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The Internet Is Tolerant. Don't Agree? Keep Out
Townhall.com ^ | April 3, 2014 | Debra J. Saunders

Posted on 04/03/2014 4:04:07 PM PDT by Kaslin

Mozilla's new CEO, Brendan Eich, gave $1,000 to Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure passed by a majority of California voters to limit marriage to one man and one woman. The U.S. Supreme Court voided the measure, but the hate campaign against its supporters lives on.

There's a Twitter campaign to force Eich to step down. "I'm an employee of @mozilla and I'm asking @brendaneich to step down as CEO," one employee tweeted. Rarebit CEO Hampton Catlin and his husband announced a boycott against Mozilla Firefox applications. It will cost the business money, but, Catlin wrote, "as a gay couple who were unable to get married in California until recently," they "morally cannot support a Foundation that would not only leave someone with hateful views in power, but will give them a promotion and put them in charge of the entire organization."

More than 70,000 have signed a petition asking Eich to resign unless he renounces his former position. The message is clear: If you supported Prop 8, its opponents will go after you. Well, not everyone. That would be too messy and produce too many victims. So Prop 8 opponents will selectively target the occasional high-profile donor until he buckles or busts.

Eich has chosen to walk a tightrope. He told CNET's Stephen Shankland that when gay friends learned of his donation, he saw pain in their eyes, and he's "sorry for causing that pain." A Mozilla blog emphasized the corporation's belief in "equality and inclusion for LGBT people."

But Eich did not apologize for the donation. "I don't think it's good for my integrity or Mozilla's integrity to be pressured into changing a position," he told CNET. Making people pass a litmus test goes against Mozilla's quest for true diversity.

Eich wasn't a prominent pusher of Prop 8. He didn't mix his politics with business, in which case critics would have grounds to cite the nexus between Eich's personal beliefs and his corporate success. He wrote a personal check for $1,000. In tech circles, that's snack money.

Doesn't matter. Catlin wrote that Rarebit is boycotting Firefox because he and his husband "are personally affected" by Eich's actions. That's bunk. The courts upended Prop 8. Same-sex couples won.

Sadly, winning has made some advocates, like the Catlins, less tolerant, not more so. It's not enough that they won; they have to make opponents grovel in penance. No need for stockades in 2014 when you can dangle stock options and flame nonbelievers via Twitter.

It's like political time travel. Advocates demand that public figures renounce their 2008 opposition to same-sex marriage as illegitimate. If Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton could do it, surely soulless CEOs can do it, too.

Let me posit that there were some anti-gay bigots who supported Prop 8. But there also were a lot of Californians who wrestled with the issue but chose to stick with a more traditional conclusion. A yes vote didn't mean they hate their gay friends and family members.

So now the Internet has a sign that warns: If you don't support same-sex marriage, get out of the sandbox. If they beat Eich, the fear will spread, and the next dissenter will submit quickly. All hail tolerance and diversity.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: internet; privacy; samesexmarriage
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1 posted on 04/03/2014 4:04:07 PM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin
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2 posted on 04/03/2014 4:05:14 PM PDT by cripplecreek (REMEMBER THE RIVER RAISIN!)
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To: Kaslin

He needs to sue for discrimination against his religious beliefs.


3 posted on 04/03/2014 4:05:58 PM PDT by TheThirdRuffian (RINOS like Romney, McCain, Christie are sure losers. No more!)
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To: Kaslin

There will be a backlash against those that celebrate and acquiesce to the vile molestation of young boys by decadent homosexual men and it won’t be pretty.


4 posted on 04/03/2014 4:07:09 PM PDT by allendale
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To: allendale

Claiming that the sun rises in the West doesn’t make it so.


5 posted on 04/03/2014 4:11:17 PM PDT by Paladin2
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To: Kaslin

Fault Tolerant.


6 posted on 04/03/2014 4:12:01 PM PDT by Paladin2
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To: Kaslin

He just resigned. (Sorry, don’t have time to post link.)


7 posted on 04/03/2014 4:12:06 PM PDT by InMemoriam (Have a seat over there, Mr. Mohammed. Aisha, go play on your swingset, honey.)
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To: Kaslin
He told CNET's Stephen Shankland that when gay friends learned of his donation, he saw pain in their eyes, and he's "sorry for causing that pain."

A measly $1,000 donation six years ago to an issue that got overruled by totalitarian judges anyway did that?

Man, I'd hate to see how much pain $100,000 would have caused.

8 posted on 04/03/2014 4:15:35 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist (GO WISCONSIN BADGERS GO!)
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To: Paladin2

The backlash may not come this week, but Id bet my “farm”.. that it will occur before too many years go by.


9 posted on 04/03/2014 4:15:56 PM PDT by MeshugeMikey ( "Never, never, never give up". Winston Churchill)
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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist

Where did his donation get him in the end?


10 posted on 04/03/2014 4:17:56 PM PDT by Paladin2
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To: Kaslin

Two husbands?


11 posted on 04/03/2014 4:18:48 PM PDT by 1010RD (First, Do No Harm)
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To: Kaslin

Even Debra Saunders cowers to the disgusting, loathsome degenerates. It won’t be long before she is also forced to apologize to the freaks. They think they have numbers on their side, when the truth is that they only have the homosexual Obama pushing their agenda. When he goes down, they won’t have anyone to protect them.


12 posted on 04/03/2014 4:19:13 PM PDT by Flavious_Maximus
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To: Kaslin

Mozilla caved to the sodomites.

http://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/03/brendan-eich-steps-down-as-mozilla-ceo/


13 posted on 04/03/2014 4:27:00 PM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar (Sometimes you need 7+ more ammo. LOTS MORE.)
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To: Kaslin

I’m going to start running out of browsers. What’s the next best once I dump Mozilla.


14 posted on 04/03/2014 4:29:36 PM PDT by Thorliveshere (Minnesota Survivor)
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To: Thorliveshere

Maxthon is a very good browser.


15 posted on 04/03/2014 4:44:07 PM PDT by WhistlingPastTheGraveyard (If you don't stand up, you don't stand a chance.)
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To: Thorliveshere

Opera.

http://www.opera.com/


16 posted on 04/03/2014 4:45:07 PM PDT by Carriage Hill (Peace is that brief glorious moment in history, when everybody stands around reloading.)
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To: Thorliveshere

Why would you want to dump Firefox?


17 posted on 04/03/2014 4:52:49 PM PDT by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
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To: carriage_hill

Opera sucks


18 posted on 04/03/2014 4:57:08 PM PDT by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
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To: InMemoriam

What a dumbass


19 posted on 04/03/2014 4:57:47 PM PDT by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
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To: WhistlingPastTheGraveyard; carriage_hill

Can you put either of these on a smartphone like a Samsung Galaxy S4?


20 posted on 04/03/2014 5:00:28 PM PDT by Eagles6 (Valley Forge Redux)
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