Comment by mythrwy
8 years ago
No. Users are not allowed to dictate private religious views to people who work for companies. That's unreasonable.
Boycotting a company because you don't like the political views of one of it's employees on the other hand is just silly.
What exactly is your issue with separating personal and professional life? Do you feel you should be professionally attacked or your company boycotted because you (presumably) support gay marriage and some people feel that's wrong? No, of course you shouldn't. You should have a right to vote, support, do whatever in this regard and it shouldn't affect you professionally.
Look, I personally support gay marriage. But this kind of behavior on the part of the "crusaders" is outrageous. It really is.
I think it's legitimately a fascinating discussion point! Thank you for engaging me on it instead of freaking out. While we disagree, I do understand where you're coming from.
Again, the issue was not his "private religious views." The issue was when he used his power and influence to enforce those views on other people who did not subscribe to them. The line is crossed when one tries to enforce their personal beliefs on others via the government. It's not about politics--I think there are many things in politics about which reasonable people can disagree--it's specifically about enforcing a religious viewpoint on other people through the government. I don't force my religion on others; I think it's reasonable to demand that others do the same, and to enforce that demand through the means available to me, which may well include a boycott.
Sure likewise. I mean, no hard feelings but go all the way up the chain to parent. He suggests Brave browser shouldn't get funding (and people shouldn't use it?) because at one point Eich gave a couple thousand bucks to a (failed) campaign to prevent gay marriage from becoming legal.
And who cares? The question should be is the browser any good.
Do you think people should call his place of employment and claim they aren't going to use the product unless they "fire the pervert"? It's ridiculous. It really is. And I'd be saying exactly the same thing if the relationship were switched.
The Proposition 8 campaign was actually successful in re-prohibiting gay marriage in California for about four years before it was overturned, meaning four years of legal limbo for already-married couples and four continued years of second-class-citizen standing for gay couples looking to get married. It also pushed out some incredibly offensive TV ads, claiming the marriage equality movement wanted to use schools to turn children gay and other nonsense. You can understand how someone affected by that proposition, and the decades-long fight before it, might not be so quick to say "oh, you rascals, let's let bygones be bygones;" even if marriage was legalized in the end.
I honestly don't know where I stand on Brave. I hate our current ad-supported world, and it's an interesting alternative to that. On the other hand, I loath Eich and have no interest in supporting him financially after what he has done. Mostly I just stay silent; my feelings aren't strong enough to actually oppose other people using it, but I won't use it myself.
Note that I never said anything about Brave one way or the other. My response was simply that Eich's donation was not simply "free speech," it was a sincere and successful effort to enforce his personal religious views on others, and that it's perfectly fine to oppose that behavior.
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I think for quite a few people (including myself) it wasn't primarily about 1) his personal views being disagreeable to us, and/or 2) him 'expressing' these views through a donation, but rather 3) him being CEO of Mozilla.
I'm still not certain whether I agree with what happened entirely, but calling it ridiculous is a bit of a stretch.
Being in the position of CEO gives you many powers and perks, and I think it's perfectly acceptable that it also gives you responsibilities that may include 'not being controversial'. I'd say this is especially the case when you're CEO of a a very large, important, and well-known non-profit.
Basically, it's the whole 'with great power comes great responsibility thing'. People in positions of power can be held to standards that don't necessarily apply to everyone else.
I completely understand if people disagree with this position, but it's far from ridiculous.
(and of course I can't speak for those who do feel that aforementioned reason #1 and #2 are enough).