How far to take this disagreement?

Some people, like me and most people I know, support marriage equality that permits marriage regardless of gender or sexual orientation. I write about this a lot because I love being married, and I know many people for whom this bond is the best part of life. So I want anyone to be able to share in this blessing.

What about the people who disagree? I've written about my respect for those who sincerely believe that same-sex sexual relationships are wrong or that same-sex marriage is wrong. I've also written that those against marriage equality should stop objecting and stop denying the civil rights of others.

Am I totally confused? I hope not. I see a big picture with lots of people in it. Most of the people are good and have honest intentions, yet they often end up disagreeing. I'm not going to demonize a good person just for holding a belief I find mistaken. For a loud, obnoxious person, I'm going to disagree a lot more loudly.

Theory in practice

So, what kind of person is Brendan Eich, the CEO of Mozilla who just resigned under a cloud due to his contribution in favor of an anti-marriage-equality proposition in California?

I don't know what kind of person he is. In my research, I didn't find that he's been a vocal opponent of marriage equality. He was a co-founder of Mozilla, and has worked for years in the open source software movement. As far as we know, he didn't harass gay coworkers and he didn't broadcast his political views through the workplace.

So what did he do that was offensive, harassing, or unacceptable? Some are saying that his financial support for Prop 8 in California is over the line. Software developers, including this one, joined together to begin a boycott. Not because Eich just made the contribution (it was five years ago), or because he just started working for Mozilla, or because he was just promoted to CEO. They started the boycott because they wanted an apology, and he refused to give it. So he was forced to resign.

It's hard for me to see this as anything but intolerant, thought-police-like tactics. His choices were to recant his beliefs or go. Do we want such a binary choice presented to our teachers, writers, broadcasters, doctors, nurses, X-ray technicians? Should I refuse service from a waitress who holds different political views, or can we please just have a limited unfraught transaction?

Armed camps

I don't want to have the entire country carved into pro- and anti- camps. I don't have to know the politics of the CEO of the company that made this computer or that made the couch I'm sitting on. The taint of Brendan Eich's contribution didn't seep into Firefox, which I used for years. It doesn't ruin Thunderbird now. Two years ago, a breast cancer charity tried to purge itself of any connection to Planned Parenthood, even though Planned Parenthood helps with breast cancer screenings. It was stupid to think a breast cancer charity needed to be completely pure on the unrelated issue of abortion, yet some people want to force this kind of purity on charities, or businesses, or what have you. It doesn't work--it's crazy or coercive to implement. Is this what we want in our society--litmus tests wherever you turn?

Let's remember--good people can disagree. Many moral, ethical, and policy questions aren't so clear cut that we absolutely know which is the right answer. When there's a way to live and let live, let's do it. I'm not so infallible that I'm going to condemn those who don't agree with me. What happened to other people, the ones who are so sure,  who will condemn, expel, and purge? Do they no longer want a world with diversity? Wasn't that the goal?

Image: theology21.com

Extras.

• Purge them all (or maybe we should rethink this).
• A few more details on the boycott leaders. 
• Saddened and conflicted -- a developer. 
• Lambda and Eich (all coding talk).
• Eich blogs about his contribution to Prop 8 and his workplace principles (2012), blogs about his commitments to inclusiveness as CEO, and blogs about politics (mostly in software issues).
• He's the bully, not us.
• Gay blogger Andrew Sullivan argues with his readers.

Tsunami of memories: Anita Hill

Just as in Remembrance of Things Past, memories sometimes wash over me with their power undiminished by time. Today, it was because of this article about Anita Hill.

In 1991, George H.W. Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. The highest court needed a black justice because the only black justice, Thurgood Marshall, had just retired.

Thomas had been groomed for the Supreme Court by the Republicans. There are few blacks among the Republicans, so it wasn't hard for a black Republican to rise. Witness Allen West, Herman Cain, and Dr. Ben Carson in the past few years. Clarence Thomas wasn't a great lawyer or scholar, but that holds true for all the justices right now. I don't know a major accomplishment of any of them.

What fills my memories was the drama of the hearings for Thomas's nomination. Nominations are pretty dull affairs. There is always effusive praise from one side and attempts at gotcha questions from the other. I'm pretty sure Thomas's hearing was like that, but with the added indignation from the liberals that the GOP had a black man (or Uncle Tom) who talked the same trickle-down, traditional respect-for-authority, conservative line that all the old white men did. However, since he was black, the GOP could pretend that they were a broader party than they were. Indignant isn't quite the word for the liberal response--'ape shit' is more apt.

The liberals weren't doing a good job of derailing the nomination, something that they had succeeded in doing in 1987 with the nomination of Robert Bork, a seriously intelligent and detestable person. It looked as though Thomas, this groomed slap-in-the-face at blacks (or was it liberals?), was going to win confirmation.

Abrupt Shift

Then a scoop erupted in the press. A former associate of Thomas had been interviewed by the FBI about allegations that Thomas has harassed female employees. Additional hearings were scheduled. Anita Hill testified calmly on a Friday. She told about Thomas, in the workplace, discussing scenes from porno movies he'd seen the previous weekend. There was also the joke he made about a pubic hair on his can of coke.

What Anita Hill said had the ring of truth to me. But this is so subjective. To conservatives, she was a "spurned woman" trumped up by radical pro-choice feminists trying to derail the appointment of a solid, fair man.

I watched her testimony, and I also watched Thomas's testimony in that rare Saturday session. Thomas was full of fire and righteous indignation, and he was very believable. He denounced the charges as a desperate and craven attempt to besmirch a honest man, all for venal political reasons. I would have believed it, and many people did, including some co-workers. (Aside: People are generally good as sorting out the weaselly liars, but we aren't so good at identifying the full-throated ones.)

However, the supporting witnesses for Hill were quite strong, recalling how she told them at the time what was happening. Purely on evidence, Hill's story was stronger. But evidence didn't win over political considerations, and Thomas was confirmed.

The Personal Overlaps the Political

What I remember most was Anita Hill telling a true story that wasn't generally heard before. Her boss degraded her in sexual ways, but he got away with it because it was only words. Some commentators castigated her as a liar, saying that no woman would put up with that treatment.

But I knew otherwise. I knew from personal experience that until sexual harassment became a well-known issue, women didn't know what to do when they were harassed. I certainly didn't know what to do when a senior engineer in his 50's took the liberty of putting his arm around my back as we discussed engineering matters, and he kept it there. On one hand, it might have looked like innocuous touch, but it definitely was unwelcome and uncomfortable on my end.

Luckily, his liberties never progressed. I recall vividly how they ended. I ran into him at the bank, and he put his arm around me again. I thought "I may have to put up with this at work, but there's no way in hell I'm putting up with it outside of work." So I jammed my elbow hard into his side. He never touched me again. He avoided eye contact after that too.

I was a twenty-something woman engineer, one of only two in that factory, and there were no harassment reporting programs back then. I wasn't a trail-blazer, and I didn't know what to do. So I did nothing for a while, then I fought back, then it was over, and I never thought "this is a general problem bigger than me." Thank God other people did see the bigger problem and did work to counter it. This was pure progress to a better world. I'll argue with anyone who says otherwise.

Both swore to tell the truth

Image: salon.com