<story><title>The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid </title><url>http://uncrunched.com/2014/04/06/the-hypocrisy-of-sam-yagan-okcupid/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>masklinn</author><text>&amp;gt; For example, there are people who have nothing against homosexuality but are attached to the symbolic value of &amp;#x27;marriage&amp;#x27; as a Christian institution&lt;p&gt;Yes, they were also attached to its symbolic value when they used it to condemn miscegenation.&lt;p&gt;Given atheist, muslims, jews or hindus can get married, and so can blacks, browns, reds, yellows and whites (with one another too, which once upon a time was against &amp;quot;the symbolic value of &amp;#x27;marriage&amp;#x27; as a Christian institution&amp;quot;), I&amp;#x27;m pretty sure civil marriage has nothing to do with &amp;quot;the symbolic value of &amp;#x27;marriage&amp;#x27; as a Christian institution&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; and would be completely fine with another civil contract with the same rights but a different name.&lt;p&gt;Because &amp;quot;separate but equal&amp;quot; had such a good run last time around eh?&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; This seems to be somewhat in line with Eich&amp;#x27;s actions&lt;p&gt;No it is not:&lt;p&gt;1. Eich donated $1000 to prop 8. Prop 8&amp;#x27;s goal was to prevent future homosexual marriages in california and to break up existing ones (since prop 8 was passed specifically because proposition 22 had been struck down and homosexual couples were getting married). It did not propose the introduction of an equivalent contract or amend californian law to effectively introduce one&lt;p&gt;2. Eich refused to acknowledge such an intent and stonewalled instead behind &amp;quot;me giving to people trying to destroy your marriage does not mean I&amp;#x27;m a bigot&amp;quot;. Does not sound like &amp;quot;separate but equal&amp;quot; was his intent, as distateful as that would have been&lt;p&gt;3. &amp;quot;I would prefer an alternative to it therefore I donate to amend the constitution in order to ban it&amp;quot; is not what I would call sane and sensible reasoning</text></item><item><author>pyduan</author><text>What is regrettable in all this is that no one seems to consider the possibility that people may have nuanced views about gay marriage. According to the mob you&amp;#x27;re either a saint or a bigot, and thus Eich&amp;#x27;s value as a human being was supposedly entirely determined by this one opinion he voiced in 2008.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m staunchly in favor of gay marriage, which I consider to be a no-brainer -- but it seems to me the motivations of Prop 8 proponents differ a lot in nature, with some being much more excusable than others in their wrongness.&lt;p&gt;For example, there are people who have nothing against homosexuality but are attached to the symbolic value of &amp;#x27;marriage&amp;#x27; as a Christian institution and would be completely fine with another civil contract with the same rights but a different name. This seems to be somewhat in line with Eich&amp;#x27;s actions (I remember reading a memo from Eich stating he had no plan to amend Mozilla&amp;#x27;s gay-friendly policies and employee benefits). Although I still think this view is guilty of being wrongly attached to outdated models of society, this is not nearly as bad as what Eich has been accused of.&lt;p&gt;There are other possible reasons one could have (for example, those who in ignorance of the many studies that showed that children of homosexual households grow up just fine could have unfounded reservations about gay adoption, but would be ready to change their mind if shown the evidence; I&amp;#x27;ve encountered a couple myself), but my broader point is that there is a huge range in the degree of bigotry between those who voted Prop 8 and one should not jump to conclusions so easily as they do not all deserve the same level of condemnation.&lt;p&gt;Now, I can understand why Eich&amp;#x27;s views &lt;i&gt;could&lt;/i&gt; make him unsuitable as a CEO because, in a purely pragmatic sense, holding views that most of your workforce despise is obviously detrimental to your ability to lead and especially so at such a peculiar organization as Mozilla where ideology matters arguably more than in other companies; it also matters because, as many have said, a CEO is the face of the company and his views and those of the company are sometimes hard to disentangle.&lt;p&gt;But going from there to making a call to boycott Firefox is a &lt;i&gt;huge&lt;/i&gt; jump and smells like a pure appropriation of the controversy for PR purposes. This revelation about Sam Yagan seems to strengthen this feeling. Come on people, we&amp;#x27;re better than this. Being on the right side of history about an issue does not automatically waive us from intellectual rigor and moderation.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>andrewfong</author><text>I think you&amp;#x27;re misreading the above post. The point is not to say there is a justifiable argument against gay marriage but to say that not all opponents are like Fred Phelps -- i.e., not all opponents are motivated by pure animus as opposed to ignorance, FUD, or just faulty reasoning.&lt;p&gt;A big part of that ignorance is many (if not most) gay marriage opponents simply don&amp;#x27;t believe it&amp;#x27;s an immutable characteristic and don&amp;#x27;t fully appreciate how damaging it can be to suppress one&amp;#x27;s sexual orientation (e.g. don&amp;#x27;t ask, don&amp;#x27;t tell). And if you don&amp;#x27;t believe that sexual orientation is an immutable characteristic, then a gay marriage ban isn&amp;#x27;t discrimination against a minority but simply yet another public morality law in line with bans on drugs, polygamy, or public nudity.&lt;p&gt;That doesn&amp;#x27;t make the argument any less wrong, but IMHO, intent matters. Ignorance or stupidity don&amp;#x27;t deserve the same level of condemnation as outright hate.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid </title><url>http://uncrunched.com/2014/04/06/the-hypocrisy-of-sam-yagan-okcupid/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>masklinn</author><text>&amp;gt; For example, there are people who have nothing against homosexuality but are attached to the symbolic value of &amp;#x27;marriage&amp;#x27; as a Christian institution&lt;p&gt;Yes, they were also attached to its symbolic value when they used it to condemn miscegenation.&lt;p&gt;Given atheist, muslims, jews or hindus can get married, and so can blacks, browns, reds, yellows and whites (with one another too, which once upon a time was against &amp;quot;the symbolic value of &amp;#x27;marriage&amp;#x27; as a Christian institution&amp;quot;), I&amp;#x27;m pretty sure civil marriage has nothing to do with &amp;quot;the symbolic value of &amp;#x27;marriage&amp;#x27; as a Christian institution&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; and would be completely fine with another civil contract with the same rights but a different name.&lt;p&gt;Because &amp;quot;separate but equal&amp;quot; had such a good run last time around eh?&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; This seems to be somewhat in line with Eich&amp;#x27;s actions&lt;p&gt;No it is not:&lt;p&gt;1. Eich donated $1000 to prop 8. Prop 8&amp;#x27;s goal was to prevent future homosexual marriages in california and to break up existing ones (since prop 8 was passed specifically because proposition 22 had been struck down and homosexual couples were getting married). It did not propose the introduction of an equivalent contract or amend californian law to effectively introduce one&lt;p&gt;2. Eich refused to acknowledge such an intent and stonewalled instead behind &amp;quot;me giving to people trying to destroy your marriage does not mean I&amp;#x27;m a bigot&amp;quot;. Does not sound like &amp;quot;separate but equal&amp;quot; was his intent, as distateful as that would have been&lt;p&gt;3. &amp;quot;I would prefer an alternative to it therefore I donate to amend the constitution in order to ban it&amp;quot; is not what I would call sane and sensible reasoning</text></item><item><author>pyduan</author><text>What is regrettable in all this is that no one seems to consider the possibility that people may have nuanced views about gay marriage. According to the mob you&amp;#x27;re either a saint or a bigot, and thus Eich&amp;#x27;s value as a human being was supposedly entirely determined by this one opinion he voiced in 2008.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m staunchly in favor of gay marriage, which I consider to be a no-brainer -- but it seems to me the motivations of Prop 8 proponents differ a lot in nature, with some being much more excusable than others in their wrongness.&lt;p&gt;For example, there are people who have nothing against homosexuality but are attached to the symbolic value of &amp;#x27;marriage&amp;#x27; as a Christian institution and would be completely fine with another civil contract with the same rights but a different name. This seems to be somewhat in line with Eich&amp;#x27;s actions (I remember reading a memo from Eich stating he had no plan to amend Mozilla&amp;#x27;s gay-friendly policies and employee benefits). Although I still think this view is guilty of being wrongly attached to outdated models of society, this is not nearly as bad as what Eich has been accused of.&lt;p&gt;There are other possible reasons one could have (for example, those who in ignorance of the many studies that showed that children of homosexual households grow up just fine could have unfounded reservations about gay adoption, but would be ready to change their mind if shown the evidence; I&amp;#x27;ve encountered a couple myself), but my broader point is that there is a huge range in the degree of bigotry between those who voted Prop 8 and one should not jump to conclusions so easily as they do not all deserve the same level of condemnation.&lt;p&gt;Now, I can understand why Eich&amp;#x27;s views &lt;i&gt;could&lt;/i&gt; make him unsuitable as a CEO because, in a purely pragmatic sense, holding views that most of your workforce despise is obviously detrimental to your ability to lead and especially so at such a peculiar organization as Mozilla where ideology matters arguably more than in other companies; it also matters because, as many have said, a CEO is the face of the company and his views and those of the company are sometimes hard to disentangle.&lt;p&gt;But going from there to making a call to boycott Firefox is a &lt;i&gt;huge&lt;/i&gt; jump and smells like a pure appropriation of the controversy for PR purposes. This revelation about Sam Yagan seems to strengthen this feeling. Come on people, we&amp;#x27;re better than this. Being on the right side of history about an issue does not automatically waive us from intellectual rigor and moderation.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>baddox</author><text>It has nothing to do both &amp;quot;separate but equal&amp;quot; if the only difference is the legal term used (&amp;quot;marriage&amp;quot; for heterosexual couple, &amp;quot;civil union&amp;quot; for homosexual couple) and not the rights associated with it.&lt;p&gt;Separate but equal was about physical segregation of minorities, not just about using different legal terms for the same thing. And, by the way, something that a &lt;i&gt;ton&lt;/i&gt; of people don&amp;#x27;t know about the separate but equal doctrine (because it doesn&amp;#x27;t appear to be taught in American public schools): It actually refers to the &lt;i&gt;government&amp;#x27;s&lt;/i&gt; legal authority to &lt;i&gt;mandate&lt;/i&gt; that privately owned businesses provide separate nut equal facilities for blacks. That&amp;#x27;s a lot different than the usual portrayal of Brown vs. BoE, as the government stepping in an conquering private racism.</text></comment>