cygnus comments on Firefox is fine. The people running it are not

[–] cygnus@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago (7 children)

he supported the bill to ban gay marriage and that’s terrible,

but I’ve also heard that he left his politics at the door and treated everyone with respect, including the LGBT people at Mozilla

How on earth can you reconcile these two statements? "I respect you so much I'll pass a law to make you illegal"?

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[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I don't understand how you can't.

In a business setting, it's called "professionalism", and in a personal setting it's called being a nice person. Most of my family is against gay marriage and don't believe in gender fluidity, yet when my sister in law said her child is non-binary and would like to be referred to with they/then, they complied. Why? Believing those things doesn't mean you hate LGBT people, it just means you disagree about policy. They love my sister in law and her kids, so they'll do what they can to help them feel comfortable around them and want to participate in family gatherings.

I personally believe strongly that marriage should be available to all consenting adults, but I also believe gay marriage goes against God's plan. Why? I believe everyone has the right to make their own choices and whether that's acceptable to God isn't my business. Maybe I'm misreading things, IDK, but my personal religious beliefs only guide my personal decisions and I believe I am supposed to love everyone regardless of their lifestyle. Whether someone else is sinning isn't really my business, nor should it impact my love for them. And maybe they're not sinning, again, IDK, it's not my business.

I support same sex marriage (my church doesn't) because I believe in freedom of choice, and that policy merely increases options for others and doesn't decrease mine. Likewise for most LGBT policies, like bathroom use or gender change on IDs, you do you. We had an LGBT candidate at work (pretty obviously trans), and I was happily surprised that wasn't an issue for my very conservative coworker during the interview (they're an observant Muslim with conservative social views), and I went out of my way to make sure we both corrected for any subconscious bias we might have.

I don't know Brendan Eich, maybe he's actually a terrible person, idk. What I do know is he had a long career at Mozilla (nearly 20 years), and there were no public complaints about him until he was chosen as CEO. From all accounts, people were only mad about his $1k donation to prop 8, not about his conduct at work or anything of that nature. The board even asked him to stay in another capacity, but he left because he loved Mozilla and obviously he wasn't able to be an effective leader if his presence encouraged people to recommend against using Firefox and other Mozilla products.

To me, it's a crazy overreaction, he donated a pretty modest amount one time, six years prior, and had no complaints during his position as CTO. He absolutely got brigaded because someone decided to dig up donation records. If they didn't, he probably would've been a successful CEO and refocused on the tech, instead of whatever nonsense the follow-up CEOs have been doing.

I disagree with Eich's political views, but also think he was the best person for the CEO role. He seemed like a competent professional, and he was certainly technically competent given his long technical career at Mozilla.

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[–] cygnus@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago* (3 children)

I also believe gay marriage goes against God’s plan

I support same sex marriage (my church doesn’t) because I believe in freedom of choice

I applaud you for supporting same-sex marriage, but - apologies if this sounds like I'm picking on you, I'm really not - this is like someone who claims to be a young-earth creationist but agrees that radiocarbon dating is accurate. I don't understand how these mutually-exclusive thoughts can happily coexist in your mind. I wish we could discuss this over a drink because I'm very intrigued by whatever epistemic process led you there.

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[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'll try explaining with a different example that's less emotionally charged: gambling.

I think gambling is terrible and nobody should do it. It's addictive and has ruined tons of lives, and I absolutely refuse to do anything related to it for fear that I'll get hooked.

So I should be in favor of gambling bans, right? No, quite the opposite, and I genuinely get excited for my coworkers and friends that do gamble when they do well. They know my personal opinion on it, but still share their ups and downs with me because they know I won't judge or lecture them.

The same is true for a variety of policies, I generally believe in fewer restrictions on individuals. For example:

I don't drink but support looser liquor laws
I believe prostitution should be legal, and also that it's bad
I don't use drugs, but believe that all recreational drugs should be legal if they can be used safety (i.e. under medical supervision)

As long as it doesn't restrict those who don't want to participate, I'm in favor of more options for people.

I believe everyone should be able to live the way they choose, and I can be happy for someone who makes different choices than me. I don't have to understand why someone values something to feel happy when they achieve it.

My view of homosexuality applies to me, not you. Me preventing you from doing something I consider to be a sin is worse than you doing the sin. You have every right to decide how to live your life, and I can feel happy for you finding happiness even if I believe it's the wrong choice.

I don't think that's at all comparable to your creationism example, which is about accepting two opposing views simultaneously. If you accept science that conflicts with your religious views, you need to adjust your religious views so they're compatible. Likewise, society and law don't need to match your religious views, they just need to be compatible (e.g. religious institutions shouldn't be forced to perform or accept same sex marriage for religious rites).

I hope this makes sense.

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[–] cygnus@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

Thanks for taking the time to explain - that does make a lot of sense, if you coisider being trans or gay a learned/chosen behaviour. That hadn't crossed my mind, which is why the premise seemed impossible to me. The difference, of course, between being gay and being a gambler is that nobody is born a gambler, therefore the comparison doesn't really hold up. That's why I used the creationism example: Carbon-14 is what it is. LGBT people are who they are. They didn't choose to be that way any more that C-14 chose its decay rate. I suppose that doesn't matter all that much in practice - if more people thought like you rather than being homo- or transphobic, the world would undoubtedly be a better place than it is.

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[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 point 1 year ago

nobody is born a gambler

I disagree. You can have two people from the same upbringing and one becomes addicted to gambling and the other doesn't. So there's absolutely a predisposition toward addictions, which is why some people struggle a lot more than others at breaking bad habits.

My views on transexuality are a bit different though. I don't think the issue is necessarily that some AFAB person is actually a man and biology/God got it wrong, I think the issue is that people feel more comfortable with a given set of social norms that may not match the social norms of their sex. This doesn't have to be a conscious decision either, they can just feel uneasy with things and blame their sex, but really the issue is society not matching their mental model of themselves. For those people, sex changes and/or hormone therapy can be the most effective solution, because changing society is much more difficult than changing how you present. I've even heard some people can change how they present from day to day because they're feeling like they align more to one or the other extreme that day.

I suppose that doesn’t matter all that much in practice

Agreed 100%. Whether non-binary genders (or genders at all) are an actual thing or a social construct doesn't really matter, what matters is love and acceptance.

Does calling someone by their preferred gender cost you anything? No. Does arguing semantics about whether what they're experiencing is innate or a subconscious processing of societal norms help? No. Just accept people for who they claim to be if it doesn't harm anyone.

And yeah, I think homo- and trans- phobias are stupid. We're all just people, so treat each other with respect and fight for each other to get whatever they need go feel loved and accepted.

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[–] pupbiru@aussie.zone -1 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

Most of my family is against gay marriage and don't believe in gender fluidity, yet when my sister in law said her child is non-binary and would like to be referred to with they/then, they complied.

no, that’s fucked up… less fucked up than making a big deal of it, but it shows a huge lack of empathy… people close to them that they know quite well are validating that non binary people exist - that it’s not just people “looking for attention” and all that other garbage that people throw out there and they still don’t think they should be treated with respect and as equals by society

that’s “i don’t respect you but i don’t want to make a scene”

this is why the rate of self harm in the queer scene is so fuck high… because families suddenly don’t respect people they’ve know and loved their entire lives

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[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 point 1 year ago

I went into detail here in case you want to read it. I'll keep this reply short.

Basically, it's possible to be happy for someone who makes decisions you disagree with because you know it makes them happy. For example, I think gambling is bad and nobody should do it while also being genuinely happy for someone after a profitable trip to a casino. Likewise, I can also be happy for someone who finds happiness in a gender identity and use their preferred pronouns while also believing gender is an arbitrary social construct, not something baked into the human condition.

Supporting someone doesn't mean believing exactly the same way they do. If it's important to them and isn't harmful, support them in it unconditionally. I do that with people who have conflicting religious views from mine, and I think that's completely reasonable.

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