Im not sure anti same sex marriage is the same as homophobia. Is it the wrong opinion, yes. But I wouldnt say being against same sex marriage is sufficient to make someone a homophobe.
Yeah it would make them a racist. Because its most likely hate or disgust for the other race which is causing a person to be against interracial marriage. But for same sex marriage, there are BS religious reasons to be against it, not just hatred or disgust of gays.
The "BS" in "BS religious reasons" is the tell. There are huge swaths of the Bible the religious set is happy to set aside when it's convenient. Go read Leviticus for a start.
It says more about Christians than it does about gay people or even the Bible that they're fixated on homosexuality.
The conservative talking point against gay marriage is that it will somehow undermine "traditional" marriage and the culture at large. It comes from a standpoint of quite literally being afraid of homosexuals and homosexuality.
I think it's fair to assume that Brenden Eich's reasoning shares some of those features. (Or he donated that money cynically for some other reason. I suppose that's a option.)
Either way: He gave money to prevent an entire class of Californians from enjoying their rights. Which is a pretty shitty thing to do.
VisualR: what would you suggest people do instead of nonviolent protest like boycotting and public declamation? Tweet about it? Change our profile pictures? This is a serious cultural issue. We are not talking about Baskin Robbins eliminating a flavor. A major force on the Internet was going to be led by a man who clings to the belief that gay people should not have the same civil rights as straight people. That this belief is unacceptable to many should be made clear by them in the most direct and visible way possible.
It helps by removing a bigot from a position of great power, showing others that bigotry will not be quietly tolerated, even (perhaps especially) in men and women of great talent and wealth.
Maybe. Or it could just anger the other side to push back harder. Education and time are the forces that will cause an LGBT victory, not these boycott games.
If he was against it because of some non-homophobic reason wouldn't he probably have shouted that from the rooftops?
Let's say he was against it because it expanded the institution of marriage (a decent idea, but I wouldn't vote against gay rights because of it). Libertarian with perhaps a misguided set of priorities (equality > smaller government), sure, bigot? No.
So it's probably because of homophobia, because if it was something else, he probably would have made that clear by now.
My point is there are degrees of badness. LGBT supporters look like bullies when they don't moderate their response to someone who disagrees with them.
Oh so the degree of badness of supporting institutional oppression (you know, systematically removing (violating) the rights of people based on their identity through laws, etc.) is less than that of telling a company to fire someone (which the company isn't even legally bound to do), got it. /s
This right here is why tech is so white/male/straight/etc. "Oh the other people should stop being bullies and just let themselves be oppressed, the people doing the oppression aren’t the bullies, those are just their opinions, we should just let them continue to oppress people."
Let's put it this way. The LGBT community has been oppressed for basically their whole life. So yea, when given the chance, they are going to try to oppress the people who are continuing to systematically oppress them, where do you think they learned that from. If he was willing to apologize, it probably would have been fine (since when has a gay guy apologizing for being gay gotten him his right to marry someone?), the bully here is Eich, he just got called on it this time.
