Selective intolerance

[muckefuck]

So for days I've been mulling a rant in response to this open letter chastising those who called for the resignation of Brendan Eich and warning of the dire consequences of this kind of "intolerance". (I don't know about you, but I'm getting pretty sick of being called "intolerant" for not particularly caring that an anti-gay millionaire lost his job for badly handling his first PR crisis as CEO.) Now, thanks to Donald Sterling, I don't have to.

I do wonder if I'm guilty of a false equivalence here, but to the degree the cases aren't comparable, I think they actually favour Sterling. After all, his remarks were private and involved only private affairs (i.e. who his girlfriend should associate with). Eich's donation was public and had the political aim of depriving others of their civil rights (unconstitutionally, as it turns out). David Badash spells it all out pretty clearly I think. Perhaps I'm missing something, though, so I'm hoping one of the signatories comes forward to take and defend a stand on Sterling so I can pick through their justification.

Comments

[lhn.livejournal.com]

To answer your last question first, it's more disappointing when one side fails of (what's perceived as) its own ideals. Toleration of diverse opinions was practically a catechism of liberal American politics, at least back before it called itself progressive. (That's certainly what I thought I was supposed to be learning when they taught me about the blacklist and loyalty oaths and endless YA stories about people being ostracized for being different, and how that was a bad thing.) If it only matters when it's your side getting it in the neck, it's not a principle, it's a tactic.

(Obviously it is for some people-- the history of sympathetic underdogs pleading for tolerance demanding orthodoxy when in power is long and unedifying. Obviously you think that's the case here among some or all of the signatories. All I can say for my own part is that I think I'm sincere. And I've certainly voted with my feet to always live and work where I'm out of step politically, which I probably wouldn't do if I hoped eventually to be able to enforce like-mindedness.)

I have the same reaction when Republican administrations crush federalism in favor of a pet cause, or blow off the deficit in favor of adding a big new entitlement. "I expect that from the other guys, but you?" In addition to feeling like a betrayal, it engenders hopelessness: where is there to look for relief if the side who owns that cause doesn't care about it?

So for the general case. For the specific, it's because it's the case I saw. Probably because it showed up first in tech feeds rather than politics. If you have other examples, I can tell you if I've ever heard of them.

It was also vanishingly rare in matching my principles, which neither the daily outrages I filter from the left side of my social networking nor the (much rarer, just because of who I happen to know and be connected to) culture war memes for the right tend to do. Someone who believes in diversity of opinion that should be tolerated beyond what the law requires by a private mesh of principle and custom that isn't, can't, and shouldn't be legislated (let alone brought to heel by the judiciary), and that people should be able to marry the folks they actually love? If I've been neglecting whole bunch of other petitions or posts along those lines, please let me know.

(That's meant seriously and without irony. I'd love to have more than two political blogs that I can read without wanting to toss them across the room. Or to be able to get through an election year without suppressing half the posts in my Facebook feed from both parties to keep from getting tempted to respond.)

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

That's kind of my whole point: there haven't been a lot of other petitions along these lines, at least not that I've seen. SOP procedure is that someone gets dumped, people squawk about it for a little bit, then everyone moves on with their lives as if nothing happened.

If you want a recent example of diversity opinion plus same-sex marriage, there's the case of Mark Zmuda and others like them. (Admittedly, this has the added complication of religious freedom. But that's pretty much inevitable where same-sex marriage is involved, now that all the non-religious objections have been exhausted and exploded.)

[lhn.livejournal.com]

The religion issue is more germane given that it's an explicitly Catholic institution. It at least seems that would be more like Eich being revealed to have lobbied against open source licenses and net neutrality: in a direct conflict with defining policies of the organization.

(Or is it? I don't have a good feel for how important it is doctrinally as opposed to socially. Presumably it would be reasonable to dismiss him for, say, publicly denying the divinity of Christ, or saying he thought the Trinity sounded kind of unlikely. I don't know where the doctrine re sex and marriage falls on that scale.)

On the other hand, if the school has a policy of not discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation as he says it does, that makes a big difference.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Zmuda's sexual orientation was known to his employers and was not, in itself, an issue. What prompted the firing was his marital status. To me, the most interesting twist is that he maintains he was told he could keep his job if he agreed to divorce his spouse. You want to talk about an action in "direct conflict with defining policies of the organization", well there's one that was worth fighting a war over.

[lhn.livejournal.com]

I admit, that seems incredibly stupid. Once he's married-- for that matter, once he's out-- the message that's going to be sent by having him as their principal has been sent. Either that's incompatible with their Catholic values or it isn't. "Our principal is an openly gay man who married a man-- but now it's okay, because he divorced him at our request while still-- presumably-- continuing the relationship..." If there's some coherent guiding principle they're operating under for saying that's okay, while remaining married isn't, I'm not smart enough to untangle it.

This seems like a "compromise" proposed someone who doesn't even really know what they're trying to achieve.