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Comment by jvehent | Hacker News Reader

People who are going to comment on this blog post need to realize how disturbing this episode has been for Mozillians.

We are talking about a small group of people, a couple thousands at best, that work with limited resources to keep the web open for everybody.

When this tidal wave hit Mozillians, the base contributors and employees who spend most of their days in code and features, we lost focus of our work, and stepped into a world of politics that most of us dislike, and are uncomfortable to navigate.

I believe Chris Beard is a true Mozillian, as is Brendan Eich. And I am glad that we can refocus on our mission, and move forward. I just wish people can put their differences aside, accept each other's beliefs, and share code!

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"Accepting each other's beliefs" seems like a simple solution, but it has a very problematic result. To LGBT Mozillians, this becomes "you must respect beliefs that say that you are a second-class citizen."

No one should feel like they must respect beliefs that devalue their person.

Why not? Religious people get ridiculed all the time, people drink and eat pork around Muslims, and yet somehow they fit in fine.

And being a member of a religion isn't always a choice, being that usually you're born into it and your name identifies you as such.

By implication, are you saying that being homophobic is not a choice?

Disliking things generally isn't a direct choice, though it may be possible to make deliberate choices that will change your tastes over time.

Particular expressions of dislike may be choices, but the underlying feeling is not.

I'm saying that if you're named Mohammed people will make certain assumptions about your beliefs your whole life, and will treat you differently.

Well, some people may do that.

Oh look. Another debate about religion and politics on the internet. Because the last one didn't change everyone's minds, but this time will be different. Better join in.

You're right and we're wrong!!

(Am I doing it right?)

Despite your cynical fatalism, the fact that the public's perception of the issues has been shifting rapidly in recent years suggests that people can change their minds. Just because you have no experience with changing your opinion on something does not mean that nobody else can or does.

Consider how absurd you would sound if you were suggesting that the zeitgeist on racial or gender equality was an unchangeable constant, making discussion of racism and sexism futile.

On the contrary, I have changed my mind on virtually every issue that I can think of. Several times.

But it was never because of random debates on the internet.

It seems incredibly silly to be biased in such a way against one particular medium.

That sounds like more of a knock on your own open-mindedness than anything. I'm pretty sure I've probably changed my mind completely on something based directly on interaction via the web. But even if I haven't, I'm absolutely positive that Internet discourse moves my internal needle incrementally on a wide variety issues on a regular basis.

If people are trying to strip religious people of their rights, as Eich tried to do (and successfully did, for a time), then it would be unreasonable to ask religious people to respect the idea that religious people should not have rights.

Ridiculing is fine. Freedom of speech ensures religious people the right to practice their religion; it ensures non-religious people the right to ridicule and mock religion. It ensures Eich's right to speak out against the civil rights of an oppressed minority. It ensures our right to ridicule him mercilessly for doing so.

Using the phrase "oppressed minority" to effect pathos is pretty weak. I can probably name dozens of "oppressed minorities" that you would certainly condemn.

Wait, are you asserting that the LGBTQ community isn't an oppressed minority?

If not, then I don't see how you could possibly object to me calling a spade a spade.

You're correct that there is a tension here. This is why a few years ago (2012, iirc) Mozilla adopted an explicit policy that beliefs like that must stay outside of the project. See http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/parti... section (i).

This does not say that project participants cannot hold such beliefs; that is an untenable requirement for a project involving people from many countries and cultures. But such beliefs need to stay outside things like project mailing lists workplace conversations, and so forth.

You are confusing "accepting" with "respecting". These are not the same thing. For example: I can accept a view I don't respect. To avoid a straw man, you should state your phrases unequivocally.

So if I believe I have the right to drive really fast and I think the laws need to be changed; but you believe I shouldn't have the right to go fast, does that mean that you believe I'm a second class citizen for believing I shouldn't have a right that I believe I should? Seems a bit like a logical fallacy and a strawman. Regardless of where you or anyone stands, let's at least frame the debate right. No one thinks that LGBT people are second-class citizens. To frame the debate like that is an appeal to emotion (also a logical fallacy) and ultimately fruitless, as it avoids the real debate.

And just to add to this :) http://people.mozilla.org/~smartell/cbeard/cbeard-illustrati...

As a Mozillan, how did you think your users - people outside Mozilla - would feel when Mitchell stressed Eich would restrict application of his views to people outside Mozilla?

It was your users who were outraged.

Please, please, stop calling this "politics" or suggesting this is about (in)tolerance by others.

It's completely dismissive of the very real objections people had concerning the appointment of Eich, especially those of us who understand the importance of Mozilla for the open web and weren't just out for good old lynching.

The problem is not people who were able to argue against Brendan Eich. I am sure that there was space for a sane debate on the topic. The problem was the bullies who were screaming along.

(I'm not going to call this a lynching, because in my mind, that's basically a Godwin point).

It's silly to call this bullying. Yes, people shouldn't send death threats-- nobody should receive them regardless, and I think this is a larger problem with the Internet in general. But a collective of people exercising their free speech to disagree with somebody's views and to vote with their feet isn't bullying. It's not bullying just because someone's feelings are hurt when a shit-ton of people find said person's views abhorrent.

> I just wish people can put their differences aside, accept each other's beliefs.

This sounds very nice and I agree with the sentiment, but has a big flaw in the argumentation.

When you consider those beliefs directly contradict the freedom of other human beings, should you not act upon it?

Switch the LGBT issue for race and you'll know what I mean.

> Switch the LGBT issue for race and you'll know what I mean.

Wow.

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