> Why do we always have to blame the people who want to make things better?
Because they are not necessarily making things better, they are making things worse (and "good intentions" are no excuse here).
In my view, discriminating against someone professionally (and publicly dragging their convictions through the mud) because of privately held political/religious opinions is not acceptable behavior, full stop.
I would have some understanding if Eich had been nasty with coworkers, or if his convictions had affected his work. But there were no accusations of this.
Lets just flip the thing a bit to make my point clearer:
If Eich had been discovered to be (secretly) a stout, godless atheist (sponsoring anti-religious campaigns)-- do you think the same kind of smear campaign/discrimination/career-killing would have been adequate?
> Why don't we consider trying to pass laws that hurt your coworkers to qualify as "being nasty with coworkers"?
Because "advocating for laws that potentially negatively affect coworkers" and "actually being nasty with coworkers" is a difference in proportion of at least 100000 (maybe slightly less if your advocacy effects a lot of votes).
By cancel-campaigning against Eich you basically
1) Discriminate against someone for a political view they held (5 years ago!)
2) Suffocate honest discussion/debate about any affected topic
3) Directly promote creation of cultural echo chambers
You also make the workplace an observably more hostile place for anyone that leans more on Eichs side on the topic.
On the other hand, what does the whole thing actually achieve? I don't even see accusations of anyone actually being affected, in the workplace, by Eichs views (and that would be the bare minimum to demonstrate actual harm).
And helping to pass Prop 8 does those same things but worse. What's your argument, that it shouldn't count because it probably didn't affect the outcome very much? "You put non-trivial personal resources into denying basic rights to people, but it's pretty small in the grand scheme of things so let's just ignore it" doesn't make much sense to me.
You don't think it creates a hostile place for workers when their CEO is trying to deny them basic right?
> What's your argument, that it shouldn't count because it probably didn't affect the outcome very much?
No. My argument is that "being in favor of prop 8" is a defendable PoV.
Firing someone for political/religious views much less so.
> You don't think it creates a hostile place for workers when their CEO is trying to deny them basic right?
1) No. Calling state sanctioned marriage a "basic right" is IMO a stretch in the first place, but lets put that aside: Say Eich had voted for a proposition that was actually in favor of taking basic rights, like raising voting age to 21. Would that have been a reason to cancel his career five years later? Don't think so; does not affect work at all. Its your CEO, not your drinking buddy, and even in drinking buddies someone with conflicting or opposite political views can make for more interesting discussion; I see no appeal in spending life in an echo chamber.
2) It was not a cancel campaign championed by people actually affected, but "white knighting" instead (people very publicly advocating for issues that don't affect them, frequently without even any feedback or involvement from the actual victims). Might be wrong here and dont know everything about everyone involved, but thats what it looks like to me (judging mainly from John Lilly).
3) Running a cancel campaign like this is not gonna make everyone feel safe. People are just gonna try very hard to never be in the "outgroup" instead, with all the detestable social maneuvring that brings. No thanks. Would rather face honest bigotry than fake smiles, a bunch of lies and raw contempt behind the back.
It’s not about the views. It’s about attempting to impose those views on others. I don’t care if someone thinks homosexuality is a horrible sin. I care if they think that means they need the law to reflect this view.
Eich's view was totally private and pulled up by reporters. The USA is a democracy, it's completely unnecessary to cancel Eich. Just advocate for the opposing view if that's your wish.
His name was on a published list of donors. It's not like reporters went digging through his trash. Making a donation where there's a legal requirement to publish your contribution is not "totally private."
Why is it OK for Eich to try to prevent certain people from getting married, but it's not OK for Eich's employees to try to prevent him from having a certain job? Please explain using small words so I can understand the difference.
Is a wealthy person losing their job worse than the state making it illegal to marry the person you love because they don't like the way your genitals match?
If he personally ended gay marriage I would see what you are saying, but he donated a tiny amount of money relative to the sum total of donations to fail to stop gay marriage. It's a bit like blaming one person's commute for global warming, in a better world where global warming had been stopped.
How much support for hurting your employees and users is required before it’s justifiable to find a different CEO?
One common theme I’ve noticed among all the people arguing with me here is that you’re all steadfastly refusing to acknowledge the part where he was the CEO. You’re here comparing him to one random person. I have other replies trying to paint me as inconsistent because I’m not trying to get my bigoted coworkers fired or doing something about random bigots in the community. There’s a big difference when a person is in a leadership role. I’m pretty sure you’re all smart enough to understand that, so I can only assume that you’re avoiding that understanding because it would fatally undermine your argument.
CEOs are employees too. They don't own the company, they work for the shareholders. While on one hand that's the social justification for firing them at-will, it also means (to me at least) that they should be subject to normal HR processes that involve some rights for them. That's not special to CEOs, it should be universal to any worker.
If someone steadfastly refuses to stop bringing hate to work, or if they do something physically violent or verbally abusive, you have to fire them, but if they deviate only a little bit, they deserve to face pressure and criticism before getting kicked out - or maybe even a chance to defend themselves, or come to terms with the other side.
We have worker rights to keep people from being exploited, and because losing your job can wreck your life. None of this applies to a wealthy CEO.
How many people lose their jobs every day in this country because they were slightly less than 100% obsequious to a customer or to their boss? And we just shrug. But one CEO gets fired because he doesn’t have the confidence of his workers and you lose your minds. Why are people so sympathetic to rich people who suffer a small setback? It’s bizarre.
His actions were totally public and affected people who worked for him. Thinking “I don’t like broccoli” is a private action. Contributing your effort to take away existing marriages and prevent new ones is not a private action: he isn’t a party to someone else’s marriage and nobody was forcing him to have gay marriage if he didn’t want one, nor would his church be required to perform or recognize them. The only reason to support Prop 8 was an explicitly public political statement that the government would interfere with personal liberties for religious grounds.
That’s shameful enough – and completely discredits his purported religious beliefs – but it’s especially bad for an officer of a public company because it creates a hostile working environment. If you’re gay, working for a homophobe means that you have to view any decisions he makes through the lens of whether he thinks your life should be illegal. Even if you only care about the business, anyone with a stake still needs to worry about liability from creating a strong argument for a lawsuit arguing that a negative personnel decision wasn’t based on the stated rationale.
Because they are not necessarily making things better, they are making things worse (and "good intentions" are no excuse here).
In my view, discriminating against someone professionally (and publicly dragging their convictions through the mud) because of privately held political/religious opinions is not acceptable behavior, full stop.
I would have some understanding if Eich had been nasty with coworkers, or if his convictions had affected his work. But there were no accusations of this.
Lets just flip the thing a bit to make my point clearer:
If Eich had been discovered to be (secretly) a stout, godless atheist (sponsoring anti-religious campaigns)-- do you think the same kind of smear campaign/discrimination/career-killing would have been adequate?