People, also, used to define marriage as being between two people of the same race. Let us dispense of this tangent once and for all: Marriage is a civil right. It is the cornerstone of this civil rights movement, as it was to the last one, and the one before that, and all the ones that haven't happened yet. The cry "marriage for all" is not politically correct; we would like it to become politically correct -- what a milestone that would be. We aren't shaming Eich because he's politically incorrect. We are shaming him because he chose to join a long line of people who have circumscribed marriage in the name of tradition or fear or ignorance. People who use their money and resources taking something that requires nothing of them to give. People who have been proven wrong, time and time again. People who we, regretfully, did not shame at the time.

Sorry, but the whole race versus gay marriage thing has been done to death, and proven patently false.

Nobody is stopping gay people from being together. Nor, in many countries/states, are they stopped from claiming the same benefits (e.g. via civil unions).

This is simply about them redefining marriage to encompass any two humans, rather than just a man and a woman.

I'm not going to go into whether that's "right" or not - that's way off topic here, and is only going to descent to a flame war - this isn't the forum for that.

However, this is about redefining a word - marriage has traditionally been between a man and a woman, and to claim otherwise is blatant historical revisionism.

Tradition is not necessarily "right" though, so they're certainly within rights to claim they feel the word should be redefined.

Just like Eichs is within right to say no, marriage should be defined the same.

And Eichs was classy enough to keep it out of his work - by all reports, he's never discriminated against gay people, or had anything against them - he's simply got his own views of what "marriage" should mean.

Nobody?! Uganda? Russia? India?

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2014/03/31/how-evangelicals-wo...

"Evangelicals took to Twitter and Facebook to threaten to stop sending money to their sponsored children unless World Vision reversed course."

All this over a word?! An etymology war... #not.

Err, couple of corrections.

On a geographical front - the US is a different country to Uganda/Russia/India.

I was speaking on the topic at hand - which is about Brandon Eichs, a US citizen, supporting a US piece of legislation, and about Mozilla, a US organisation who he works for.

Perhaps it's slightly US-centric - but then this is a US-based site. If you want articles about other countries, you're free to submit them.

And secondly, on the religious front - Africa as a whole is not particularly homosexual friendly. I suspect part of this is cultural - they're just very conservative in how they view relationships/marriage.

This isn't about religion, but simply about their society as a whole.

For example, arranged marriages are still common, and they frown very strongly on things like adultery.

So to somehow try to link it to a Californian legislation about legalistic definitions of marriages versus civil unions is a big disingenuous.

Russia and India likewise are two countries that are quite conservative in their values.

It's the same in China -they're most definitely not a Christian society by any stretch (Christianity is basically a punishable offence), but they also don't like LBGT relationships.

The funny thing is - you don't see the same level of noise about this issue in Muslim countries.

I've always wondered why that is.

YEAH! Mozilla and Uganda ... I get the two confused all the time!!!

However, as is often overlooked, this isn't purely a debate about one's personal ethics and morals; marriage extends into the legal domain, and brings with it a plethora of complex legal ramifications. So, in fact, preventing marriage does impact an individual's rights.

I would also point out that “politically correct” is about as dismissive a term as can be found today.

Cultural attitudes may shift, and at some point a marginalized concept dismissed as “politically correct” becomes simply “correct.”

Well, no, it doesn't.

In many countries/states, civil unions are the norm for gay people, and have been for some time.

However, the current debate from gay people seems to be that they want to re-use the "marriage" label, which has traditionally been for between a man and a woman.

I'm not saying it's right simply because it's tradition - but trying to argue that it has been anything but between a man and a woman for thousands of years is just historical revisionism.

So yes, you can try to argue that, we should redefine marriage to include between any two people who want it.

However, to claim that they're somehow being "oppressed" because we don't simply let them win their argument is just silly.

If this was really about them wanting benefits, then the civil union would achieve that.

Unsolicited feedback: The way you disagree is pretty disrespectful-- I've seen this in a few of your comments. Don't refer to people's arguments as "silly".

Civil unions or legal gay marriages are still not possible in about 2/3 of the United States.

It's not "historical revisionism" for the definition of a word (in the eyes of the law) to change or evolve. For example, marriage used to be legal with women under 16-- now it's largely not. I'd say that most proponents care more about the rights than the label.

It's irrelevant what's possible in 2/3 of the US. The California status quo until the court case, which Eich was implicitly trying to restore by supporting prop 8, was civil unions with identical treatment to marriage under state law except the name.

That's not Uganda style death penalty as some are equating it to.

Aside from the ethical issues, civil partnerships only had identical treatment to marriage under Californian state law. They weren't treated as marriages under federal law, or by many other countries and US states that recognised gay marriage. Likewise, Prop 8 meant that the marriages of gay couples from outside the state couldn't be recognised in California.

Civil Unions don't grant the same benefits as Marriage does. So it's not the same thing.

There's no etymology war, you can keep the word "marriage", just give everyone equal rights to marry and have their marriage recognized everywhere.

Prop 8 was entirely a terminology war. Prop 8 is not magically the entire concept of gay rights. It only addressed the issue of whether California would have same sex marriage or civil unions with identical treatment.

Federal law doesn't recognize civil unions. Separate but equal is never equal.

Then the issue is: Federal law needs to recognise civil unions.

Or we could just say that Federal law shouldn't engage in sexual discrimination re. legal marriage.

> but trying to argue that it has been anything but between a man and a woman for thousands of years is just historical revisionism.

It's a good point, unfortunately the problem with that is how far back we should we go?

For example: Same sex marriage ( not just civil union ) did occur for example in the Roman Empire, until the Christian Emperors Constantius II and Constans passed a law prohibiting same sex marriage and making it punishable by death.

No, it actually didn't actually exist in Rome - for example, see the Wikipedia article on it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage#Ancient

The examples were apparently satirical, and had no legal standing under Roman law.

The exceptions were a few Roman emperors who had...interesting....whims.

But hey, it's the emperor, who are you to tell him what's legal or illegal.

Fast forward a few thousand years, and the one other exception is history is one Spanish priest in 1061.

Here's an idea. What if Eich had donated to a cause which stated the idea that marriage could only be between two white people. Sounds nonsensical but what if instead of it being based around sexual orientation, it was based around race?

The idea of racial equality has been around a lot longer and is more generally accepted than gay marriage rights (which only recently have begun to gain wider acceptance) so I imagine more people would be on the “he should resign” side in such a case.

When I first heard about this issue I didn’t think it was a big deal as long as his personal views did not influence his professional behaviour and ethics. But as some people have pointed out, he is the public face of an organisation that touts openness and inclusiveness as values. Furthermore, if I was gay I’m sure I’d feel more strongly about this, in the same way that someone who is non-white (or in the marginalised race) would feel strongly if the issue was around race as I've described above.

Finally, to people calling for him to apologise….him coming out with an apology to pacify everyone wouldn’t mean that he has changed his mind. It could just mean him saying what he needs to say to be able to get on with things while still harbouring the same thoughts and ideas within. Ask any politician.

The comparison to race still fails to make me think publicly denouncing a company in its whole because of the personal beliefs of one member is in any way justified.

People will never be homogeneous in their beliefs, and I think that's a good thing. But when you're unable to interact with another person in any way at all because of their private beliefs, you're being an idiot.

A person's beliefs do not define their contribution to society. Life has a lot of shades of grey, everyone has opinions that run counter to the current societal ideal. It's not ok to shun or denounce that person, all you're doing is spreading hate. It IS ok to speak out about what you believe. Do some good. Instead of getting angry about someone you've read about on the internet, go volunteer somewhere. Spread some love instead.

I agree with the points you've made. I was simply stating that I can see why some people are calling for him to step down. The person who leads the company - the CEO in most cases - is by default often considered to be a public face for said company and to also be a representation of the kind of company it is. I'm not saying that that's how it should be or not, just that's how it seems to be.