Tell that to the people who were citing Eich's other donations to "anti-gay" politicians, to further damn him.[0][1] (I'm guessing parent poster is not one of them, though.) If it counts against Eich, let's not let anyone else get a pass for the same thing. At the least it seems perfectly fair to grill Yagan pretty hard on this. Maybe nobody will because the story is saturated and/or this headline is not as juicy.
You could say a variant of the "donation ... can have thousands of motives" about Prop 8 or any single-issue group, too. In another sense, once you donate, you don't really have control over what the campaign does, just as you don't over what a politician does. Of course there's not as much latitude, but I'm concerned people ascribe the worst animosity possible to single-issue donors but the most charitable viewpoint to politician donors.
If you think there is no morality/empathy gradient on reasons for supporting Prop 8, that supporting it at all is repugnant, that's understandable. Are there any politicians who are so anti-gay-marriage, that donating to them would be just as bad as donating for Prop 8? Maybe this Chris Cannon, who has a "special kind of hate for gays", is one of them?
I'm also kind of conflicted. When you get into guessing people's feelings and motives from public documents about multifaceted ideas, it's not black and white. Maybe it's only fair to apply the same logic to anyone who who may have been hypocritically criticizing him, though.
Yes, you could say "donations can have thousands of motives" in the same way about a single issue group. But saying that would be unnecessarily obtuse and argumentative - one supports a single cause the other supports thousands of stances.
You only donate to anti prop 8 if you are sufficiently opposed to gays marrying to spend money on it. I think it is by definition a bigoted act, and to use your words, morally repugnant.
Perhaps I am being too nitpicky, fair enough. Personally, I'd still rather entertain shades of gray, then turn into a bigot against people I think are bigoted.
I'm interested in your distinction "sufficiently opposed to gays marrying to spend money on it". This has turned up quite a few times in these threads. Apparently merely being opposed to gays marrying is, like, unfortunate, but doing anything about it crosses the line to absolutely insufferable. Are you saying this? Then what's the point of being "allowed" to have an opinion some people don't like, if actually doing anything about it is "wrong"? Is it the money that makes it bad? Trying to convince others to your viewpoint? Any action besides just voting? Is voting against gays marrying worse than just thinking to yourself that they shouldn't?
This may again be nitpicking, but I'm not trying to argue, just wondering where people draw the lines.
Money ~= power. Prop 8 was to reduce freedom of gays by non gays. Gay marriage has only "eww factor" affect on straight marriage.
Thus, while it is fine to prefer gays not marry, it is wrong for group a to exert power against group b to limit group b's freedom when group a suffers no harm either way.
Having the opinion is questionable. But when you exert your power over another group, you enter a sphere of active rather than passive bigotry.
You could say a variant of the "donation ... can have thousands of motives" about Prop 8 or any single-issue group, too. In another sense, once you donate, you don't really have control over what the campaign does, just as you don't over what a politician does. Of course there's not as much latitude, but I'm concerned people ascribe the worst animosity possible to single-issue donors but the most charitable viewpoint to politician donors.
If you think there is no morality/empathy gradient on reasons for supporting Prop 8, that supporting it at all is repugnant, that's understandable. Are there any politicians who are so anti-gay-marriage, that donating to them would be just as bad as donating for Prop 8? Maybe this Chris Cannon, who has a "special kind of hate for gays", is one of them?
I'm also kind of conflicted. When you get into guessing people's feelings and motives from public documents about multifaceted ideas, it's not black and white. Maybe it's only fair to apply the same logic to anyone who who may have been hypocritically criticizing him, though.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7529538
[1] http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/02/controvers...