On Wed, 1 Aug 2018 21:26:35 -0700
Nathaniel Smith <n...@pobox.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 1, 2018 at 8:34 PM, Ryan May <rma...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > So I hear all the arguments about people feeling unsafe due to some truly
> > despicable, discriminatory behavior, and I want absolutely no parts of
> > protecting that. However, I also recognize that we in the U.S. are in a
> > particularly divisive atmosphere, and people of varied political persuasions
> > want absolutely nothing to do with those who share differing views. So, as a
> > concrete example, if someone were to show up at a NumPy developer summit
> > with a MAGA ("Make America Great Again") hat, or talks about their support
> > for the president in non-numpy channels, WITHOUT expressing anything
> > discriminatory or support for such views, if "political beliefs" is not in
> > the CoC, is this person welcome? I'm not worried about my own views, but I
> > have friends of widely varying views, and I truly wonder if they would be
> > welcome. With differing "political beliefs" listed as something welcomed, I
> > feel ok for them; if this language is removed, I'm much less certain.
>
> This is a difficult scenario. I do know lots of people who are
> uncomfortable with MAGA hats, and it's not because of they disagree
> about the details of some farm bill or whatever, it's because it's
> increasingly impossible to use that slogan without also expressing
> support for racism, sexism, transphobia, etc. -- i.e., all the other
> things that the CoC lists as unacceptable.
>
> So I feel like... to the extent that some political position *isn't*
> tied up with those things, I can't see why people would have a problem
> with it, or why the CoC would need to bother mentioning it. (There are
> all kinds of things we don't mention – "we welcome people with odd
> *and* even telephone numbers!") And to the extent that some political
> position *is* tied up with those things... it would be pretty
> contradictory to list it as a protected class alongside race, sex,
> etc.
>
> I'm not going to go track people down on facebook and try to guess how
> they voted or something, but if someone wore a MAGA hat to a numpy
> sprint then I'd be totally fine with asking them to take it off in
> consideration of the other participants.
What if someone is wearing a religious symbol?
If one is concerned about horrible beliefs or opinions, there are a
good deal of them in many religious ("holy") books (*), yet CoCs are
generally meant to prohibit discrimination based on religious
beliefs... So the argument that CoCs should not protect political
beliefs is starting to become flimsy (horrible beliefs are ok if they
are part of a religious system, not otherwise?).
And it's not just theoretical, because people are physically repressed,
in various parts of the world, in the name of religious beliefs.
Regards
Antoine.
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