I think the concern is the functioning of the democratic process, not the belief that one’s political views should be private. That applies to voting and group membership but when it comes to throwing your support to political candidates and groups and ballot measures, I’m not convinced it works that way. We have a right to express our opinions, but we do also have a right to know what our legislators are doing and why, and that also goes for potential changes to our laws.
In point of fact, all Federal and provincial political donations in Canada are publicly available and searchable.
I question the utility of the information, it doesn’t seem like it’s ever put to good use in a meaningful way. Have politicians ever been publicly taken to task over who their donors are? I mean, I’ve seen miniscule noises about it before, but nothing serious.
But I also think that brings up a good potential point of divergence. To me there is a difference perhaps between contributions to individual politicians and contributions to a ballot initiative or a cause. If I donate money to Mitt Romney, that doesn’t really expose any of my political views. Some people donate equal to both candidates, for various reasons. A candidate represents a range of issues, and most people disagree with their chosen candidate on some issues and agree with them on others.
It seems there’s much less of a compelling interest in disclosure in regard to a ballot initiative, because that actually has no ‘good governance’ implications at all. There is no legislator to “catch” (if such catching can even happen.) Instead a list is just a way of mandating that people who want to support the cause be public if they want to donate money to it, that seems a much less valid public concern than donations for legislators.
Although I still have concerns that these donation lists for politicians just serve as a “political enemies.” People being afraid to donate to a challenger for say, State AG, because they feared if the incumbent kept his office there would be payback. With Presidential elections or probably even House or Senate seats I’m not sure that’s as much of a concern, but State officials like an AG actually have a lot of direct authority to make life miserable for people who piss them off and much of it can be done under the veneer of appropriate government action.
I think the public does have an interest in knowing if, say, an oil company is donating lots of money to a ballot proposition that might allow it to drill for oil in national parks or if social media companies are proposing changes that carry some privacy concerns. “Cui bono” is usually a valid question. I admit the implications for knowing which individuals are donating is less compelling, but then, individuals sometimes donate instead of the companies for obvious reasons. I’m not all that fearful of retribution since the Scott Walker supporters seem to be the only example of that happening- and if a prosecutor did what you’re describing it’d be very illegal and probably wouldn’t pass without comment.
:dubious: there’s a lot of stories about political repercussions from Prop 8, too.
Clarence Thomas isn’t a popular figure here, but I don’t believe he’s just making things up, and in his dissent in part of the Citizens United ruling (he was the lone justice that actually wanted to make political donations anonymous, so he dissented on part of the ruling) he actually laid out a host of examples of intimidation on both sides of the Prop 8 campaign. Thomas also noted that a candidate challenging an incumbent state attorney general (in West Virginia), reported that some members of the State’s business community feared donating to his campaign because they did not want to cross the incumbent. Also, I was not talking about local prosecutors (who sometimes have the title of Attorney General), but the statewide Attorney General office that is similar to the AG office at the Department of Justice. In many States (WV for example) this isn’t a prosecutorial position at all.
Let me put it this way: it sounds like there are some isolated examples, but not nearly enough evidence for you to keep using terms like “retribution lists.”
Let’s change the facts. Let’s say that the CEO of Widgets, Inc. was found to be a Southern Baptist who tithed every week. And since we know that the Southern Baptists oppose SSM, a non-negligible amount of that tithe will support anti-SSM causes. Is firing the CEO okay for that? What if he is not the CEO but an assembly line worker?
What’s the purpose, jtgain?
Again, there is no evidence he was fired. Can we stop using that as the example?
To answer your question though; No because the Southern Baptists don’t exist solely to block same sex marriage like Prop 8 did. Not to mention that would run afoul of discrimination laws based on religion. I think giving money to a church is throwing it away, but not the point here.
Well, if he just resigned to pursue other interests, then there is no debate, so can we just assume we was fired?
So, if I understand your standard, a firing can only be for SOLELY discriminatory reasons and not for discriminatory plus others? What if my religion was to ban gay marriage and give a nickel to one starving kid in Africa? Am I protected?
If not, where between my religion and the Southern Baptists is the sweet spot?
How about tossing away the future of 10K children because a charity was willing to hire married gay people
http://matthewpaulturner.com/2014/04/03/ten-thousand-kids-in-2-days/
Note that the former CEO most likely quit due to pressure from the DEVELOPERS, and not from the general public.
This is actually pretty simple, jtgain. That’s why I was asking why you were bothering with your hypothetical: it’s so different from the actual circumstances that it doesn’t shed any light on them. Belonging to a religion is different from making a donation that related to a single political issue, and then there’s the minor matter of the Constitution and discrimination laws.
Over and over, I’m seeing the phrase “but the CEO is the public face of the company”, which is not only inaccurate in the general sense (quick, who’re the ceo’s of your 5 favorite brands?), but ignores some facts specific to this case:
[ul]
[li] Mozilla’s corporate values (as stated, and practiced) are in direct contradiction to Eich’s personally stated beliefs. He’s repeatedly stated he has no intention to change Mozillla’s practice or policy in that regard. In other words, he planned to leave his personal beliefs “at the door” so to speak. [/li][li] Eich’s beliefs were expressed 8 years ago, with no sign that e continues to support those actions. True, he hasn’t repudiated his personal beliefs, only stated he plans to keep them away from Mozilla.[/li][li]Eich didn’t have time to take substantive action either way on the issue, before he was forced to resign. [/li][/ul]
If you don’t want to support mozilla because you don’t their products, or way mozilla they do business, that’s a function of democracy. If you don’t want to support them because you don’t like who one of their employees (even the ceo) supports, that’s more like a lynch mob than any sort of democratic process.
That’s true, if you have absolutely no idea what a lynch mob is.
I would think that this probably happens more than most people would think. Making a contribution to someone who is going up against an incumbent may not be considered wise by someone who has business interests in a district. That may have somewhat of a chilling effect upon backing non-incumbents in primaries… of course this is one reason why incumbents may wish to keep the lists “open”.
I basically don’t really care one way or the other about gay marriage, but this fundamentalism has made me resent the advocates and doubt the whole concept. If gay marriage means giving up otherwise cherished concepts such as free speech or political participation then to hell with gay marriage. If that was your intention then you have been successful.
So? [Kudos on accusing people of being “fundamentalists” about their own rights.]
Not exactly. Sullivan said that the liberal elite should be saying something against Baldwin’s statements and pointing out that they aren’t acceptable. He did indicate that liberals had a double standard in giving him a pass for his statements when a Republican would be skewered, but he never called for Baldwin’s ouster.
Of course, there is a small difference of using homophobic words and donating to a campaign - I think people realize that that not all people against same-sex marriage are homophobes (and in this case, Eich seemed to be dedicated to continuing Mozilla’s pro-LGBT policies).
No, I cannot assume he was fired since there is evidence of such.
It’s not my standard, it’s what I understand from discrimination laws. I may be interpreting them wrongly, I freely admit I’m not an expert in that area.
Free speech applies to both sides of any coin. He’s free to give money to groups that want to hurt my family and I’m free to say he should resign his job.