That Chilling Effect Arrives

Back in October I wrote:

Now however, people who donate to political parties are "outed" by law on-line for everyone to see. You can see how much they gave to whom, and where they live. What if I want to belong to some fringe party? What if you are a Republican in West Hollywood? What if you are a Libertarian in Brookline MA? Is it any of your neighbor's business? What if you are an employer who would rather not hire a Democrat? Should you be able to check on line to see if your potential employee made some donations you don't approve of?

Now someone has used a California political donation database and Google maps to create a map of where supporters of Prop 8 live, on a site called eightmaps.com

The point here, of course, is to intimidate Prop 8's supporters.
Rod Dreher says

These people are so caught up in their own drama that they cannot imagine how this technique can be used to hurt gays. Why doesn't the closeted gay man in Gun Barrel City, Texas, fly a rainbow flag from his front porch. Shouldn't he be proud of who he is? I don't get the fear. What would he have to fear if some anti-gay group put a map to his home on the Internet, taken from a donation form to the Human Rights Campaign or some gay-rights cause?

He's right. I find this sort of shortsightedness typical of progressive causes. If you read the comments on Dreher's and other sites, you will find many people who favor eightmaps' action, because they support gay rights. The fact that such things could easily be used against progressive causes doesn't seem to occur to them.

Last night O'Rielly had a bit on this. His take? Google should be more responsible. He promised to call Google to get to the bottom of this. Good luck with that. What a pinhead.

For the record, my co-blogger opposed Prop 8 and I support gay marriage.