Is a racist hateful? My grandmother was a racist and was a really good/kind women who dedicated much of her life to helping others (including people of color). She didn't treat other races hatefully, but she did have warped beliefs about other races- "stemming from ignorance and her religion instead of bigotry or hate" (your words).

I didn't compare him to nazis, skinheads, or other violent/hateful racists. You shouldn't equate racism with hate.

In short, I think it's a fair comparison. Right now, I don't think he's a hateful person though more information could change my mind.

Not sure what religion you're referring to, I'm aware you were using the parent's words but you were using them. So what religion do you think influenced your grandmother to be racist?

Christianity. There were plenty of racists back in the day who used the bible to support their views: https://www.google.com/search?q=biblical+support+for+racism

Though you could step beyond my/the parent comment's literal words to get to the gist of the point: While they deserve some sensitivity because they are a product of their religion/upbringing/culture, they don't get a free pass (google "moral relativism" if you want to see a mess of discussions about this).

> You don't know Brendan, I don't know Brendan, nobody in previous threads comparing him to fucking racists or the Nazis knows Brendan.

I know Brendan. I met him on a number of occasions while working at Mozilla and interacted with him on many more. I think the comparison to racism is completely valid. I don't think he's a bad guy (he was always quite cordial with me) but his actions caused harm to a large number of people; I don't think that's okay.

What actions did he take besides donating $1,000 to Prop 8?

What other actions does he need to take? Passing prop 8 harmed people.

I didn't mean to imply otherwise: the phrasing of but his actions caused harm to a large number of people led me to believe there was something else that occurred of which I was unaware.

It's his inactions that have also caused problems. Refusing to change his beliefs. Refusing to justify his unchanged beliefs. Refusing to explain why he did what he did and what outcomes he intended. Refusing to respond to anyone's valid criticisms and questions. Refusing to apologize, but instead issuing a cynical, verbally acrobatic non-apology apology, that backflips and dances around the burning issues. Refusing to step down after he's caused damage to the Mozilla project.

He created Javascript

How is it valid? Have you talked to him personally about his beliefs? He's offered to share them with anyone he meets in person.

Fortunately for us, we have the opportunity to form our opinion of him by the actions he takes rather than the words he uses.

Again: Believing that marriage can only be between a man and a woman, because marriage has a religious connotation to them, is not bigotry.

It's a stupid fucking belief, and it leads to seperate but equal bullshit, but it's not homophobic on its own.

Except all marriages are civil marriages - and the government has to treat all equally. that is all. Your church, temple, or mosque can be as exclusionary and ignorant as they want to be. that's fine, and protected free speech. But the government shouldn't give rights to some and not all (inheritance, consent, tax breaks etc).

Well, no, that's the point.

There are civil unions, and there are marriages - and if it was simply about "rights" and "benefits", then people wouldn't give a c*ap which group they were in.

However, even though they have civil unions (in many countries/states), they also want to redefined marriage.

I'm not saying that's wrong or right - that's an argument I won't go into here.

However, to try to pretend that this is anything but redefining something is pretty deceptive.

Maybe they'll win, and we will redefine marriage. Who knows.

You keep saying this throughout the thread. You are misinformed. Marriage and civil unions are legally different things with different rights, responsibilities, and scope.

They are legally the same in Connecticut and other states. Not all, but in some. But it's not equal in the "institutional" sense so we should just redefine marriage in states instead of building civil unions with the same framework as marriages and have two seperate but equal legal frameworks.

Fortunately, momentum is building for marriage equality here in Georgia. Maybe this state isn't so bad after all. The editor of the local small town paper even came out in support.

Marriage and civil unions embody the same legal rights in the US (at least, in the states that they were created so far), at issue is some people beliefs that marriage as in institution should not be changed. And I don't agree with that, "seperate but equal" is personally unacceptable to me.

I'm just trying to explain what his (assumed) beliefs are, and pointing out that his donation and beliefs shouldn't automatically label him as "anti-gay."

Says who? This is such a weird statement. These people are treating gays unequally, why do they get a pass if they are choosing to follow homophobic dogma?

If a religion said black people were cursed and had no souls, there wouldn't be so much hemming and hawing over whether or not they were racist. (Articles about the Mormon church all mention its "racist past".)

Opposing gay marriage [1] is a sign of bigotry and hate, by that fact alone. It's akin to excusing white supremacists in the 1950's for segregating blacks and whites and underfunding black schools because their opinions were religiously motivated (and most claimed a religion as one of the reasons--children of Ham, and all that) and because they ignorantly believed blacks were inherently intellectually inferior. Nope, no hate or bigotry at all there.

[1] With a sliver of a possible out if you support ending all legal recognition of marriage.

From a well-known gay British art critic, writer and broadcaster. Is he a hateful homophobic bigot too? Obviously he does not represent the whole gay community, but it does serve to highlight how the abusive language directed towards Brendan and the call for a boycott are a complete over-reaction.

Why I will never be converted to gay marriage

...the recent institution of civil partnerships seemed to be the final necessary reform, giving homosexuals the right to inherit each other’s property, just as may a man and his wife; and if they want a family, there is now no barrier to their adopting children – in the case of homosexual men, so long in error bundled together with paedophiles and pederasts, an astonishing recognition of moral responsibility.

Why then do they and lesbians demand the right to marry? Indeed, how many of us have made that demand? One in 20? One in 10? Most of us... are content with civil partnerships and have not pleaded for gay marriage. But every minority has within it a core of single-issue politicians and protesters who are never satisfied and always ask for more, and homosexuals, both male and female, are no exception.

Since the institution of civil partnerships there has been no impediment to their celebration with a party as extravagant as any wedding, but not all homosexuals are so exhibitionist. Most of us are content with what we now have within the law, and are happy to respect the deeply-held belief of sincere, thoughtful and informed Christians for whom marriage is the one sacrament in which we cannot share.

We have wasted our resources on the wrong campaign – the battle still to be won is against prejudice, the most insidious of enemies.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/10729717/Brian-Sewe...

This pattern of thought is not new as noted by another commenter but beyond that, it is dismissive. If, and a big if would be given should marriage be a truly sacred multi generational ceremony. It's not, it began with ownership of people and is presently accompanied by a farce of a concept that diamonds are actually worth anything.

If you could look beyond that joke of a concept you can see it's really about EQUAL rights, not about samesies.

To some the concept of marriage means something, to others it's a way to get insurance or better tax deals. This debate is about equal rights. period.

As a side note, the only real argument i've heard against same sex marriage was it opens the doors to lawsuits, because if you have the same rights you can be sued you when you infringe them. And that's what the true opponents of equal rights fear.

pps the only thing about the quote that makes any sense is it is wasted resources, this should not even be a debate.

Zora Neale Hurston supported segregation. Would you argue that segregation wasn't racist?

In many countries what separates a Civil Union (that may in fact also be between Man and Woman) and Marriage are tax benefits an easy fix would be to just tie the tax benefits to something else, like the fact that you are raising children.

>Opposing gay marriage is a sign of bigotry and hate, by that fact alone.

No, it is not. One can actually have empathy with gays and believe that marriage can only be between a man and a woman.

I don't agree with those beliefs, but I'm speaking from experience that there are many people who believe that marriage has a very religious connotation.

Can you please cite a single interaction in which Brendan has looked down upon someone personally due to their sexual identity?

When he donated money to remove a law in order to deny gay people their human rights.

You can't just slap "but it's my religionnnnn" on something and call it a day. It's like you haven't bothered to read the rhetoric that right-wing politicians used in the segregated South or apartheid-era South Africa.

I'm not saying you should respect his beliefs. I'm saying you should stop calling him a bigot because you don't know what he actually believes, and don't have any evidence that he's homophobic.

All we know is that he donated $1000 to reaffirm, in law, that marriage can only be between a man and a woman.

Perhaps he believes that the state should remove all recognition of marriage and just recognize civil unions going forward for everyone with the benefits from marriage.

We don't know, because he hasn't talked about his beliefs. And honestly, I don't believe they're that important when Mozilla has reaffirmed their strive for equality.

> Perhaps he believes that the state should remove all recognition of marriage...

Just a heads-up, this is a strawman developed by anti-same-sex-marriage proponents to provide a possible (though not plausible) reason other than denying people their rights why someone might oppose same-sex marriage (and you also have to buy that someone who wanted to grant same-sex couples those legal right would vote/donate/campaign/etc to deny them).

If you're going to assert it, you need to have specific evidence that the individual in question actually believes that.

I used the modifier "perhaps", which was followed by acknowledgment that we don't know his beliefs (because he won't talk about them except in person.)

Brendan is (or was at the time of donation) ignorant, there's no sense in disputing that. I'm just tired of people labelling him as anti-gay, bigot, homophobe, etc.

Perhaps you're an apologist for bigots.

I know him. You're wrong. He's an unrepentant homophobic bigot.

Marriage is not really a human right anyways, apart from the symbolic gesture the state grants priviledges like tax benefits, adoptions rights and so on. Typically the state has to have some kind of justification for granting priviledges in this case it was probably motivated by religion, but it could also be tied to potential child production / child care.

Ideally laws would be reformed in such a way that the priviledges granted today are tied to something other than you are a man and woman and want to marry. It could be just you are two or more people who want to marry. In my opinion things especially tax benefits should be tied to the fact that you are actually providing a service (like raising kids, your own or adopted, but maybe just caring for each other financially is enough).

Really, denied them their human rights?

I think you might be overblowing the horn just slightly there.

Sigh.

Nobody is being oppressed.

In most progressive countries, civil unions are available, which confer exactly the same benefits and rights as a traditional marriage.

In fact, in many countries, you don't even need to do that - simply having a de-facto relationship will be enough.

So basically, it's about a word - in this case "marriage", which has traditionally been between a man and a woman, they want to redefine it to include any two humans.

I'm not saying that tradition is "right" just because we've done it that way for thousands of years - maybe it's "right" that words should change over time.

However, to try to claim the moral high ground by making disingenuous comparisons to Apartheid is pretty disgusting for all those that actually suffered through Apartheid.

What next? Comparisons to the pogrums?

Not overblowing at all. Marriage is a human right. Since you're in such an affected high dudgeon over apartheid [1], here's a question for you: was the ban on interracial marriage something anti-apartheid activists blew off as just a jolly good time that's not at all oppressive, or did they consider it part and parcel of an oppressive system?

[1] An aside: Do you know anything at all about apartheid? Did you actually protest against it? Do you you know about the deep links between the LGBT-rights movement and anti-apartheid movement, which was a factor that led to South Africa's being the only constitution in Africa, and one of the first in the world, to give formal equal rights to the LGBT community and subsequently legalize gay marriage?

Well, your point is actually a logical inequality - apartheid was against the idea of interracial relationships, married or not.

It's not exactly like these interracial couples were offered a "union" which conferred the same rights, but don't call it a marriage.

But even if they were, it's still not close to the current battle over gay "marriage".

For most of recorded human history, the concept of marriage was very much tied to the idea of family.

For example, Susan Treggiari, a professor of Roman history writes "Matrimonium is an institution involving a mother, mater. The idea implicit in the word is that a man takes a woman in marriage, in matrimonium ducere, so that he may have children by her".

Homosexual relationships cannot by definition create a family - they are not a procreative relationship.

I'm not saying they're wrong because of this - this is simply a biological fact.

This is what a lot of gay marriage activists seem to miss - it's not opposition to the idea of them together. If they want to be together, they will be together.

It's simply that they wish to come along and redefine an existing word, to fit a new definition of what a family is.

Perhaps as a society, we will agree - and we will allow "marriage" between any two humans, and gender will become irrelevant.

However, to simply come along and assume, oh, a man and woman get it, so a man and man should get it automatically is either being intentionally blind, or very presumptuous.

A man and woman family is different to one composed of a man and a man - not because one is more valuable or not valuable - but simply because of their roles.

It's like saying, oh, a woman gets pregnant, so she must be more valuable than the man in a marriage. Well no, they are different - they play different parts, and we call them different things.

So it comes down to "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve." You just recite a long litany of naturalistic fallacies and claims that marriage is X because marriage is X.

Yeah, there's a reason people think people who support straight marriage while opposing gay marriage are homophobic bigots.

Dude, it's biology....sigh.

(And probably anthropology thrown in there as well).

I don't get it, for people who claim to be super-rational, and only believing in "evidence", some of you atheists are a strangely illogical bunch.

And then when you say "Err...but wait, did you actually think this through - what about X?", they start throwing around labels like BIGOT, BIGOT!!!! NYAH NYAH!!!

Ok, I'll try and put in in HN tl'dr terms =).

Man + Woman = Procreation

That is a fact of life (literally, the fact of life) - human's engage in sexual reproduction.

For most of recorded human civilisation, we've had marriages - to try and foster the family unit, and engage in aforesaid procreation.

Now, in modern times, we've had an upsurge in homosexual relationships - some people decide to have sexual partnerships with same-gendered people.

Now, this can't by definition by procreative - which for most of recorded history was the point of marriage and families.

So some parts of society want them to come up with a new term to describe this relationship, which is sexual in nature, but not about families or procreation.

However, the other group say that because their relationships are sexual in nature, and they still like the concept of kids, they should still use the same label.

Here's one instance: he donated money to prevent people from getting married due to their sexual identity.

For some reason denying gays their equal rights is somehow ok as long as the person is not foaming at the mouth, and if they're refusing to be open-minded about their religious beliefs. I don't get it.

Maybe marriage certainly is between a man and a women within THEIR RELIGIOUS point of view. And that's fine. Their church can be as exclusionary as they want to be. But the US government shouldn't be exclusionary. Marriage in the US affords civil rights and distinctions (inheritance, consent, taxes) that should simply be equal for all citizens. Your religion and their obsolete views of things makes no difference. Who cares if your church or temple won't do a gay ceremony.

Opposing gay marriage isn't always linked to bigotry.

I oppose ALL state-sanctioned unions because I don't believe it's the state's business to say who can and cannot be in an official relationship (hetero, homo, or all the poly/group unions). As long as the people consent, why does the state need to approve?

Considering marriage is a non-binding contract (no fault divorce), the contract isn't worth the paper it's printed on (even prenups are overruled with alarming frequency).

From the state's perspective, what does approving marriage offer? It offers monitoring and control (and a religious position), but almost nothing else. Child guardianship is already a non-marital issue. Last will and testaments along with living wills (if enforced properly) deal with most legal issues pertaining to marriage. Minor modifications to tax law deals with the rest.

If someone wants to be married, they should go to their local church, mosque, synagogue, or whatever. If they want legal protection, have a will and they should sign the proper docs (even married persons should do this). If they want a binding contract, they should contact a lawyer and get one (just as they would with a prenup if they want something semi-binding).

Eich didn't give $1000 to an anti-state-marriage proposition, he gave to an anti-same-sex-marriage proposition.

>from ignorance and his religion instead of bigotry or hate

I am not one of the fedora-tippers, and I have no problem with individual faith, but it's been my experience that organized religion (of any sort) tends to discourage critical thinking and encourage ignorance. A byproduct of this is prejudice which leads to the dark side.

I don't believe you can quite so easily separate religion from discrimination.

Acts 8:26-40 Read it. I don't know how you conflate religion with racism. It is not the truth.

Explain that to the many religious people who used their religion to justify racism and misogony, as they now use their religion to justify homophobia. You can cherry pick and whitewash your religion however you choose, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a powerful weapon for racists and misogynists and bigots, and they use it against people they hate.

Of course maybe I'm misinterpreting you. If by "it is not the truth," you mean the religions that people use to justify their hate are not the truth, then I agree with you.

Yes we agree, it was the point of the reference I gave too. Anyone who invokes religion for _or_ against in the matter of deciding what marriage is defined as and what new term is needed, is wrong. True religion is about joining people together not separating them.

Did you read what I wrote? I don't think you read what I wrote.

>You should take the moral high ground and send him a personal communication detailing how his donation has caused harm.

I think there is far to much 'walking on eggshells' these days in regards to rights being infringed.

Please stop being an apologist for bigots. Racists and homophobes and misogynists and nazis are all cut from the same cloth, and they all support each other, so attacking the root cause of their hate is fighting them all. And asking people to stop being "unfair" to them is asking people to treat them all fairly, which they don't deserve, because they acted unfairly first.

The Paradox of Tolerance is a resolved philosophical debate, so the idea that it's ironic or wrong to be intolerant of intolerance is an unoriginal and misguided idea. Philosopher Karl Popper asserted, in The Open Society and Its Enemies Vol. 1, that we are warranted in refusing to tolerate intolerance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

I do know Brendan, since the time I interviewed with him at Netscape in the 90's, and I know people who work with him and know him much better than I do, who say he has a lot of insane hateful beliefs that he doesn't like to share with people (except by paying money to other people to fund making TV commercials demonizing gays, destroying existing gay married families, and preventing future ones until the Supreme Court stepped in, of course), and that he refuses to change or justify his unjust beliefs.

Mozilla has tried to recruit me on numerous occasions, and I've turned them down because of Brendan, sending them and Brendan my explanation of why, but I've never heard anything back from Brendan or Mozilla about it. And I'm not the only person who refuses to work with Mozilla because of Brendan, so he's already harmed the Mozilla project as well as the people he hates.

So I DID tell him how his donation has caused harm, both to me and my friends, and the Mozilla project, and he ignored it. Now what do you suggest?

----

There remains an huge elephant in the room, Brendan, which causes your message of inclusivity to fall flat.

"I'm sorry." "I was wrong." These are the words abusers never say; you want our forgiveness without actually promising to stop harming people, or explaining what was going through your head when you DID harm people before.

You're not sorry. You refuse to mention you were wrong, and apologize for the tangible harm you caused. You skirt around the well known fact that you donated money to destroy the existing and potential marriages of gay families. Everyone knows that. It's on the record.

Your verbal gymnastics to avoid addressing that fact overshadowed your message. Why didn't you mention that YOU PERSONALLY are the cause of people mistrusting Mozilla's commitment to equality, and explain WHAT you did and WHY you did it, as you have always refused to do.

If you learned anything, and changed your bigoted beliefs, then you should ADMIT to making a mistake, EXPLAIN why you made it, and APOLOGIZE for the harm you caused.

But no, you're still an abuser, because:

You refuse to admit you were wrong.

You refuse to explain what the fuck you were thinking when you donated money to support Proposition 8.

You refuse to explain why you intended and succeeded in destroying the existing and potential marriages of gay families.

You refuse to explain what you learned from being wrong, so other bigots like yourself can learn from your mistakes, and hopefully change their ways.

Brendan: You are a bigot, and an abuser. Not just because of your beliefs, which you have kept to yourself because they are so unjustifiable that you are ashamed to discuss them, but because of your ACTIONS, which tangibly contributed to the success of Proposition 8, thus destroying the existing gay marriages in California and preventing others. That was your intent, and that was the result of your actions, so you deserve credit for destroying those marriages, and you should be ashamed of yourself.

The Supreme Court finally ruled that Proposition 8 was wrong. Can you finally admit that YOU were wrong?

But I am sure you won't, because as a religious bigot, you think you're better than everyone else, and that you have a right to tell other people how to live their lives.

You've so much as proven that with your latest cowardly statement, a non-apology apology, which dances around the fact that you did what you did, that brought shame to the company that you direct, and blatantly avoids saying you're sorry and that you're wrong.

This is how your non-apology apology sounds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ocv5WdBmSok

I'm sorry that you feel I'm being an apologist for bigots, but I have no evidence to suggest that Eich is himself a homophobe. We all know about the donation, obviously, but that in and of itself is not evidence of his "anti-gay" stance.

If your anecdote is true and he actually is homophobic, I'll be even more hurt. But I still believe that there's really no reason for Brendan, being the most qualified, to step down when he seems comitted to equality going forward. Regardless, what OkCupid is doing is unfair (especially considering factual inaccuracies in their message) to both Mozilla Co. and Mozilla Fnd. in addition to all of the contributors.

Welcome to the club of being even more hurt.

A lot of people disagree with you, because they believe financially supporting Proposition 8 is prima facia evidence of homophobia, just as donating money to the KKK is evidence of racism.

But you're performing logical backflips, and parroting implausible straw man arguments usually proffered by dyed in the wool homophobes to justify their hatred, without actually having any knowledge of Brendan's beliefs, in an attempt to counter arguments and testimonial from people who DO know him and HAVE been negatively affected by his beliefs.

That's why it's my belief that you're being an apologist for bigots. Your "maybe he's against all marriages" argument has been shot down -- don't try it again.

>because they believe financially supporting Proposition 8 is prima facia evidence of homophobia

And they're wrong.

>without actually having any knowledge of Brendan's beliefs

I'm going on Mozilla employee's reactions, people who actually interact with him on a day to day basis. No one else seems to pin him as an "unrepentant homophobic bigot" (as per your other comment) except you.

>Your "maybe he's against all marriages" argument has been shot down -- don't try it again.

I'm in favor of redefining marriage and abolishing all civil unions because they're fundamentally unequal. And no, it hasn't, we simply don't know what his opinions are.

Your demeanor in comments really doesn't lend any credibility to your anecdote compared to the experiences shared by Mozilla Co. employees.