Comment by coldpie
8 years ago
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.
You sure post a lot about me on HN (search here: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Prop-8-not-retroactive...
Retroactive or ex-post-facto law is unconstitutional. I am a big fan of this principle. It protects all of us.''
Now, how about you stop the hate ("I loath [sic] Eich")? I do not hate you.
> I do not hate you.
You can use whatever word you like, but you used your money and influence to cause incredible amounts of harm to your fellow citizens and previous employees through your bizarre need to use the government to enforce your personal religious views on other people. I don't know the right word for that kind of behavior.
So you concede your assertions about "legal limbo" were false -- good. That's progress.
Moving on to assert "incredible amounts of harm" as caused by me among a majority of Californians who supported both Prop 8 and the prior work of Mark Leno et al. on Domestic Partner Law, California's form of civil unions -- which as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_partnership_in_Califo... says, and as Leno said at the time, ensures equivalent positive rights under state law for all -- is nonsensical.
We were allies when we supported civil unions. Obama was on side of civil unions in 2008, and likely strategically lying that he believed marriage was one man and one woman. Then the goalposts moved, and incredible yet heretofore invisible harm was being done? Nonsense.
Fixating on "religion" is also nonsense. Theft is against the law. Major religions teach that theft is sinful. Does this mean religious people are enforcing personal views on other people? Of course not. Atheists (I know some; neo-Darwinian evo-biologists) supported Prop 8. People who didn't like the Foucauldian agenda behind the whole thing, or the judicial overreach, or mayors like Newsom overreaching, supported Prop 8. For many and usually coherent reasons, religious or not.
It shows either ignorance or ill will to dismiss both group diversity of thought and individual integrity of thought by labeling views you dislike as "religious", and therefore somehow illegitimate as the basis of action in the public square. Frankly, it is un-American.
You are entitled to your own opinions, as Daniel Patrick Moynihan quipped, but not your own facts. The fact is Californians including me who supported Domestic Partner Law did not do "incredible amounts of harm" up to May 2008. We did not suddenly start doing harm in June 2008 when Prop 8 got on the ballot. We did not do harm when the majority passed it.
Federal law, DOMA -- an unconstitutional power grab against the states by congress and a pandering president -- caused hardships for Domestic Partners in Californians, but Californians could do nothing about that Bill Clinton era law.
As my search link shows, you've been calumniating me on HN for years, while trying unsuccessfully to stay silent on the topic. I'm not optimistic you'll stop now, but that search also shows I've tried engaging in good faith. Here I am again. Instead of silently dropping refuted assertions and moving the goalposts, e.g., to vague "incredible amounts of harm" imponderables, how about making an explicit statement of whom I harmed, how I harmed them, and how I can make amends.
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Ok. Understood.
But people have all kinds of ideas about what constitutes "proper and fair". Some people feel differently about marriage and being gay than you do (Or I do). They might come here and argue about perversion and degradation of society and and what their kids are exposed to. And what can and can't be tolerated as far as behavior. And how marriage is such and such and doesn't apply etc. etc. And, they feel every bit as strong about it as you do. This isn't a wacky fringe view (yet) and it isn't considered "discriminatory" by the people professing it.
As far as I know Eich doesn't condemn gay people for being gay. He just apparently has certain views on what constitutes marriage. And he isn't alone in these views. I don't agree. You don't agree. The Supreme Court doesn't agree. But the public crucification of the guy's professional work because of these beliefs (which as far as I know he kept private) is to me 100 times worse than the views he holds. And it's a dangerous stance to take. We've been here many times before. Moral crusaders (of all stripes) out to improve the world who do little but cause destruction. At some level we have to accept not everyone shares our backgrounds or political beliefs and work with this fact in a constructive, civil and reasonable manner. It's part of becoming an adult in a multicultural society.
I appreciate you aren't trying to knock his work, that was OP. My only complaint is your original over the top rhetoric, other than that fine, I understand you have a different view than Eich. But you can not like an idea a person has without personally hating a person for having the idea. And that is the right thing to do.