Only the most recent declarations of human rights have included any provisions about sexual orientation at all. The UN declaration was in 1948 - hardly a friendly time for homosexuals. The US bill of rights was held widely, really until the Civil War, to enshrine - implicitly in its provisions on private property - property in people. LGBT people have had to fight hard even to get to the point where gay marriage is even thinkable, let alone considered a fundamental human right, partly because "it's a human rights issue" is question-begging in the extreme. What's your definition of human rights? I bet Brendan Eich's is different. You won't prove one or the other from first principles, I guarantee you.
What we have here, with this little brouhaha, is political bikeshedding. Gay marriage is hard. We just got it in this country (the UK), almost 50 years after homosexual acts were first partially decriminalised. In the US, it seems to be a matter to force through on a tedious state-by-state basis. The obstacles to doing so are huge - because millions of Americans (and millions of British, etc), well organised in right-wing pressure groups and militant churches, consider homosexuality to be depraved and sinful.
Meanwhile, in the tech world, people are generally upping their consciousness on this issue and others. Good. But this is not a problem individuals scattered around an industry can solve. It's a matter for political movements of concerned citizens and always has been.
But there's Brendan Eich. We know very well he donated a whole thousand dollars to the campaign for a cruel, vindictive law (although only because somebody dug it out of CA state records - not because he's on record stating his views). He is in a prominent and vulnerable position of influence - on our turf. Heck, he's in the Valley! We may not be able to do anything about victims of homophobia in West Texas, but we can do something about Brendan Eich. And doing something, apparently, is always better than doing nothing.
Yes, Eich's opinions are vile, and he should be challenged to drop them. But he's not the problem. If he has conducted himself in a bigoted way in his many years as CTO, then that would disqualify him - probably under state or federal law, never mind the morality of it. If not, then there is no material difference whatsoever to LGBT people at Mozilla - any more than there are to LGBT contributors to ES6 or whatever. Don't worry about right-wing hackers who keep their opinions on the quiet and on the side. Worry about the televangelists, the tea party and the rest who breed bigotry to scale.
Only the most recent declarations of human rights have included any provisions about sexual orientation at all. The UN declaration was in 1948 - hardly a friendly time for homosexuals. The US bill of rights was held widely, really until the Civil War, to enshrine - implicitly in its provisions on private property - property in people. LGBT people have had to fight hard even to get to the point where gay marriage is even thinkable, let alone considered a fundamental human right, partly because "it's a human rights issue" is question-begging in the extreme. What's your definition of human rights? I bet Brendan Eich's is different. You won't prove one or the other from first principles, I guarantee you.
What we have here, with this little brouhaha, is political bikeshedding. Gay marriage is hard. We just got it in this country (the UK), almost 50 years after homosexual acts were first partially decriminalised. In the US, it seems to be a matter to force through on a tedious state-by-state basis. The obstacles to doing so are huge - because millions of Americans (and millions of British, etc), well organised in right-wing pressure groups and militant churches, consider homosexuality to be depraved and sinful.
Meanwhile, in the tech world, people are generally upping their consciousness on this issue and others. Good. But this is not a problem individuals scattered around an industry can solve. It's a matter for political movements of concerned citizens and always has been.
But there's Brendan Eich. We know very well he donated a whole thousand dollars to the campaign for a cruel, vindictive law (although only because somebody dug it out of CA state records - not because he's on record stating his views). He is in a prominent and vulnerable position of influence - on our turf. Heck, he's in the Valley! We may not be able to do anything about victims of homophobia in West Texas, but we can do something about Brendan Eich. And doing something, apparently, is always better than doing nothing.
Yes, Eich's opinions are vile, and he should be challenged to drop them. But he's not the problem. If he has conducted himself in a bigoted way in his many years as CTO, then that would disqualify him - probably under state or federal law, never mind the morality of it. If not, then there is no material difference whatsoever to LGBT people at Mozilla - any more than there are to LGBT contributors to ES6 or whatever. Don't worry about right-wing hackers who keep their opinions on the quiet and on the side. Worry about the televangelists, the tea party and the rest who breed bigotry to scale.