> So, what, do we hire first grade teachers to be brain surgeons and wait to fire them until they kill a patient? Its preposterous to say that we can't look at past behavior and use it to judge someone's fitness for a job.

This is a blatant straw man. Of course people skills and abilities must be considered. At all points in this discussion I have only focused on employee's political behavior. The notion that I have stated that candidates' skills should not be taken into account is a total fabrication on your part.

> Inclusion isn't about finding the worst examples of humanity and including them - its about including actually diverse people (which his employees actually were), trying to live their own lives, on their own terms, and not dictating to others how to live theirs. Its not about taking a single person, the CEO, and letting them say and do whatever they want. It is totally irrelevant what portion of the US still disagrees with same-sex marriage, unless you are going to argue thats OK. Its not. Its disgusting. Either tell me you believe thats OK or stop arguing that because X% of people believe in discrimination that somehow makes it legitimate. I don't care if you live in LA or in a single stoplight town in the middle of nowhere - discrimination is bullshit and cloaking it in the idea of everyone being allowed to have their own opinions only enables discrimination.

You're writing this with the erroneous notion that the people in charge are going to agree with your views. What about the people who have bosses that are part of the 1/3 of the population that doesn't believe in gay marriage? Are they supposed to just suck it up and get told to quit if they donate to pro-LGBT causes? You make broad statement like, "discrimination is bullshit and cloaking it in the idea of everyone being allowed to have their own opinions only enables discrimination" but don't consider the fact that lots of people consider things like affirmative action to be unjust discrimination. Heck, even here in California it was banned by popular vote. Does it follow that companies should grep for donors that were against Proposition 209 and tell them to quit? You claim that letting people have their own opinion enables discrimination. Sure, to a degree that's true but letting companies police their employees' opinions is an even bigger enabler of discrimination.

> What is the board supposed to do? Fire everyone but him?

This is another fallacious argument. The board doesn't need to choose between retaining Eich and firing everyone but him. They can fire nobody. Believe it or not, plenty of adults cooperate and work with people that have views different from theirs.

> So, what, the employees get to speak out as long as nothing comes of it? If something comes of it, thats the problem? What is the actual point of speaking out then?

I'm not sure why you're fixating on the employees. I did not mention them until you brought them up. My point has, since the beginning, been about the choice Eich's firing (or if you want to get pedantic, the asking of his resignation) from his superiors. As I have written before, the employees are equally entitled to make their opinions known.

> There are no moral absolutes. Life isn't math. But, his opinions, his positions, are abhorrent to any decent human being. You can try to cloak your argument in to a hand-wavy invocation of the idea that morality is changing and the norms of society aren't fixed - but try to defend what he actually advocated for. Is that ok? Tell me its ok to discriminate against your LGTB employees. Put that on record. Tell me that actively working against LGTB rights is ok and is something we should tolerate. Tell me that people that support LGBT rights in a state where same-sex marriage is legal should suck it up and support someone that doesn't believe in their rights. I don't want to hear about some hand-waving side effects - tell me about the actual issue here.

If your point of view is that the majority of Californians in 2008 we're "abhorrent to any decent human being" then your views are likely fringe. If you can't bring yourself to see what a decade ago was the majority of people, and what is 1/3 today, with even the most basic degree of respect then I don't think your have any business attempting to portray yourself as advocating tolerance. Dismissing half to a third of your countrymen's politics (assuming you're American) as "abhorrent to any decent human being" is the opposite of tolerance.

> "Yes" or "No" - LGTB people have rights?

Yes, LGBT people have rights. Refraining from firing Eich would not have been an infringement of those rights, though. Simply working with a co-worker who believes that civil liberties and rights should be regulated differently than you do is not a violation of those rights and liberties. No more than employing a pro-bussing employee is violating our 14th Amendment rights. No more than employing an employee that disagrees with Citizens Unitied is violating our right to free speech.

You seem to be operating under the noting that mere tolerance of a point of view is tantamount to an endorsement of that view. This kind of thinking is highly corrosive, and it is impossible to build an inclusive group composed of people that harbor this perspective. If a group if such people come together, the only way they would reach harmony is when they achieve political homogeneity. The notion that tolerance of a view is an endorsement of that view is implicitly a demand to be intolerant towards views one disagrees with. It is sobering to meet someone on HN that follows this line of thought.