Comment by Spooky23 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Spooky23 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Says you.

I would rather work with and disagree with someone who has the integrity to stand by what they believe.

I work in a group with folks of Indian decent from different religious backgrounds (Islamic, Hindu, Catholic), an Orthodox Jew, a bunch of Irish catholic types (including myself), and a person from Nigeria. We are literally from many corners of the earth, with different backgrounds, traditions, etc. If we delved into politics, we'd probably find a lot of contested ground.

Part of democracy and free society is that we need to get past those differences. If you believe that gay marriage is against your moral code, you have a right to vote your conscience. Likewise, if you campaign for LGBT rights, you have that same right, and I would make the same argument 20 years ago for people similarly mistreated for taking that stand.

I'm Catholic, and contribute regularly to a church congregation. I'm also a public officer in a secular government, whose policies are often not consistent with the church. Should I be booted out of my job (or contemplate "spending more time with my family") because I provide financial support to a religious organization whose doctrine re: things like birth control or LGBT issues are out of step with many in our society?

Where do you draw the line? Once you decide that it's not OK to think different, you end up on a steep slope.

I don't think anybody's contesting Eich's right to not get gay-married. And likewise, nobody's contesting his legal right to try to strip a civil right from gay people through California ballot propositions.

But I don't think one can to try to harm gay people and then expect to have no problem becoming the boss of a bunch of them. They have a right to express their opinions too.

I also think your live-and-let-live stance only works as long as others share the same view. Eich's donation is just the opposite of what you advocate: he refused to live and let live. Would you still be calling for tolerance if Eich were working against interracial marriage, or against letting black people vote, or working to have the Catholic church made illegal in America? I'm guessing not.

The normative nature that you touch on is particularly bizarre. All too often, "live and let live" is only something that must be respected when it's straight white men doing the living. (I'm a straight white male, and that bugs me.)

The "civil right" phrase is a red herring. You can define any arbitrary item as a civil right - let's say unborn children deserve not to be killed, and thus we should ban all abortion. Then we can talk about any CEO who's donated to Planned Parenthood as stripping civil rights from fetuses and should be unfit for CEO-ship. Gay marriage is at a similar level of contention. Many believe it to not be a a civil right at all until very recently, nor is it accepted by many cultures. Or some accept civil unions but not semantically marriage. If you think you're always going to be right, there will be a definition of "civil right" or just plain "correct" that is diametrically opposed to you.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7526663

The civil right violated is equality before the law, a right explicitly documented in the 14th amendment.

Which you would know if you had read the decision overturning Prop 8.

> Part of democracy and free society is that we need to get past those differences.

Nobody's saying he can't believe what he wants to believe. Nobody. But he is not allowed to hurt people because he doesn't like that some dudes like other dudes, do you get me? Are you reading me, Major Tom? Hurtful jerks don't get to run nonprofits dedicated to being good to everybody and if they're appointed to do so in what we view as contravention of the organization's core principles we are totally free to refuse to do business with them. If Eich doesn't like that, all he had to do was not be an hurtful jerk. Or, that being in the past, apologize for being wrong. If he can't do that, if he thinks hurting people is OK and that he was justified, then yes, it is entirely cromulent to use our freedom of association to have nothing to do with his--because it is his--organization.

You can complain about slippery slopes all you want, but from where I sit the calculus is not hard: you don't get to hurt people who aren't hurting you. Punching downward is disgusting and Eich did to do that. Eich chose to do it publicly, too. And Eich is reaping his very just rewards for his behavior. Nobody's telling you that you can't have your religious beliefs but the day you start hurting people who've done nothing to you based on your religious beliefs you have crossed a line. I don't do business with most businesses with leaders whose behavior I find repugnant, and the few I do I do because I have no other choice.

(If they show a renewed commitment to their principles--and I have every confidence they will because they have so many good people working for them--I'll go back, because they have a browser I like more and I appreciate their stated goals even if they misstepped here.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com