Ethereum Name Service Stewards Oust Brantly Millegan Over Controversial Tweet

Ethereum Name Service (ENS) stewards have slapped an indefinite suspension on Brantley Millegan over a 2016 tweet he posted, condemning homosexuality, transgenderism, and other practices that are against his religious beliefs. The decision of the governance team has so far attracted mixed reactions from members of the ENS community and observers, according to reports on February 7, 2022.

ENS Stewards Kick Out Brantley Millegan 

Ethereum Name Service stewards have voted to indefinitely suspend Brantley Millegan from leadership roles in the community, following his 2016 Twitter post condemning the acts of homosexuality, transgenderism, and more.

“Homosexual acts are evil. Transgenderism doesn’t exist. Abortion is murder. Contraception is a perversion. So is masturbation and porn.” Millegan’s May 2016 tweet read. 

And on February 6, Millegan, who has been described as a prominent representative of the ENS protocol, rendering ‘spotless’ services to the community over the years, made it clear that despite his stance on the highly controversial LGBT topic, he’s never excluded anyone from the ENS based on who they are or what they believed in.

In his words:

“Hey everyone, I’d post this on Twitter but Twitter suspended my account. I want to make it clear that I’ve never excluded anyone from ENS or my work (or even my personal life) because of who they are or what they believe. I just don’t believe in doing that. I believe in working with, and also being friends with, a wide range of people. That’s how I’ve lived my life and that’s how I’ve conducted myself in Web3 for the many years I’ve been a part of the community.”

“ Yes, I believe in Catholic doctrine (not a secret), and I’m not changing that, and I don’t think it’s practical or moral for the web3 industry to exclude the many traditional-minded Christians, Muslims, Jews, and others who agree with me. I’m obviously aware many people disagree with me and that’s fine. I believe intolerance with a wide net, I live that out, and I ask others to give me and others the same.”

Mixed Reactions

On February 6, 2022, a majority (a total of three out of four votes) of ENS community stewards and delegates voted in favor of the motion to remove brantley.eth as an ENS decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) community steward.

As expected, the decision of the ENS stewards has attracted mixed reactions from a section of the DAO.

“I do not agree with this. Brantly contributed to ENS success and deserves to be here. I respect the fact that he stands by his words and doesn’t pull the usual ‘it was four years ago, I’m different now, blablabla.’ Woke and cancel people are more toxic than Brantly ever could be, pure herd mentality at work.” declared ENS delegate victorstark.

In the same vein, delegate Ninjinka has argued that ousting Brantley from his leadership position for “holding beliefs shared by billions of people will signal that ENS is not for fundamentalist Christians, Jews, etc.”

Launched in May 2017, by Alex Van de Sande and Nick Johnson, Ethereum Name Service makes it possible for Ethereum wallet addresses to be displayed in a simplified text-based format just like website addresses. .However, unlike the latter, ENS domains can be traded as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). 

At press time, the price of ENS token is hovering around $20.58, according to CoinMarketCap.