Discrimination of what kind? They are not publishing an app in an app store. Are they discriminating against Mozilla? Are they blocking Mozilla browsers from their site? Are people being persecuted, imprisoned, or killed for using Firefox? Are they working to put Eich in an internment camp based on his beliefs?
The word "bigotry" is a very big stick to swing against two people who could be killed in many parts of the world based on who they are. Bigotry implies a more systemic persecution than the economic decision they've made here.
By way of comparison, I'm not "discriminating" against Sony based on my boycott of their products for pushing out rootkits to their customers.
They are actively working to disenfranchise Brendan Eich of his employment. They are doing this on the basis of his political stance. This is bigotry. They are bigots. What's worse, they're hypocritical bigots, because they're trying to pass this off as some sort of anti-bigotry stance.
All social justice is like this. It breaks down under the merest of scrutinty.
I believe Eich has and will continue to have his franchise. Voting, you see, being one of the civil rights guaranteed to us. Like marriage, it turns out.
Being a fancy CEO, though? That's not a civil right. Especially not if attempting to deprive gay people of their civil rights makes it hard to perform an important function of that fancy CEO job: the recruitment and retention of staff.
That's a very reductionist point of view that doesn't seem useful as an intellectual tool.
Bigotry is not just a description of actions people take but the context in which they take them. Eich, in the context of this specific economic transaction, doesn't belong to a marginalized group. These men who are withdrawing their app do. Eich has taken direct action against them and they are responding. In this case, I believe they could be considered to be defending themselves by trying to deprive people who want to do them harm economic opportunity. I'm pretty much okay with that.
So, yeah, I guess you could say they are bigots. But that train of thought doesn't seem to me to place this situation in any useful context other than "all social justice causes are bad". Am I missing something?
> They are doing this on the basis of his political stance.
They are doing this because he directly funded initiatives that withhold equal rights from them and treat them as less than human. You can hold views, even as CEOs, I don't agree with. Hell, you could donate to the anti-funds of almost anything I believe, as long as it is an equal battlefield. But civil rights aren't about ideology, they are literally whether or not you recognize other humans as being humans and deserving the same rights as you.
The word "bigotry" is a very big stick to swing against two people who could be killed in many parts of the world based on who they are. Bigotry implies a more systemic persecution than the economic decision they've made here.
By way of comparison, I'm not "discriminating" against Sony based on my boycott of their products for pushing out rootkits to their customers.