Many people misunderstand the meaning of the word "conservative", which is proof of how much the overton window has moved. If you want to progress on social issues, you are not a conservative, but a progressive. Those two things are completely incompatible. If you support gay marriage, you cannot be a conservative. You want to "progress" on social issues, which makes you a progressive. He did not support gay marriage, which makes him a conservative and nothing else.
There also is a big difference between not wanting gays to marry and being homophobic. I don't want people to be able to marry tables, and that does not make me a tablephobic. I'm not disgusted or afraid of tables, but I don't think they should be able to be part of the sacrament of marriage.
>he hasn't publicly gone back on his stance AFAIK
If, as a tech worker, you told me to publicly declarate my stance on a political issue, I would rightly tell you to sod off.
>If you want to progress on social issues, you are not a conservative.
What a ridiculous statement. What point of history are you wishing to conserve? Do black people have rights? Do women have rights? Is public education OK? By your logic, the following argument is valid: “I don’t think blacks nor tables should the right to vote. Including the table proves it’s not a race issue for me. There’s a big difference between not wanting blacks to vote and being racist.”
Judging by your past comments, it looks as if politics are an emotional topic with you. It’s best to up/down-vote and move on than clutter the boards with this dribble.
Inflexible people are less likely to compromise. The article and thread is all about how Firefox continues to be compromised.
One day people might start to see being inflexible and principled and not giving in might be a better characteristic than being easily compromised and selling out at every turn. Even when some principles are problematic. It's a cost benefit analysis ultimately and there are objectivly bad principles would could make this swing the other way of course.
I'm thinking of RMS as the model for this mainly too. Many here said he should go, but the FSF actually got the most members when they did, because some saw RMSs inflexibility as a strength.
