asking users to switch to IE, Chrome, or Opera.
If individuals like Mr. Eich had their way, then roughly 8% of the relationships we've worked so hard to bring about would be illegal. Equality for gay relationships is personally important to many of us here at OkCupid. But it's professionally important to the entire company. OkCupid is for creating love. Those who seek to deny love and instead enforce misery, shame, and frustration are our enemies, and we wish them nothing but failure.
Visitors are then provided links to alternative browsers, or they can continue to the site by clicking a hyperlink at the bottom of the page.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday April 01 2014, @12:28PM
The only reason you'd support Prop 8 is because you think homosexuals are inferior and deserve less than equal rights and status. That alone is evidence of discrimination. Asking that question is ridiculous: would you ask "Is there any evidence at all of him (a KKK member) using his position to discriminate against black employees"? Of course not, being a member of the KKK proves you favor discrimination against non-white people, and backing Prop 8 proves you favor discrimination against gay people. And "reasons"? Are you going to ask what "reasons" someone has for supporting the KKK? It's no different here.
(Score: 1) by Tangaroa on Tuesday April 01 2014, @12:56PM
Here is the Yes On 8 campaign argument [protectmarriage.com]. It talks about preserving a traditional definition of marriage that has traditional reasons for existing and tradition. This is a reason to support Prop 8 that says nothing about homosexuals being inferior or deserving lesser status. The existence of this reason disproves your assertion that there is no other reason to support Prop 8. It does not need to be a good reason, it merely needs to exist, as it does.
The rest of your comment surrenders that there is no evidence of Eich having any disrespect toward people of different sexual orientation, let alone bringing any such attitudes into the workplace which might justify dismissing him from his job. With it now demonstrated [protectmarriage.com] that support for Proposition 8 does not alone imply any disrespectful attitude towards people of different sexual orientation, there is no evidence of Eich having any such attitude. So why the hell should Eich lose his job over nothing?
(Score: 1, Troll) by Grishnakh on Tuesday April 01 2014, @01:10PM
That's all a bunch of bigoted crap dressed up by religious nuts looking for an excuse to treat people as inferiors and deny them rights. The anti-womens' suffrage people said the same kind of stuff.
You continuing to argue this, and spout this pro-prop-8 crap is proof that you're just another anti-gay bigot like Eich.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Grishnakh on Tuesday April 01 2014, @01:14PM
BTW, your kind of people said the same thing about interracial marriages. I suppose you're against those too. If "tradition" were a good reason to support things, we'd be going back to slavery. Are you in favor of that too? Face it, you're a religious nut and a bigot.
(Score: 1) by Tangaroa on Tuesday April 01 2014, @01:33PM
"You people" feels like an all too familiar insult, but would that refer to the gods of New Zealand, the Maori, or aboriginal people in general? Or perhaps I am Chinese or African American or a chipmunk. How would you know? Regardless of you not knowing who my people are, you have decided that you hate my people. There's a word for that. It starts with a "b" and ends in "igot".
So far our dialogue has proven three points:
Given your complete failure to form anything remotely resembling a counterargument, I see no further reason to continue. Don't feed the trolls, as they say.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday April 01 2014, @01:42PM
Sorry, but it's not bigoted to dislike religious assholes who want to push their religious values on everyone else using laws.
And yes, Eich has proven he harbors ill will towards gay people, by supporting an anti-gay law. Arguing otherwise is akin to supporting slavery and arguing that you don't have anything against black people, you simply believe they'd be better off as slaves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 01 2014, @02:22PM
> Sorry, but it's not bigoted to dislike religious assholes who
> want to push their religious values on everyone else using laws.
You are such a hypocrite. Preaching tolerance, but you won't tolerate my hate!
(Score: 2) by wjwlsn on Tuesday April 01 2014, @02:27PM
Sorry, but you are being a bigot here. Tangaroa's posts have been factual, dispassionate, and respectful. He has put forth the arguments that: a) Eich's personal political views do not automatically disqualify him as a CEO or prove that he hates gays, and b) no matter how disagreeable a persons opinions may be, they still have the right to express them. You've done nothing but bring up bogeymen like the KKK and state that any argument you don't like is equivalent to supporting slavery.
Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.
Turn it around. Let's say you've just become CEO of Mozilla. You're a devout and outspoken atheist. You've donated some of your own money to Atheist causes, particularly those campaigning against your state government's frequent and continued attempts to inject Christian themes into education, law, etc. Some of your employees and many of your customers are Christians. The dating site "ChristianMingle.com" has just started redirecting Firefox users to a page explaining your atheistic views and recommending people switch to IE, Opera, or Chrome. Furthermore, their redirect page states the following: "Those who seek to deny Christ's love and instead promote Satan's misery, shame, and frustration are our enemies, and we wish them nothing but failure."
What's your response now?
I am a traveler of both time and space. Duh.
(Score: 1) by Grishnakh on Tuesday April 01 2014, @02:51PM
Apples and oranges. Unless the atheist causes the CEO supports actually seek to deprive rights or privileges from non-atheists, and publicly state that religious people are lesser people somehow, then there's no conflict. By your logic, a devout and outspoken Jewish CEO who donates to pro-Jewish causes (let's assume here these causes are all things here in the USA, for Jews living in the USA, and not involving the state of Israel or its relations with Palestinians) would be suspect because he might discriminate against non-Jewish people. This is rather ridiculous, since to extend this further, any CEO who's affiliated with any religion at all (which is probably most of them, if their religious affiliation mirrors the general population) would be suspected of discrimination against anyone who isn't of that very same religion. Considering just how many Protestant sects there are in the US, in addition to all the other religions and sects of those religions, I don't think I need to explain how ridiculous this idea is.
The fundamental point is whether someone supports a cause which seeks to deny privileges to a group, especially a minority group, for no good reason at all other than "tradition" or "it offends me". If the atheist CEO donated to support a law to remove voting rights from Christians or to place a special tax on them or other religious people, you'd have a point. However, Prop 8 sought specifically to deny a privilege to a minority group, and that's plain and simple bigotry.
As for someone having the right to express opinions, no one has ever challenged this. The First Amendment guarantees this to everyone. The rest of us have the right to criticize people for their opinions, and even to refuse to do business with someone because of their opinion, and even to loudly call for them to be fired for their opinion. When someone is in a prominent, public position such as a tech CEO, their opinion gets far more airtime than some bum on the street, or some cubicle drone. They are the voice of their company. So it's perfectly fine to criticize that company for hiring this bigot, and to call for his firing.
(Score: 2) by wjwlsn on Tuesday April 01 2014, @04:15PM
Alright, so finally you post a reasonable and insightful reply in this thread... so what was the deal with *all* of your other replies?! Honestly, they seemed like rabid "support gay marriage or you're a baby killer" jabs at someone that was politely posting a dissenting viewpoint.
I am a traveler of both time and space. Duh.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 02 2014, @12:07AM
> so what was the deal with *all* of your other replies?
People who understand the issues tend to have little patience for those who both do not understand the issues and insist in arguing out the same tired old cliches. Sometimes those people really are new to the debate, but that's rare. Most of time the people who spout those same old simplistic arguments have heard the rebuttals multiple times before and have simply closed their mind to them and are just rote posting the same old shit.
(Score: 1) by Grishnakh on Wednesday April 02 2014, @12:33PM
Thank you, I couldn't have said it better myself. Whenever someone trots out links to some politically-conservative "pro-families" anti-gay-marriage website with its talking points, I have to assume they're in the camp of people arguing the same tired old cliches.