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]

At the time Prop 8 was passed, it should've been clear to anyone paying attention that that ship had sailed, that--as Gavin Newsom notoriously pointed out--same-sex marriage was coming to California and that all that all a legislative measure could do was, at most, delay it a few years

I don't think that was so clear as all that. Trends can reverse given time, as anyone who remembers the Cold War knows well enough. (For decades, countries only went from non-Communist to Communist. The process might be stopped early with outside intervention, but to a first approximation no country ever made the reverse transition. Until suddenly, with a handful of exceptions, they all did.) Marijuana legalization looked inevitable for a short while a generation before it started to happen (assuming it really sticks this time)-- places like Ann Arbor made it a $5 ticket, Conservative voices like William F. Buckley favored decriminalization. Then the 80s saw a reversal, and a doubling down on the drug war. The NRA spent decades steadily losing ground on gun rights before starting, very recently, to dramatically win.

And if a trend is bad, perceived inevitability is a poor reason to cooperate with it.

Turn it around: suppose a world in which same-sex marriage rights existed, but were where Civil Rights were in the post-Reconstruction era: enacted and theoretically guaranteed by the law, but in practice under steady assault with no help forthcoming from the federal courts. Something like Prop 8 goes on the ballot. If it loses now, it'll probably win in three years-- the trend in public opinion is very clear.

Do you wait for the inevitable? Or do you fight it, and hope that the tide changes before the next go-round?