They have a right to their opinions and personal beliefs. They do not have a moral right to enforce discrimination against consenting adults that are doing no harm to others. They enforce their position through the force of state, like Iran does when they execute their gays, but that does not make it right.
I'd rather our government wasn't in the business of granting special rights to couples that decide to cohabitate. But since they are, I expect it to be equally available to all couples, regardless of their sexual orientation.
> How about things that other societies have abolished already, like the death penalty or the world's biggest incarceration rate (predominantly on blacks)?
I'm against both of those things as well. I'm also against the drug war, the massive income inequality gap, software patents, trade law that is allowed when it benefits corporations (outsourcing) and artificially restricted (via DMCA) when it doesn't (importing and region coding), and many, many other things.
I personally feel more strongly about the rights of same-sex couples to marry than I do about not executing a convicted murderer (especially once you adjust for how many are affected by each issue), but I would certainly consider it a negative if Eich were to come out in support of capital punishment.
I think a whole lot more people would be upset if Eich donated to maintaining the disproportionate incarceration rate in place on African Americans.
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Does everything have to devolve into slippery slopes? Taking away marriage rights from same-sex couples is fundamentally and unequivocally wrong. Eich is legally allowed to discriminate against them through law, for now. Just as we are legally allowed to protest his appointment to CEO of Mozilla.
There was a reason at some point that government/society felt it important enough to grant privileges to couples consisting of a one male and one female that agreed to combine assets and liabilities. What was the reason? My guess is to encourage offspring and stable families. If that is the reason, does it still work and apply today? That's the question we should be asking.
Applying what's happening with the marriage discussion to the illegal substance arena, without taking a moment to pause and reflect, we'd be clamoring for extending and banning alcohol and more substances instead of considering repealing bans on some/other drugs (marijuana in particular).
"How many are affected"? How about "how MUCH they are affected"?
And what about those waiting in death row (or executed) only to be found innocent later (including those not so lucky to have a re-trial or a dedicated defense team): http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/The_Innocent_and_the...
A CEO could say "support our troops" and donate to that (which leads to tens or hundrends of thousands of deaths, invansions etc), and noone bats an eyes. But another is against gay marriage and everybody loses their minds.
>Does everything have to devolve into slippery slopes?
A slippery slope would be "if you do X, X*N will happen". I didn't say anything like that.
What I said is: there are tons of controversial issues -- from gay marriage, to the death penalty, to incarceration rates, to gun control, to supportig wars etc.
If you are against people for only one of those causes, while letting others with different opinions on other causes alone, then you are actually discriminating against them.
If you want to be consistent you can't just "prosecute" CEOs who backed a bill against gay marriage. Except if you think, and I cannot even fathom how one would, that that's the definining issue and everything else is secondary.
I'm not really sure which right, but probably no.
> How about things that other societies have abolished already, like the death penalty or the world's biggest incarceration rate (predominantly on blacks)?
Yes, let's play oppression olympics.
To decide how they want their society shaped, including what rights they grant to whatever minority.
Apparently some people in other countries think they should run other people's countries for them and bring them their democracy and their moral code. As if they weren't one of the last countries to abolish slavery, or enforce Jim Crow laws that continue (masked) until this day. Or as if they didn't consider homosexuality mental illness until a few decades ago.
It seems that whatever some countries have decided for themselves (no matter how late they are to the party) should be enforced to everybody else.
As for other stuff, which they are still backwards (e.g the death penalty, lack of gun control, stand your ground laws etc) those are OK, since they are doing it.
>Yes, let's play oppression olympics
Better than playing: "whatever I decide is OK, is OK, everybody else must follow my lead. Oh, and I get to do whatever I want myself".
Well, Indonesians do too. Do they, as a society have that right? Or perhaps only what the US decides is a right should be enforced?
How about things that other societies have abolished already, like the death penalty or the world's biggest incarceration rate (predominantly on blacks)?