[yttrium]

You should not be able to hold whatever views you like and participate in the community. There is no form of bigotry that belongs in software.

The problem is not that these are just controversial topics - They're beliefs and actions that directly infringe on others ability to lead their best and healthy life. Tolerating hatred by disguising it as 'diversity of thought' is just a way of masking and shielding people who need to be brought into reality. You cannot be an moral participant in our profession while believing that others lifestyles don't belong.

[dsacco]

> You should not be able to hold whatever views you like and participate in the community. There is no form of bigotry that belongs in software.

The problem with this philosophy is that it has a significant potential (and likelihood) for abuse. You feel very strongly that your view is the Correct View about the rights of gay people. Maybe you are! That specific example doesn’t matter here - what matters is that the passion you feel is not a valid heuristic.

Take a moment to put aside your very strongly held personal belief about gay rights to consider this dispassionately: aside from the fact that you feel right in your views, what is materially different about your suggestion from the suggestion that people should not be allowed to eat meat and participate in the community, because eating meat is unethical? What would your reaction be if I was advocating this position as strongly as you’re advocating yours?

I posit that we should begin only with the axioms that 1. outright violence and advocation of violence should be impermissible, and 2. advocation of any controversial agenda does not belong in the workplace, violent or otherwise. Adding more to that has the insidious side effect of being used to suppress opinions which are actually diverse. Therefore, when an opposing perspective does not violate one of these axioms, we should consider it with a principle of symmetry: both parties feel very strongly about their views, and your personal feeling that you’re correct is not unique.

You can be effectively intolerant of violence, but I do not consider it plausible that you can construct a framework for tolerating diversity of opinion without tolerating some opinions you find personally abhorrent. That implies the person who implemented that framework has only Correct Views and no Incorrect Views, which seems extremely unrealistic.

[fzeroracer]

Comparing people who don't eat meat and people who are gay is a false equivalence.

[yttrium]

It's materially different because militant vegans don't try to infringe upon my rights. The difference is that if you were advocating for veganism as strongly, I can point to the fact that nobody is being hurt by that advocacy. If you're strongly advocating that gay people don't deserve equal rights (at best) or don't deserve to be alive (at worst), then it's very clear your position shouldn't be tolerated.

That's the problem with this whole argument chain - there are clear material differences between advocating strongly against gay people, versus advocating strongly against eating meat.

There is no diversity in opinion that includes bigotry - that's just a way racists, sexists, and other hate mongers hide in communities. Your axioms completely ignore the idea that there are opinions which cause harm without any introduction of violence - something anyone in a marginalized or oppressed group can and has experienced.

Diversity of opinion does not mean accepting opinions which directly and indirectly cause harm to others.

[yorwba]

Members of a community should be allowed to hate each other, so long as they can leave each other alone. Worst case, they might have to be separated, with other community members acting as intermediaries.

It is simply not practical to exclude a community member whenever they have a passionate disagreement with someone else, even if that topic is highly relevant to the community, because every two people are going to find something they disagree about.

Part of being a mature person is being able to work together with someone you'd rather not interact with, because you realize that in that moment, your interests are partially aligned.

[yttrium]

That's a false equivalency - members of a community hating each other is not the same as members of a community conspiring to oppress other members of a community.

The idea that two reasonable human beings will find something they don't have in common is not equivalent to finding out that the coworker next to you doesn't think you should have human rights.

Part of being a mature person is being able to realize that some members of a community hold positions that are fundamentally incompatible, even if they represent a net positive from a work standpoint.

It doesn't matter if your coworker has partially aligned interests with you if some of their other interests infringe on your human rights - that's when you choose not to interact with them, and to exclude them from the community until they change their ways.