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So, was evisceration of Brendan Eich “a PR stunt … nothing but a PR stunt”?

So, was evisceration of Brendan Eich “a PR stunt … nothing but a PR stunt”?

If people were played here, when does the boycott of OKCupid start?

A narrative is emerging that the entire Brendan Eich evisceration campaign was a public relations stunt by OKCupid.   That narrative is emerging from the left, based on facts uncovered by the right.

Chuck Ross of The Daily Caller was the first to report that the founder of OKCupid, who also is the CEO of Match.com, donated many years ago to an anti-gay marriage congressman:

Sam Yagan, who is currently CEO of the Match Group, which controls OkCupid, donated $500 to Barack Obama in 2007 and 2008 back when he still opposed gay marriage.

While president of the tech company Metamachine, Yagan also gave $500 to Republican Utah Rep. Chris Cannon. In 2006 Cannon voted in favor of the Marriage Protection Amendment, which would have defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman in the Constitution.

Uncrunched picks up on that theme, The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan & OkCupid, listing numerous reasons for the thesis that “This was a PR stunt … nothing but a PR stunt,” including (linking to Ross at The Daily Caller):

3. And yet Sam Yagan made a $500 donation to U.S. Congressman Chris Cannon in 2004.

Mother Jones now has jumped on Ross’ revelation of the campaign donation, without linking to or mentioning Ross or The Daily Caller, OkCupid’s CEO Donated to an Anti-Gay Campaign Once, Too:

But there’s a hitch: OkCupid’s co-founder and CEO Sam Yagan once donated to an anti-gay candidate. (Yagan is also CEO of Match.com.) Specifically, Yagan donated $500 to Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah) in 2004, reports Uncrunched. During his time as congressman from 1997 to 2009, Cannon voted for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, against a ban on sexual-orientation based job discrimination, and for prohibition of gay adoptions….

Combine that with the fact that the company helped force out one tech CEO for something its own CEO also did, and its action last week starts to look more like a PR stunt than an impassioned act of protest

So when does the boycott of OKCupid start?  After all, the people who took down Eich did so based on the, ahem, purest of principled judgments.

Andrew Sullivan sure is looking good right now.

Related: Before Brendan Eich, they came for the Mormons

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Comments

rabid wombat | April 7, 2014 at 10:34 pm

My brother and I laughed that I agreed with Andrew….the sun will rise in the west……

Eich’s resignation really didn’t surprise me, after the revelation of his donations, several of the closest stakeholders to the Mozilla Foundation expressed deep concerns about his ability to lead an important component of the Foundation when he had views that contradicted important aspects of their organizational mission. While he was CEO of their for-profit sub, Mozilla is not a for-profit business, it’s a non-profit 501(c)(3) educational foundation with an ideological mission. There’s a price to accepting a leadership position in an organization whose mission is primarily ideological, part of that is that your political views may be scrutinized.

    Pablo in reply to Awing1. | April 7, 2014 at 11:01 pm

    My understanding was that Mozilla was dedicated to the Open Web. They should have mentioned that they’re primarily about gay marriage.

      Awing1 in reply to Pablo. | April 7, 2014 at 11:06 pm

      The Mozilla Foundation seeks, among other things, to thwart governmental oppression, hence their partnership with organizations like the TOR Project. The board apparently felt that this ballot measure constituted governmental oppression.

        Radegunda in reply to Awing1. | April 8, 2014 at 11:39 am

        “Government oppression” is when the government coerces people to support and participate actively in a version of “marriage” they regard as immemorial. The majority at Mozilla are probably in favor of that kind of coercion.

        Opponents of gay marriage are not trying to stop people from “loving” whom they choose (as the proponents cynically claim), forming households, pledging loyalty, etc. They are only saying that the whole of society should not be required to recognize those relationships as equivalent in every way to a normative marriage.

        Not long ago, many of today’s unbending advocates of gay marriage were saying that marriage itself is oppressive, or at least that it’s unimportant to their relationships.

        The gay-marriage campaign has very little (if anything) to do with giving gay people anything they lack. It has nothing at all to do with ending any kind of “government oppression.”

BannedbytheGuardian | April 7, 2014 at 10:55 pm

I am waiting for the showdown between the One Percenters & the Twp Percenters.

We are officially the 97% now . We need to build. stadium to watch them fight to the death.

Andrew Sullivan sure is looking good right now.

Whoa, easy there.

Sullivan falls into the obvious sophistry of assuming that anything he wants must be a “gay right” simply because he’s gay and he, well, wants it.

I have yet to see a coherent argument that subjecting the English language to the Orwellian perversion of “NewSpeak” is a gay right.

The word “marriage” is already defined in the English language. If gay activists want another meaning, it’s not extreme to demand that they find their own word for it, rather than mutating one of ours. English in a recognizable form isn’t a terribly ancient language; maybe seven centuries old. But the meaning of the word “marriage” has persisted since Middle English came into vogue. And the laws of marriage are equally venerable, specifying that one can marry some persons but not others – not close relatives, people who are already married to someone else, children, blah blah. These laws apply to everyone, gay or otherwise. Gays, however, want special treatment. And they may get it; but that certainly doesn’t make it a “right”.

Praise Andrew Sullivan all you want, but this alone should give you pause:

“Eich begged for mercy; he asked to be given a fair shot to prove he wasn’t David Duke; he directly interacted with those he had hurt. He expressed sorrow.”

Who did Eich hurt? Because he donated to a referendum that he believed in? Are those who believe in Biblical teachings, and traditional marriage, now to be considered outliers? And after all, Eich fell on bended knee to beg forgiveness from those he considered sinners. Tribute must be paid, after all, to the gods of political correctness.

Sullivan calls Eich’s beliefs “political.” Not a dumb man, Sullivan realizes that if he calls Eich’s beliefs what they actually are, religious, that changes the game completely. Our religious rights are on the top of the list when it comes to our freedom that is guaranteed by a Constitution written by men far better than any of us. Being able to define the definition of traditional marriage is not.

Sullivan also continues his ridicule of the “Christian” right. It’s what he does. Does he not hold, at least in part, some responsibility for what happened? He should. The persecution of Christians by gays (using the judicial system as a battle axe) has been going on for some time now but he never spoke of it before now. Sullivan does not sit with clean hands.

[…] A. Jacobson of the popular Legal Insurrection blog notes that Chuck Ross of the Daily Caller was the first to report on Yagan’s donations […]

Testing some other browsers. Opera is kinda OK. So far, Slimboat is working towards a thumbs down. I haven’t kept up and did not realize there are so many alternative browsers out there. Kind of fun actually.

After I get done with the new browser learning curve I plan on studying the relationship between binary number systems, Boolean algebra and sexual orientation and, in this context, whether Andrew Sullivan is a 1 or a 0 and if he was born that way or is that way as a product of his environment.

Well, either that or have another beer.

    Awing1 in reply to Anchovy. | April 8, 2014 at 1:03 am

    Maybe it’s just me, but it seems kinda weird to switch to a software developed in a country where denouncing homosexuality is punishable as hate speech.

    HappyWarrior in reply to Anchovy. | April 8, 2014 at 2:33 am

    Check out Pale Moon: http://www.palemoon.org/

    It is based on the same Gecko architecture as Firefox but developed independently (similar to the relationship between Chromium project and Google Chrome). This means that all the Firefox plug-ins and extensions work under Pale Moon and the User Interface is practically the same as Firefox, which reduces the learning curve.

    Time to move on anyway; the upcoming version of Firefox (version 29) is bringing a new UI and other changes that already have many users up in arms over the changes.

    Henry Hawkins in reply to Anchovy. | April 8, 2014 at 12:46 pm

    What do we know about this new browser I found, Internet Explorer?

      From what I hear, it’s pretty much like the old browser called Internet Explorer that almost everyone dumped for being buggy, unsecure, and generally annoying. Then the last remaining users switched out because of MicroSoft’s love fest with Obama, amnesty, gun-grabbing, and Common Core. / hee

[…] note: Legal Insurrection notes that credit for uncovering Yagan’s donation should go to The Daily Caller’s Chuck […]

Whatever the case may be, it does not diminish the moral hazard created by a selective exclusion of dysfunctional behaviors. They cannot legitimately normalize homosexual behavior and exclude other dysfunctional behaviors from similar favorable treatment. And with the normalization of murder/abortion, there is virtually no limit to “legal” behaviors. The Democrats have a history of creating moral hazards, and they are either unwilling or unable to reconcile them. Instead choosing to shift the burden to future generations. That is the principal issue which needs to be addressed. The collateral damage of their social warfare is a symptom of their incompetence and greed.

If it was only a PR stunt then somebody at OKCupid should get the ax. no?

The stunt went terribly wrong.

Trig Truther Andrew Sullivan is looking good right now??

For what?? Catching up to where everyone that is NOT a gay Nazi has been for a decade already??

Is it news to ANYONE that gay activists are the least tolerant people in the world??

DINORightMarie | April 8, 2014 at 7:25 am

OKCupid and Mozilla/Firefox people who objected and pushed out Eich should ALL resign – both for their hypocrisy about their singling out Eich but not the CEO of OKCupid/Match.com, AND because both products are heavily dependent on JavaScript, which Eich created.

If they REALLY believed in their ideology, they would quit the Internet altogether, for the same reason: JavaScript is inextricably linked to all browsers, sites, and online technology – it is literally in every part of the web.

Of course, they won’t. They just enjoy the spectacle of picking the target, freezing it, personalizing it, and polarizing it – then watching the victim in the ring beg and plead for mercy before the bloody kill.

Shameful. Revolting.

I must admit that it felt good to get rid of Mozilla Firefox. In addition to Chrome, I installed Avanti. I hope that Mozilla hears the message from flyover country.

This is the game now, gay activists? Total war? No principle but power? As soon as you get some momentum, it’s scorched-earth and “hear the Lamentations of the women?”

Be careful what you ask for…

    Fabi in reply to Bones. | April 9, 2014 at 1:28 am

    You may have no idea how accurate your assessment is. Go out to a few blogs covering this in detail (American Conservative) and read the comments. The pro-SSM crowd has already declared ‘victory’ and is warning of ‘consequences’ for those who opposed these so-called civil rights. It is truly unhinged.

Michael Haz | April 8, 2014 at 8:48 am

Mozilla’s fascists are ensuring diversity by making sure that diversity is stomped out of Mozilla’s corporate culture. Or something. If they are sure in their beliefs, they will stomp Sam Yagan out of match dot com and okcupid. And also push out anyone who donated money to Bill Clinton’s campaigns. And Barack Obama’s. And anyone who is Baptist, Catholic or Mormon. Or Af-Am.

Because diversity means the people of all races, colors, genders, creeds, sizes, identities, weight classes, hair lengths, inseam lengths, bust sizes, dental alignment, educational background, bench press ability, shoe size, shaved or smooth, able or non-able, etc., all sharing exactly the same beliefs and political opinions. Exactly the same. Zero tolerance. No variance. Nada, zip, bupkus.

Of course, if Sam Yagan is given a pass, then it was all a stunt. Screwing Brendan Eich out of his job and the employment market was just a stunt. Demonizing a good and creative man, whose work enabled everyone at Mozilla to actually have a job, just a stunt.

Because the borg demands stunts for appeasement.

Michael Haz | April 8, 2014 at 8:50 am

I’m using Epic as my Firefox replacement. It works very well, was easy to install, and bookmarks ported over in about ten seconds. Plus, it blocks tracking and cookies and enables private searches. Nice UI, too.

MaggotAtBroadAndWall | April 8, 2014 at 10:46 am

I’m disappointed you’ve adopted the language of the left when you wrote in the second paragraph, “Chuck Ross of The Daily Caller was the first to report that the founder of OKCupid, who also is the CEO of Match.com, donated many years ago to an anti-gay marriage congressman:”

Every ballot proposal and every bill that a legislature has voted on has been written to statutorily define marriage the way it has always been defined – as a union between unrelated, opposite-gender, heterosexual adults. The proposals never mention gays, homosexuals, gay marriage, etc. So it’s wrong to characterize the people who support the proposals as “anti-gay”.

Language matters. Once the proposals are defined as “anti-gay”, it is easy to say the supporters are bigots. And in a culture that worships at the altar of egalitarianism, a bigot can NEVER win an argument. That’s why the “anti-gay” language is so powerful.

However, the allegedly “anti-gay” proposals could just as accurately be characterized as anti-incest marriage, anti-polygamous marriage, and anti-incestuous polygamous marriage as they are “anti-gay”. But at least so far, normalizing incest and polygamy has been far less successful than normalizing homosexual perversion the past 40 years. Because the campaign to normalize homosexual perversion is further along than the campaign to normalize incest and polygamy, referring to the Congressman who supports traditional heterosexual marriage as “anti-gay” can sway opinions while referring to him as “anti-incestuous marriage” will not. At least not yet. Give them time.

We’ve seen how using the idiotic euphemisms “reproductive rights” and “women’s health” has helped normalize abortion by dehumanizing the aborted life of the developing unborn child. Referring to supporters of laws and proposals intended to define marriage as a union between heterosexual adults as “anti-gay” helps them win the argument.

    The pro-gay-marriage lobby tries to begin with the premise that the “right to marry” a person of the same sex is being taken way, or “banned,” when obviously such a “right” never existed in law or practice or in the universal understanding of marriage. (Efforts to show that homosexual marriage has existed in other cultures historically have had feeble results.)

    They are demanding a radical shift in the very definition of basic social institutions — while claiming that anyone who opposes those changes is on the “extremist” side.

    It’s the same tactic they use in pressing, e.g., for contraceptives to be paid for, essentially, out of a society-wide general fund. They claim that anyone opposing such a silly idea is taking something away from women and oppressing them.

I still say it’s all about extortion.