Yes, he doesn't like cryptocurrency projects. I don't see much vague about it.
The other clauses about bigotry are pretty much aligned with GitHub's ToS, which has "GitHub does not tolerate speech that attacks or promotes hate toward an individual or group of people on the basis of who they are, including age, body size, ability, ethnicity, gender identity and expression, level of experience, nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, sexual identity, or sexual orientation", and "We have the right to refuse or remove any User-Generated Content that, in our sole discretion, violates any laws or GitHub terms or policies."
While people who don't like these policies call it "deplatforming", in the US the freedom of association is a protected First Amendment right, with only limited exceptions for certain protected classes like race, ethnicity, and national origin where there is a strong tension between the First Amendment protections and other constitutional protections.
In private communication, he told me that he would ban me for being Christian.
Yeah, his policies are "aligned" with GitHub's (and I avoid that too), but Drew is on the record saying he will ban people for their opinions, not their actions.
Good morning, Gavin. You were shown the door because you are an outspoken transphobe and we were not interested in helping you voice those opinions. You seem to be unable to disentangle this with your Christian identity, but most Christians seem to manage alright.
A whole lot of people are Christian, so if this were true we should see evidence of this happening by now on Sourcehut.
If the ban was for membership in an "I am not a Christian" club, then that ban would be entirely reasonable.
How does he learn about any of your opinions without any sort of action? You must express the opinion first, and the act of expressing an opinion is an action.
I can think of many times when people were fired or "de-platformed" due to their opinion, like Jimmy Snyder (a.k.a. "Jimmy the Greek") - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Snyder_(sports_commentat... , so it isn't like banning someone due to expressing a specific opinion is inherently unconscionable.
There are a whole lot of different kinds of Christians. I am a traditional Christian (not a fundamentalist) and tend to be more outspoken.
But doesn't that prove my point? You say that if I said an opinion, I made an action, so you are saying that Source Hut is right to ban me for opinions.
But you and I fundamentally disagree: banning someone for their opinion is not inherently conscionable.
You may find yourself with a "wrong" opinion someday and be banned from places you find important. Will you find it conscionable then?
By the way, expressing an opinion was not the kind of action I meant. I meant doing something that might harm others. My opinions do not call for harm (in fact, they call out what I see as harm), so my opinions cannot cause harm except by some broad definition that "speech is violence."
So why is it okay to ban me? Free Software needs Free Speech. SourceHut, as Drew has admitted, is not the place for that.
"Traditional Christian" means so many things that it's practically meaningless. The fact you don't want to bring up the specific issue or denomination says much.
In the US context, I know some "traditional Christians" agree with Paul's advice "I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man", and want to live their lives that way.
Most people in the US work somewhere covered by EEOC or the equivalent state civil rights laws. If a "traditional Christian" expresses that opinion at work - not do it, just express it - there's a chance that sexist Christian will have a special talk with HR. Continued expression of that opinion can subject the company to a claim of a hostile workplace environment due to discrimination on the basis of sex.
Yes, expressing certain sexist "traditional Christian" opinions at work can result in reprisals. Yes, companies must make some allowances for religion in the workplace, but nothing in the law says that "traditional" Christian opinions override the religious beliefs of other Christians who do not heed Paul's advice and indeed are members of a church with a woman priest.
(I trust you understand how loaded the term "traditional Christian" can be, yes? As a non-evangelical you are not in the Southern Baptist Convention, but you should surely know how historically they held the racist view concerning the "mark of Cain"; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_and_mark_of_Cain#America... for details. Some in the SBC still believe this centuries old tradition, and may regard themselves as "traditional Christian". Without knowing what you mean by "traditional Christian", you leave others to wonder just what traditions you believe in that you don't want to make public.)
So yes, if you are in the US then you should expect that expressing certain religious opinions in the wrong place can get you in trouble.
> so you are saying that Source Hut is right to ban me for opinions.
If you have violated the terms of service in the actions you used to express your opinions, then they are well within their rights.
You act like this is surprising, but terms of service are extremely commonplace, and a company doesn't need a written document to exercise a right they already had.
We generally agree that companies have the right to not do business with someone, and clubs have the right to reject someone as a member. A store can ban a customer for being too rude to employees, and does not need to provide those written rules to the customer first.
There are certain protected classes where a company is not allowed to discriminate, but that protection cannot be used as a carte blanche to express any and all religious beliefs at work.
For example, an evangelical Christian can get in trouble for proselytizing at work, even during break time, and even if that Christian argues their faith requires it of them. Quoting the EEOC, "if an employee complained about proselytizing by a co-worker, the employer can require that the proselytizing to the complaining employee cease. ... An employer can restrict religious expression ... where the item or message in question is harassing or otherwise disruptive." https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/questions-and-answers-rel...
> Free Software needs Free Speech
"Free Speech" is the bullshit argument always used to justify saying mean things and expecting no consequences. Right there in same First Amendment with Free Speech is the right of Free Assembly, that is, freedom of association - of being with who you want to be with, and of excluding those you do not want to be with.
Free Software needs liberty. Free speech is a part of liberty.
As John Stuart Mills wrote in "On Liberty": "We have a right, also, in various ways, to act upon our unfavourable opinion of any one, not to the oppression of his individuality, but in the exercise of ours. We are not bound, for example, to seek his society; we have a right to avoid it (though not to parade the avoidance), for we have a right to choose the society most acceptable to us. We have a right, and it may be our duty, to caution others against him, if we think his example or conversation likely to have a pernicious effect on those with whom he associates. We may give others a preference over him in optional good offices, except those which tend to his improvement. In these various modes a person may suffer very severe penalties at the hands of others, for faults which directly concern only himself; but he suffers these penalties only in so far as they are the natural, and, as it were, the spontaneous consequences of the faults themselves, not because they are purposely inflicted on him for the sake of punishment."
There is nothing there which says those unfavourable opinions must be due to harm.
There is nothing in the laws about workplace harassment which limit harassment to threats of harm.
By not acting upon those unfavourable opinions, we suppress our own liberty.
The fact that you focus specifically on harm means you don't understand any of the relevant issues ... or you do and are trying to redirect the topic to a strawman.
> So why is it okay to ban me?
Because of the freedom of association, a protected right in the US Constitution, in Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and supported in other legal systems.
> Will you find it conscionable then?
Then it's probably a good indication that that isn't a place for me. If it happened, and I was as outspoken as you say you are, I would want to present the details so others could get insight beyond "free speech" and "traditional Christian", and so they could perhaps inform me of things I don't understand.
