[bluntly_said]

I'm not qualified to tell the other side of the story. I don't know why Eich made that contribution. Neither do you.

It might have been family pressure, it might have honestly been that he's religious and doesn't believe the word "marriage" can be applied to same sex couple (who had Domestic partnerships available in California, which provide the same legal rights as marriage, so I find the "second class citizen" argument entirely lacking. [although now I'll wait to be attacked for simply stating that, even if you have no idea what my personal beliefs on the matter are])

Again, life is filled with shades of gray. Hell, maybe mozilla even benefited from the donation in ways that aren't clear (and they didn't want to put out in the media) You just don't fucking know. Instead you've decided this man should lose his livelyhood based on hearsay and rumor, and outrage on the internet.

That's fucking PATHETIC.

[scarmig]

We have public information. The public information is damning: he donated to an organization that ran a campaign of hateful slurs against gay people in order to permanently deny them their human rights in the California Constitution.

I guess there might be some private exonerating information, but I have a hard time imagining what it might be.

[bluntly_said]

Again, the "deny them their human rights" argument fails to pass the bullshit test.

The had domestic partnerships, they had the full legal rights marriage granted available. Prop 8's entire quibble was over the word marriage, so was the pro-gay rights movement. Both sides are trying to codify belief into law, both are wrong.

[r0s]

"Family" or "religious" pressure is fucking pathetic.

We're supposed to be talking about adults here, why don't you change his diapers while you're at it?

If family or community is such a strong force in our lives, maybe the systemic criminalization of those concepts for certain people is a bigger tragedy than you admit.

[Karunamon]

I'm not qualified to tell the other side of the story.

What a cop out. You're, like everyone else who disagrees with this, downplaying Eich's behavior and trying to turn activists into the "real" monsters for speaking out.

Why the double standard? Why does one man, Eich, get a pass on speaking out for his personal political beliefs (with cash), but you demonize the the (hundreds? thousands? more?) people who did nothing but say that it was unacceptable?

You want pathetic? Look at your own post. Realize what you're defending. You should be ashamed of yourself.

[briantakita]

> trying to turn activists into the "real" monsters for speaking out

If the activists act like monsters, then that needs to be called out as well. Power corrupts. Do you think the activists are immune?

[dang]

You should be ashamed of yourself.

I appreciate the intensity of the issue, but personal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News.

Edit: thanks to seertaak below for pointing out that this was trivial compared to what Karunamon was responding to.

I get that it gives the wrong impression to admonish one person while ignoring something much worse. On the other hand, we (and certainly I) can't read all the comments, so there's inevitably some randomness here. I can't promise to get everything right, but I do promise to listen to correcting feedback.

[bluntly_said]

You understand you're the definition of a schoolyard bully, right?

I've read all my posts, several times. I'm internally consistent, and I almost always favor cautious respect over ignorant bashing.

I'm not even defending Eich, again, I don't know him. I'm stating that a social environment where a man loses a job Mozilla thought he was qualified for because of private personal beliefs and internet outrage is not only actively undemocratic, it's foolish and childish.

[bluntly_said]

Let me put this another way. If your response to Eich getting promoted was to stop using Firefox, I'd support your actions.

If your response was to publicly shame him for an opinion to the point where he loses his job, you're a fucking bully.