In Gay Rights Fights, Bullies Love to Play the Victim

[DonViejo]

Tim Teeman

In Andrew Sullivan’s assessment of Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich’s resignation, the former exec was “hounded” from his job by gay rights “fanatics.” But this was a business decision—and a revealing one.

Can you hear the piteous weeping? The wronged tears? Those poor bigots are under attack. Those who are prejudiced against gay people are having their constitutional right to say so trampled. It’s a terrible injustice: you can’t believe that gay people are lesser without some pesky homosexual objecting and “bullying” you into believing that equality under the law is a venerable aim.

And so is heralded the latest trope in the saga of former Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich, who resigned after the controversy around his giving donations to a 2008 Proposition 8 campaign to retain a ban on gay marriage in California. Eich is now apparently the victim of an army of gay rights “fanatics,” rainbow pitchforks in hand, coursing across the land, seeking to quell any resistance to their sinister agenda that, ummm, gay people should be treated just like everyone else.

Even gay conservatives and contrarians are circling, licking their chops. In Andrew Sullivan’s reading of the Eich brouhaha, the former CEO has been severely wronged. His piece on the subject is headlined, “The Hounding of a Heretic,” as if there is something heroically counter-insurgent about someone who doesn’t believe gay people should be accorded legal equality.

“Will he now be forced to walk through the streets in shame? Why not the stocks?” asked Sullivan. “The whole episode disgusts me—as it should disgust anyone interested in a tolerant and diverse society. If this is the gay rights movement today—hounding our opponents with a fanaticism more like the religious right than anyone else—then count me out. If we are about intimidating the free speech of others, we are no better than the anti-gay bullies who came before us.”

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/04/in-gay-rights-fights-bullies-love-to-play-the-victim.html

[LostOne4Ever]

1. What Mr Sullivan needs to understand is

That I have every right not to want my use of a browser to help enrich a man who has used his considerable wealth and affluence to promote bigotry.

This was purely market forces at work, and the right needs to get over their persecution complex and realize that.