"There is a Gay Mafia..." Bill Maher - Ethical behavior? Bullying?


Selene

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Transcript below.

MAHER: What do you think about the Mozilla CEO having to step down over his donation to a pro-Proposition 8 group.

The Mozilla -- which I'm wearing right now, by the way. I didn't know what Mozilla was. I saw it on my computer, but -- it's Firefix, right? It's the browser.

So this guy apparently does not want gay people to get married and he had to step down. What do you think of that, the question asks.

FMR. REP. TOM DAVIS (R-VA): Because he gave $1,000 eight years ago and it's come back to haunt him.

CARRIE SHEFFIELD, FORBES: Well, and he gave it when President Obama was still against gay marriage. So, I don't think it's very fair.

MAHER: Good point. Also, I think there is a gay mafia. I think if you cross them, you do get whacked.

http://freebeacon.com/national-security/cia-official-dies-in-apparent-suicide/

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It would have been nice if the guy had had the balls to stand up for his beliefs.

I know.

The utter lack of courage exhibited by some businessmen astounds me.

He does realize that he is someone's "bitch" now.

The blithe acceptance of this intellectual fascism by "liberal civil rights advocates" disgusts me.

A...

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This Mozilla appeasement to gay activists is backfiring in a big way. There is no way Brendan Eich's donation to a political campaign should have been linked to his performance as CEO.

Not even Andrew Sullivan, the father of the gay marriage movement, is on board with the gay activists (see here).

Just for fun, Sarah Palin is not on board with Andrew Sullivan being a good spokesman against bullying (see here). (Sullivan once ran a campaign saying over and over she needs to prove she was the real mother of her son with Downs Syndrome, Trig.)

The New York Times is jumping ship while trying to look like they are not jumping ship (see here).

All hell is breaking loose all over the mainstream while the hardcore social conservatives are doing a war dance.

And Mozilla is taking a big hit that I am sure it didn't expect, see Mozilla's Input page. (In the future, for this dynamic link to make sense, set the date times from 03/05 to 04/05, 2014.) As of this posting, there are over 60,000 posts and most of them are people saying they are removing Firefox from their computers in protest. The "sad" to "happy" index is 85% sad to 15% happy.

This is an indication that, when push comes to shove on basic individual rights, the American spirit is not dead and that makes me proud.

I'm just worried that the actual anti-gay bigots are going to use this free speech sentiment surge as a pretext for a nasty backlash and do some really stupid things.

Michael

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I'm just worried that the actual anti-gay bigots are going to use this free speech sentiment surge as a pretext for a nasty backlash and do some really stupid things.

Michael

The victims with vendettas are modern day intellectual Vandals...

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About #3: Mozilla is a non-profit, so it's not strictly speaking a business nor is (was) Eich a businessman.

That is an excellent point.

He was essentially a software engineer and developed Javascript correct?

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Maybe he did early on, but he was their chief technical officer before his promotion. Thus he'd been a manager more recently than he'd been a developer.

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Maybe he did early on, but he was their chief technical officer before his promotion. Thus he'd been a manager more recently than he'd been a developer.

Makes sense.

Never followed his career.

Love his product. Along with Ubuntu the only problems with the computer I have are self inflicted.

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Apparently Gingrich got involved on Sunday:

Former Mozilla chief executive Brendan Eich was forced out of the company due to a “new fascism,” Newt Gingrich said Sunday.

During an episode of ABC’s “This Week,” the former Speaker of the House and Republican presidential candidate slammed the decision to get rid of Eich, who resigned as head of the Internet non-profit last week.

Eich — who co-founded Mozilla, which runs Firefox, and was brought on as CEO last month — resigned amid online protests over his donation of $1,000 to the campaign for California’s Proposition Eight, which banned same-sex marriage in the state.

In a blog post last week, the company announced Eich’s departure and apologized for the way it handled the controversy over his political donations.

On Sunday, Gingrich criticized the public campaign that led to Eich’s departure.

Too often, he said, is “you have the wrong views, meaning conservative, you have no career.”

Gingrich also pushed back on the idea that Eich left Mozilla voluntarily.

“He was pressured by a public campaign,” he said. “This was not voluntary”

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Apparently Gingrich got involved on Sunday:

Former Mozilla chief executive Brendan Eich was forced out of the company due to a “new fascism,” Newt Gingrich said Sunday.

During an episode of ABC’s “This Week,” the former Speaker of the House and Republican presidential candidate slammed the decision to get rid of Eich, who resigned as head of the Internet non-profit last week.

Eich — who co-founded Mozilla, which runs Firefox, and was brought on as CEO last month — resigned amid online protests over his donation of $1,000 to the campaign for California’s Proposition Eight, which banned same-sex marriage in the state.

In a blog post last week, the company announced Eich’s departure and apologized for the way it handled the controversy over his political donations.

On Sunday, Gingrich criticized the public campaign that led to Eich’s departure.

Too often, he said, is “you have the wrong views, meaning conservative, you have no career.”

Gingrich also pushed back on the idea that Eich left Mozilla voluntarily.

“He was pressured by a public campaign,” he said. “This was not voluntary”

Well, if Gingrich got involved, then that should make everybody feel better...

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Well, if Gingrich got involved, then that should make everybody feel better...

Counselor, you are really funny, pithy and astute!

:cool:

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Looks like OkCupid’s co-founder and CEO Sam Yagan made his own anti-gay political contribution in the past. The link below is from TheBlaze, but the blast is from Mother Jones (quoted in the article):

Exposed: Accusations of Hypocrisy in Company’s Crusade to Oust Mozilla CEO Over Political Donation

(Sorry, gotta run so no time to quote it. The gist has already been said, though.)

Michael

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Transcript below.

MAHER: What do you think about the Mozilla CEO having to step down over his donation to a pro-Proposition 8 group.

The Mozilla -- which I'm wearing right now, by the way. I didn't know what Mozilla was. I saw it on my computer, but -- it's Firefix, right? It's the browser.

So this guy apparently does not want gay people to get married and he had to step down. What do you think of that, the question asks.

FMR. REP. TOM DAVIS (R-VA): Because he gave $1,000 eight years ago and it's come back to haunt him.

CARRIE SHEFFIELD, FORBES: Well, and he gave it when President Obama was still against gay marriage. So, I don't think it's very fair.

MAHER: Good point. Also, I think there is a gay mafia. I think if you cross them, you do get whacked.

http://freebeacon.com/national-security/cia-official-dies-in-apparent-suicide/

Do you remember the "orange juice lady" Annita Bryant. She was whacked by the gay Mafia.

She started to dis gays publicly and before she knew it, her coach turned into a pumpkin.

Her fairy god father rescinded her goodies.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Do you remember the "orange juice lady" Annita Bryant. She was whacked by the gay Mafia.

She started to dis gays publicly and before she knew it, her coach turned into a pumpkin.

Her fairy god father rescinded her goodies.

Ba'al Chatzaf

"Fairy God father"! Good one, Bob.

I remember Anita Bryant quite well. She was, for a time, a national campaigner against any sort of 'gay rights,' implacably opposed to any law that relieved discrimination on the grounds of 'sexual orientation.' She was also chief promoter of that tangible good thing, Florida orange juice. Among other things, she was and is an evangelical fundamentalist.

She did a bit of 'dissing' directly:

  • "As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children."
  • "If gays are granted rights, next we'll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards and to nailbiters."
  • "If homosexuality was the normal way, God would have made Adam and Bruce."**

Her book on the 'gay mafia' and her campaign to save the nation was a piece of shit, IMO: "The Anita Bryant Story: The Survival of Our Nation's Families and the Threat of Militant Homosexuality."

Considering her career as outspoken religious anti-gay activist, if we measure by effect, and if we measure against time -- her campaigns were a success. Her efforts in Florida led to laws that stood for 20 years.

Surely she had a decline in her career (as beauty pageant winner, popular singer, spokesperson, speaker). Wikipedia puts it so: "The fallout from her political activism hurt her business and entertainment career." Within two years her job to promote Florida orange juice lapsed. This was no doubt a result of the boycott campaign against the juice ... though this did not immediately dim her appeal to anti-gay rights advocates and groups. It wasn't until her messy divorce that she lost the support of hard-core fundamentalists who had firmly backed her.

At the time she came to prominence for her activism (circa '77) I thought that her efforts -- to stymie anti-discrimination ordinances, gay adoption, sexuality education -- were very useful -- for gay rights advocates. Her very public campaigns roused an entire class of people and led to organized reaction. At the time I actually felt sorry for her, and considered her wildly misinformed about homosexuality. I always wondered how she might deal with a homosexual son, daughter, grand-daughter, son.

As for using the term 'gay mafia' (also 'velvet/lavender mafia'), does the phrase do any useful work? I don't think so. It's more a thought-stopper than an accurate epithet, to my mind, a mafia being a criminal organization, built on corruption, protection, drug sales, prostitution and extortion. A 'mafia whack' is a murder. Mafias work in secret, have a code of omerta, and have a hierarchical structure under authoritarian rule. What I find most problematic in using the term is that it tends to poison the well. Mafia has no neutral or positive connotations, only negative. Adding gay to mafia merely adds the dark connotations. It makes malevolent the entire entity it describes. It over-simplifies. It denigrates a group to be feared, and denotes a group that may not actually exist.

(on the other hand, references in popular culture to a 'velvet/lavender mafia' meant powerful Hollywood gay producers. The 'crimes' of this group are rather murky, however).

So, did a 'gay mafia' whack Anita Bryant? It's a stretch for me, unless all pushback is deemed to be quasi-criminal extortion. Opposition, public campaigns, orange juice boycotts -- her effect on gay communities and their supporters was electric. It jolted many folks to organize for the first time, to counter the effect of her public campaigns.

As for Maher, I have never enjoyed watching him, due to his arrogance and smugness.

Here's just one example to illustrate why I think Maher is a jerk and a sloppy thinker:

BM: I don't believe in vaccinaiton either. That's a... well, that's a... what? That's another theory that I think is flawed, that we go by the Louis Pasteur theory, even though Louis Pasteur renounced it on his own deathbed and said that Beauchamp(s) was right: it's not the invading germs, it's the terrain. It's not the mosquitoes, it's the swamp that they are breeding in.

Yikes.

In the end, if we accept that there is such a malevolent thing as a gay mafia, then I am a member of the organization, and my activism in the past proves it. I am a bad bad man.

All this said, I am of several minds on the central issue concerning the resignation of Eich. Is it a question of quashing free speech? Is it a question of unfair public pressure? Is it a case of 'if you dirty our brand, you must go'? Is it evidence of too much power in the hands of the 'gay lobby'? Is it political correctness gone haywire?

Gay-Mafia.jpg

______________

** quotes from Wikiquote. See also Wikipedia's entry on Gay Mafia.

† -- see Wikipedia's Gay Mafia entry.

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A most unfortunate element of this kerfuffle is the hidden theme that my timeline must be someone else's timeline.

It has been noted almost ad nauseum that our President was elected in 2008 while ostensibly holding the same view on gay marriage as Java Man. The President, however, "evolved" on the topic--that is, if one assumes that he wasn't cynically denying others their rights in order to get elected. So let's assume President Obama truly did evolve, just for the sake of argument. Why must I--for the sake of argument, at least-- evolve* at the same pace as Obama, or others? 2008 was not that long ago. I have karate gi's older than 2008. Even as I write this, I am wearing a tie that dates to the early 2000's. I just don't understand why my agnosticism or doubt must dissolve at the same rate as other groups or, even the leader of Western World.

A similar thing happened in Roe v. Wade.

The intelligentsia forced a solution before the argument was allowed to sit (and bake) the proper time in the oven. Harry Blackmun knew what was best, and he searched for and discovered "penumbras" that nobody ever thought existed in the Constitution.

And look what Roe v. Wade has wrought.

With that said, I have no sympathy for Java Man. Grow some balls, buddy.

*No evolution is actually necessary, as I have no objection to gay marriage.

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*No evolution is actually necessary, as I have no objection to gay marriage.

Sorry, that is no longer enough.

Now you must declare yourself and have a label.

Since "Java man" is a "homophobe," I guess you have to, now, publicly declare that you are a "homopphile."

You just can't be for individual rights for all individuals whether they are in a class, or, grouping.

This politically correct fascism has no place in America.

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I remember Anita Bryant quite well.

William,

I once wrote about Anita Bryant on a blog I used for learning Adsense marketing. It wasn't a very good article (I was way too worried about keywords and crap like that) and I never did get the hang of using Google Trends for rapid-fire content.

More than Anita, though, I feel sorry for Andrew Sullivan right now.

He says fuck this crap, he fought for a principle.

The gay people who are behind the attacks (not gay people in general, just the attackers and their group) say what principle? We ain't no fucking principle. We're a big gay tribe and now we've got power. We used that power to fuck that Mozilla guy up and we intend to use it some more. And Andrew, baby, if you don't shut up, we're going to fuck you up, too.

So it goes.

Now it's not a gay thing. It's a power thing and it runs the same way all across what Bill O'Reilly calls the grievance industry, the varied and sundry oppressed of the world.

Michael

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I remember Anita Bryant quite well.

William,

I once wrote about Anita Bryant on a blog I used for learning Adsense marketing. It wasn't a very good article (I was way too worried about keywords and crap like that) and I never did get the hang of using Google Trends for rapid-fire content.

It was a fine article, humane and principled. Thanks for the link. I credited her for galvanizing activism for gay rights. It seems to me there is still plenty of activism left for the remaining US states that bar gay marriage, or otherwise allow discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

I can't otherwise understand the intensity of the flap over Mozilla's CEO's old campaign money. The Prop 8 battle was vicious, so maybe those emotions still sting.

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*No evolution is actually necessary, as I have no objection to gay marriage.

Sorry, that is no longer enough.

Now you must declare yourself and have a label.

Since "Java man" is a "homophobe," I guess you have to, now, publicly declare that you are a "homopphile."

Had to look it up ... from Urban Dictionary:

homophile.

Homophile is a word widely used by those with same-sex attraction while the term homosexual was still used by psychiatrists and other mental health professionals in the diagnosis of these attractions as a mental disorder. It was widely held by the homophile community that the term homosexual over emphasized the physical aspects of a same-sex relationship and that homophile, -phile coming from the Greek word for love, drew a more accurate picture by having the emphasis on the emotional aspects of such a relationship. With the DSM no longer considering homosexuality as a disorder and the popularization of the word pedophile (meaning one who has sexual attraction to children), the term homosexual has become far more commonly used where the term homophile is rarely, if ever, used at all.
Well known homophile groups include Harry Hay's "The Mattachine Society" for gay men and the unaffiliated "Daughters of Bilitis" for lesbians.
I prefer to be called a homophile because I don't just have sex with my partner, I love him.
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I can't otherwise understand the intensity of the flap over Mozilla's CEO's old campaign money. The Prop 8 battle was vicious, so maybe those emotions still sting.

William,

I see it as simple power-mongering by some of the people in the forefront or gay activism. I discussed this a little here over the Duck Dynasty flap. (You might like that post because I wrote out the entire Table of Contents of After the Ball.)

It sounds trite, but Acton's adage is true: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Some of the gay leaders are turning into the very thing they fought against. Power is corroding their character. That's painful for other gays to see, but that is exactly what is happening.

Michael

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William, concerning #15.

. . .

. . .

There was a night that has stood still for me. It was in the 70’s. Word had gotten out in the gay community in Chicago that Anita Bryant, a prominent anti-gay activist, was going to be coming to town in a few days to sing the National Anthem at a Shriners’ convention. We quickly organized a rather large demonstration to march round and round the Medinah Temple protesting her anti-gay ideas and campaigns. (In those days, the hot front was for gay activists to get anti-discrimination ordinances and laws into referendum initiatives around the country; back then the voters rejected them pretty uniformly by votes of 2-to-1.) We then marched over to what used to be called Pioneer Court, a plaza on the south side of the Tribune building. A modest platform had been built for speakers. I never forgot one speaker. She was an attorney, a generation older than Jerry and I. (Jerry was in law school.) She spoke of there being a long, hard tradition of finding ways in the legal system of defending individual rights against the votes of majorities.

I am pleased to have lived so long as to have witnessed some of her truth in our own struggle for personal liberty and equal protection under the law. Jerry went on to finish his law degree and become a civil rights attorney for eleven years. In a few weeks, I will return for the twentieth year to the place at the lake where I spread his ashes. Near the close of my eulogy for him at his memorial service, those twenty years ago, I spoke a bit about the AIDS calamity that had hit our community and included echo of words whose original would be known in that audience: “So many have died. More will follow. As a people, though, we are going to survive. And we will be free.” In the long slow line that spontaneously formed at the end of the service, one who came to shake my hand was that woman attorney who had spoken on that platform.

Concerning the man whose resignation was the subject of this thread, I'd add that one's public activities outside job hours has always been assessed by employers in terms of their estimates of what can harm the company. It is mostly an entrepreneurial decision, though other values carry some weight sometimes. What you say on these posting forums, too, is looked at by your potential employers and other commercial associates. Your public atheism may silently bar you from work in some firms, though some here probably like that diversity within our society all the same.

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If I could be Strategy Advisor to Gay Pride I'd suggest for the short term to press for political rights as a group -as they are doing - but then once secured, disband. All official organisations and lobbies should then be broken up. There is a contradiction lurking: gays, whom I've experienced as often the most individualist of people, are looking to collectivize. Very broadly, they are in danger of becoming what they have always opposed - the collectivized 'opinion' of them, by the collective - as a kind of "Can't beat 'em, join 'em, and then beat 'em" narrative.

In my dislike and at times dread of most things groupist, Ive never paid much attention to organisations like Gay Pride - until a few years ago in conversation, a friend asked if there were anything I would be prepared to die for. He is a gentle, introverted man. After I replied, I asked him the same, and he quietly said "For gay rights". This is so wrong, on so many levels.

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Tony,

There have always been individuals with different political ideologies in the gay liberation movement. Different individuals could mean different things by that same reply “for gay rights.” Some, of the Democratic Party in the USA, would view the world in terms of group rights and interests. There have always been some Left activists in the political side of the liberation movement who used it to promote as well their wider political ideology, just as Objectivists and Fundamentalist Christians use the Tea Party today to promote as well their wider world views.

Others would view gay rights simply as individual rights and with a view to equal protection under the law. They have fought for rights whose denial impacted them or their loved ones directly, these being rights which by personal circumstances they were in position to give affirmative public witness.

I understand your revulsion by your friend’s reply. I have known people whose only political interest was gay rights. Way gross.

There is not some transition of gay people newly “looking to collectivize.” We have the same old internal diversity we’ve always had. Be careful not to fall into thinking of media groupings of people as if those groups were persons with unified will and thinking. I recall Rand doing that sort of thing looking at newspaper and television reports of student revolts, Woodstock, . . . in the USA way back when. You end up combining various incidents and statements into a person, then spinning nature of that collective person’s psychology, and it gets really ridiculous (and ugly).

By the way, Gay Pride (as headlined in annual Gay Pride Parades) has always been about a lot more of life than political life. We changed more than laws.

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Stephen, hi:

You mean my sweeping assertions? Ha! yes, a tool to be handled carefully, although I feel I'm learning to use it advisedly. To a point I do look at the media as source, but mainly I observe and listen to individuals. It is by far the second that I base my opinions on the most - which means from people here, in SA. It's something of a backwater we have, with gays having a large influence in many spheres (my social and working life, included).

So we are behind the USA curve in many ways. But Constitutionally, SA is protective of gay rights - on paper. In reality, there is growing fear and misgivings among gays I know. After an early sense of freedom, now I find in them a trend to unification or 'collectivisation' in the face of increasingly covert prejudice and overt threats - as well as solidity in international quarters such as with gays in Russia and that hellhole Uganda. So much for the SA Constitution, grandly out of touch with the citizens and increasingly ignored by Law, but better than nothing.

Where there is diversity (individualism), as there will always be, as usual I'm only too appreciative to find it (and encourage it, if I get the chance).

I won't speak for the US: obviously I am opposed to entrenching rights according to group, in general. But moreso locally. My fear in this regard, gays in South Africa, is that to the resentful and ignorant amongst people, the backlash against a perceived 'privilege', could set our gays up as a (collective) target.

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