Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Setting Something Straight

I had never really heard of Brendan Eich until this past week or two.  Well, I might have heard of him before, but I don't remember it, and I wouldn't have generally known who he is until the past week or two.  Eich has, though, been in the news the past couple of weeks in conjunction with his resignation as CEO of Mozilla.  In short, he resigned under pressure stemming from his contribution to efforts to pass Proposition 8 in California and his stance regarding that proposition.  Proposition 8 would have encoded into law a definition of marriage as only between a man and a woman.

Some folks have expressed worry about what's happening to Eich (such as here, here, and here), concerned about how pressuring Eich may represent a sort of an antidemocratic totalitarianism that fails to live up to the diversity of opinions that ought to be celebrated within the kinds of free and open dialogue and practice needed for functioning democracy.  To some degree, I understand the concern.  As I have indicated before on this blog, I have significant concerns about the power of organizations -- particularly organizations as employers -- to punish people based on those folks' expressions of their opinions.  Meanwhile, I have serious concerns about the content of Prop 8 and the kinds of arguments that were made in favor of it.  Still, I think I could work with folks -- and I'm sure that I do -- who supported Prop 8 and legislation like it, and, though I find their reasoning seriously misguided, I might be able to understand how well-meaning  people may have thought they should have supported Prop 8.  Heck, particularly given the kind of homophobic culture in which I grew up, I likely myself -- as liberal as I was even then -- might have seen some merit in some of those arguments a couple of decades ago.

Yet, even in saying that, two points warrant mention.  First, I am straight.  As such, I have the luxury of knowing that Prop 8 and legislation like it would have not significantly directly affected my choices and rights.  So, when I say I could work with folks who support Prop 8, I also wouldn't have to go to work every day knowing these people want to deny me rights, opportunities, and frankly my humanity.  If I was not straight, that would not be the case.  At the end of January and beginning of February, I was honored to take part in BGSU Firelands' staging of the play 8, which depicts elements of the trial that overturned Proposition 8 after California voters voted the proposition into law.  The play is worth seeing if you can get a chance to do so.  In particular, among other things, it demonstrates the serious deficiencies in the arguments in favor of Prop 8, and it shows some of the dehumanizing and very real damaging elements of Prop 8 and legislation like it.

And those damaging elements of Prop 8, then, get to the other point worth mentioning.  As I see folks expressing concern about how Eich's resignation demonstrates a kind of thought control limiting freedom of expression and opinion in ways that oppress, discriminate, and work against democracy, let's not forget to apply those same concerns to Prop 8.  Prop 8 literally sought to do exactly that ... and more.  It sought to encode in law a particular view of marriage, along with a concomitant view of sexuality, and thus criminalize -- or at the very least legally and socially delegitimize -- practices that expressed alternatives to that particular view.  As such, Prop 8 was the thought police, and it was also the action police.  It was oppressive, it was discriminatory, and it worked against the kinds of free and open dialogue and practice that a democracy would ask of us.

So, when I see and hear arguments about how folks such as Eich are being oppressed and not tolerated in a way that a tolerant society should tolerate them, I'm very apt to call bull shit.  Prop 8 was intolerant, oppressive, and frankly heinous.  Legislation like it is too.  When your opinion is support for legislation that seeks to encode into law your own view so that others have to follow your view, even though following other views would not limit or incur upon the rights of others, then this is not simply the matter of opinion that many defenders of Eich and others who have expressed support for legislation like Prop 8 try to claim.  Their opinion is not simply their opinion; it's an opinion based on forcing others to conform to their opinion.

In the end, maybe Eich's resignation wasn't the proper course of action here.  I really don't know, and I don't know enough about the situation to state an opinion.  But I do know that Eich's opinion on Prop 8 embodied the same kinds of things that his defenders are claiming about the pressure that influenced Eich's resignation.