Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich Steps Down

[Robert Marrs]

If you think this is a good thing I really hope one day something similar happens to you. Times change. 30 years from now who knows what will and won't be socially acceptable. You could be on the wrong side of that fence just because of how you were raised, where you were born etc. and not even think what you are doing is wrong. Hell it might not even BE wrong society just decided it was for you. Then all it will take is a couple social justice warriors or a few internet blogs and next thing you know your fired. Fired from your job for personal beliefs.

Regardless of where you stand on the gay marriage/gay rights issue respecting peoples right to hold personal beliefs is important. This man along with 60% of california voted on something. Maybe we should fire 60% of the people who work in california just to be sure we weed out all the bigots? So as much as I disagree with the man I fully support his right to hold whatever beliefs he has without having to fear for his job security or even his personal safety. Make whatever excuses you want in support of this but anyone with an objective, non-bias point of view should be able to see that this is wrong regardless of what you do or don't support.

 

[Verlander]

snip

Of course repeating yourself wont work. i adressed that in my previuos post.
It was a proposition of a law. what its contents were does not matter here.

Well, seeing as it was the law that really is at the centre of the discussion, I'd argue the contents of it are vital to some people.

you should have no right to destroy a person over his support of a law, even if you yourself dont like the content. EVER. no matter the content of the law.

You have every right to do that, actually. I didn't hurt him, I didn't verbally abuse him. I didn't do anything to be fair. He was free to his opinion, others were free to theirs, Mozilla reacted to the market. That's what freedom is.

Without this, you have nodemocracy, but instead a coutnry run by fear of few loud individuals with power.

There is no democracy in the US anyway, but your point doesn't make much sense even if there were. He was allowed to fund that proposition. It's not illegal on a state or federal level. People are allowed free choice in a free market, and the state isn't allowed to dictate where you purchase your goods, or the reasoning behind why you choose what you do.

If I went into a bakery, and there was a gay baker there, and I didn't want to purchase a cake from him, there isn't a goddamn law in the land that could force me to. Likewise, if there is a company who is headed by an anti-gay individual, there's not a law in the land that could force me to use his products. That's freedom, and that's democratic.

Whether somebody forced him to resign or not is a secret known only to board members and PR department, but it is quite clear that the actions of OKCupid users was the cause of his resignation. And while they did have a right to do so, i also have a right to call them out on it. because it was not a beneficial thing to society, quite the opposite.
Funny you should say that, because "Either love gays or you're fired." was exactly the slogan plenty of people fighting Stygian him took.

I think that the actions of the staff (including firm Directors resigning for his appointment) also had a significant sway. I don't see how what OkCupid did wasn't beneficial to society. They didn't block access to Firefox users, they merely made users aware of something, and gave them the opportunity to react to that. It was people that made the decision to change browser, which I daresay many didn't.

Anyone who changed browser didn't do so because they *love* OkCupid, they did so because they reacted to his donation. He made that donation. If he didn't want to be associated with this donation, he shouldn't have made it.

Once again, he was not bigoted. yet you seem to willingly infore facts.

You guys keep saying that, but saying so doesn't make it so. Would "He made a bigoted decision and donation" be more to your palate? The facts are that he funded an anti gay proposition. He funded a prop that segregated people in society.

"Freedom of speech also entails freely accepting the consequences of said speech."
and yet you fail to accept the consequences of the free speech users boycotting firefox is getting. that is - public outlash over hypocracy.

Eh? There is no hypocrisy here. He did something, we did something, no laws were broken. The gay community felt the consequences of his donation, and he felt the consequences of our opinion on that. All balanced.

Also a nice way of missing my point. the point was that 52% of california supported the law, yet you single out one single person and go after him, solely because hes famous so it will get into newspapers.

Nope, I would not give my custom to anyone that openly hateful. That is my freedom. I wouldn't call for their business to be knocked down, although I may share the information to those whom I believe would want to know. Then, equipped with that knowledge, they would be free to choose on whether to give that business their custom or not.

If, in the above process, the business had to close down, that's a sad day. It shows that their opinion wasn't as popular as it once appeared. For example, 52% of people may not have agreed with said law if they were properly informed about it.

 

[Elijin]

Is he actually still standing by his views? Or did he just lose a job for making a donation to a campaign 6 years ago?

I mean sure, if he's still actively campaigning as such, then that isnt a great figure to be the public head of your corporation. But if he's not? Well man thats balls.

Because there's a gaping chasm between those two events. One which calls peoples job security into question for ever making a bad decision in their past.

 

[A-D.]

What was that about OKCupid again? Please stop using Firefox because the CEO, one guy out of MANY PEOPLE who supported Prop-8 is the CEO there. Thats basicly DOXing, or is there a list somewhere where i can look up publicly who voted for Prop8 or gave donations towards the same cause? No, its one guy being singled out because he happens to be the CEO at a company that makes a popular browser. He exercised his rights to support what he feels he wants to support. Sure People can also not support him, but its not about him, its about Mozilla, he is the CEO, so what? He is one guy at the company, one guy out of how many? Yet its perfectly fine to DESTROY the reputation of an entire company, even ruin it financially because the one dude working there thinks that Gays can have civil unions and not church marriages?

Unless I am misunderstanding you, you actually can look up who made the donations. By California law if you donate $100 or more to a political campaign or potential law then your information is public and anyone can look up who made the contributions, where they live, and how much of a donation was made.

In which case, why not go after other people? Nope, only after the one dude who just happened to be made CEO recently. Thats the epitome of being vindictive. Which basicly proves the point, if people actually think that ruining someones personal life and reputation is not as bad as hanging a black guy, you need to get your priorities straight. Because from where im standing, at least the KKK had the decency to actually end your life, not ruin it and then let you live with that reputation for the rest of your life.

So ya know, pot meet kettle and all that. Prop-8 People are dumb, SJW's who think forcing a guy out of a job is fair are equally vile and evil.

 

[st0pnsw0p]

Is he actually still standing by his views? Or did he just lose a job for making a donation to a campaign 6 years ago?

I mean sure, if he's still actively campaigning as such, then that isnt a great figure to be the public head of your corporation. But if he's not? Well man thats balls.

Because there's a gaping chasm between those two events. One which calls peoples job security into question for ever making a bad decision in their past.

If he didn't believe it anymore, he could have just made a statement saying so and the backlash would have stopped immediately. The fact that he didn't do that indicates that he still holds that opinion.

 

[TheRealCJ]

Fair enough, I suppose defensive bites become the immediate reaction after a while.

I still feel boycott involves too many people, on both sides, in situation where the offender is no longer active offender, and the offense is 6 years ago. I suppose you can derive justification from fact that he is (debatable, but I am not invested enough to this matter to go through necessary research to matter to make a strong argument) unrepentant, but even then it still feels too much.

Apology accepted. I was kind of bracing for a second snarkblast, so thank you for giving a little sun for my shriveled hope for humanity.

Hmm, that's true. I suppose the problem is that the sides are so disproportionate. The Gay community provides one big target for people to generalise and direct their vitriol at, while the gays themselves only have small, individual targets to shoot back at.

I think a lot of the problem is, from what I've seen, those on the homophobic side generally don't care who they hurt in an effort to win for their side; They have all advantages. They are already the majority, and they aren't the ones fighting for any rights. They're fighting for the status quo. Whereas the gay community is not only trying to stem the tide of aggression against them, but also desperately trying to get all the people who haven't chosen a side to sympathise with them. So they can't just wage all-out war against, say, Christians in general. They can only really fight against targets that have obviously shown themselves to be trying to oppress them; The WBC, for instance. And Eich unwittingly set himself up as a target by publicly announcing that he supported anti-gay legislation.

The gay community is incredibly gunshy, and with good reason. If they given even an inch to the other side, they'll lose miles and miles.

 

[TheRealCJ]

Oh, I'm sorry. Did we infringe upon his right to free speech because we chose to exercise ours? It's not a one-way street, boyo.

He CAN say all the bigoted, nasty, racist or homophobic or mysoginistic things he wants. And we CAN choose to simply ignore him. But guess what, we can also say anything WE want, like, say, that we don't like that he was made CEO of a company. And guess what, we can also choose to, perhaps, stop using a product his company produces, making it less profitable and making the company re-think their choice to elect him.

We didn't hold a fucking gun to his head. We didn't enact a law saying that if he says that he has to be fired. We voted with our wallets, and it worked. For once it actually worked. But who am I kidding, you don't care. All you see is the big bad liberals using their rights to make something happen that YOU don't like. It doesn't matter that those rights are exactly the same as yours. Because you don't agree with what they are saying, you want them to just shut the fuck up. Isn't that right? Last time I looked, the liberals aren't passing laws saying that straight people can't get married, or that gay people have the legal right to discriminate against Christians.

You sir, are a bigot. Don't hide behind psudeo-free-speech to cry foul when people call you on it.

Manual quoting for the win. No you didnt, but you didnt leave it at free speech. You essentially held a gun to his head, either he resigns, or the company suffers, a company full of people who may or may not agree with the one person who just happens to be at the top currently, the same guy who has been at that company for 9 Years and made a silly donation 6 years ago.

What was that about OKCupid again? Please stop using Firefox because the CEO, one guy out of MANY PEOPLE who supported Prop-8 is the CEO there. Thats basicly DOXing, or is there a list somewhere where i can look up publicly who voted for Prop8 or gave donations towards the same cause? No, its one guy being singled out because he happens to be the CEO at a company that makes a popular browser. He exercised his rights to support what he feels he wants to support. Sure People can also not support him, but its not about him, its about Mozilla, he is the CEO, so what? He is one guy at the company, one guy out of how many? Yet its perfectly fine to DESTROY the reputation of an entire company, even ruin it financially because the one dude working there thinks that Gays can have civil unions and not church marriages?

You are hiding behind some pseudo-nonsense that is actually hard to grasp because..i dont wanna be rude, but that shit isnt even remotely logical. But yeah i want those people i named to shut up, i dont wanna hear about "Women need more rights without obligations"-Feminists, or "Kill all men"-Feminists. I dont want to hear about stupid vacuous tumblr keyboard warriors. I dont want to hear from people who turn EVERYTHING into a "Us versus Them" thing and if you so much as disagree with them on a single thing, they try to ruin your life forever. Look up what Scientology did with "Suppressive Persons", this applies to quite alot of Feminists, especially those on freethoughtblogs and atheism plus.

But sure, it makes me a bigot when i object to one party discriminating against another. It doesnt matter whether your cause is good or not, if you use the same bullshit tactics then you arent good, you arent better. You are just as vile, evil and reprehensible as the ones you claim to oppose.

Also, for future reference, false equivalency fallacy right there.

Do you know what the problem is? You're approaching this from the assumption that both sides are equal. Eich was the head of a massive company, has money to spare, and is in the majority privileged. The other side have to suffer through discrimination every day of their lives. But if they even try to fight back, they get beaten down hard.

Reminds me of school bullies, you know the ones that torment the kids who can't stand up for themselves? When the little kids finally DO, they cry foul and get them in trouble. Because they only fight when they know they have absolute power. Maybe Eich isn't homophobic, maybe all he cares about is "traditional" marriage (itself a fallacy, since "traditional" has been re-negotiated multiple times). If he doesn't get what he wants, what exactly does he lose? He gets to gnash his teeth and cry about how America is dead, or whatever. It doesn't affect him in any signifigant way. Not a jot.

While the gays, if THEY lose, get to be treated like social pariahs, told they are second-class citizens, essentially punished for being themselves. They have a lot more to gain in this fight, and a LOT more to lose.

And, I have to add AGAIN (because people don't seem to get it), a boycott is not holding a gun to a company's head. If they choose to ignore it, it's a wager whether they'll lose or win in the long run. There have been plenty of boycotts that go nowhere. Heck, Bill Donahue just told his Catholic League to boycott Guinness for choosing to support the 'gay agenda'. Does that mean he's discriminating against gays? Of course not.

 

[Lightknight]

Alright, good to see public shaming can encourage discriminatory hiring practices in the work place. I guess now Eich has to dissolve into the ether since groups like OKcupid would have him die penniless in a ditch for his personal beliefs.

Yay, fight to end discrimination by encouraging discrimination.

Yup.

This is how I can tell I'm getting old: I can actually remember a time when liberals thought that hounding someone from public life for having a controversial opinion was a bad thing [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_blacklist]. Can you imagine?

I support gay marriage. I think Prop 8 was stupid, and would have voted against it had I lived in California. I still find it kind of amazing that anyone who holds essentially the same opinion that Barack Obama expressed in 2008 [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/3375059/Barack-Obama-marriage-is-between-a-man-and-a-woman.html] is now considered an unconscionable bigot.

Well, it's also important to note that that law got voted into place. Right or wrong, this guy is a member of a majority of people who think that the term Marriage actually means something. By OKCupid's standards more than half of Americans should be out of work. This is why I keep advocating to stop calling the government issued license a marriage license. It blurs the line between government and religious/cultural practices in a system people generally insist on being separate. These people don't think that they're preventing gays' access to unions, they just think that they're protecting a term that means something to them. Most of the people I've spoken with don't care about the actual rights involved and just care about the term. That's why Civil unions have become a thing. An attempt to give all the rights of marriage without controversially stepping on the actual term marriage (even though a marriage license shouldn't be confused with a marriage ceremony).

To all the people cheering this news: just pray none of your opinions ever become unfashionable.

Exactly. Regardless of our view of gay marriage, something you and I favor, this is a terrible precedence harming laws that everyone relies on. Nobody should be hounded out of their jobs for personal beliefs or political stances or anything else that is a breach of discrimination laws.

As I stated elsewhere. This is very much a "First they came for..." scenario. Somewhere along the line we lost the desire to protect the rights of even those we disagree with to ensure they're still there when we or our children need them. Because it isn't impacting us, this time.

 

[Redd the Sock]

Can we at least be honest that this guy is just being held up as a sacrificial lamb? There's a full database of Prop 8 supporters here

http://projects.latimes.com/prop8/

And it includes a lot of people from Google, Apple, Adobe, Intel, Hewlet-Packard, Micorosoft, Sony, Yahoo, and other tech firms. Heck he was the only Mozilla employee to donate to support it, yet we put him on the alter because he was in charge for all of 5 minutes.

You're free to do as your heart feels, but I reserve the right to laugh if you jump to chrome when google had more employees donate more to prop 8 that mozilla did.

 

[chikusho]

you have been personally hurt by Eich? Did he hit you? did you call the police?
He supported a law, which is his legal right as US citizen, which was later supported by 52% of California voters. why are you singling him out? What exactly has he done to you?

Not me. His employees.
Also, yeah, just as it's his right as a US citizen to donate to this organisation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Man/Boy_Love_Association
The fact that it's legal doesn't make it any less tasteless.

Did he? I havent heard about that. care to share the link?

https://brendaneich.com/2012/04/community-and-diversity/

But the thing about civil rights is that we create and remove them all the time. For example we recently removed a right to smoke in public buildings. I supported that law. am i against civil rights now?

Wait a minute... in what world is smoking a civil right?

oh yes, "ill stop using your browser because i dont like your CEOs personal beliefs and want him gone" is certainly not demanding resignation.

You're right, it isn't.

Wanna know about some people who DID demand he step down? His employees.
Now tell me, in what way is Eich a good CEO if his employees don't respect him?
Also, why would you want to work for someone who wants to deny you your civil rights?

Im glad i got your permission. I would ask for more, but this forum has strict rules.

You keep bringing up freedom of speech (for some ungodly reason), so I just thought you might need that pointed out. You're welcome.

 

[balfore]

What was that about OKCupid again? Please stop using Firefox because the CEO, one guy out of MANY PEOPLE who supported Prop-8 is the CEO there. Thats basicly DOXing, or is there a list somewhere where i can look up publicly who voted for Prop8 or gave donations towards the same cause? No, its one guy being singled out because he happens to be the CEO at a company that makes a popular browser. He exercised his rights to support what he feels he wants to support. Sure People can also not support him, but its not about him, its about Mozilla, he is the CEO, so what? He is one guy at the company, one guy out of how many? Yet its perfectly fine to DESTROY the reputation of an entire company, even ruin it financially because the one dude working there thinks that Gays can have civil unions and not church marriages?

Unless I am misunderstanding you, you actually can look up who made the donations. By California law if you donate $100 or more to a political campaign or potential law then your information is public and anyone can look up who made the contributions, where they live, and how much of a donation was made.

In which case, why not go after other people? Nope, only after the one dude who just happened to be made CEO recently. Thats the epitome of being vindictive. Which basicly proves the point, if people actually think that ruining someones personal life and reputation is not as bad as hanging a black guy, you need to get your priorities straight. Because from where im standing, at least the KKK had the decency to actually end your life, not ruin it and then let you live with that reputation for the rest of your life.

So ya know, pot meet kettle and all that. Prop-8 People are dumb, SJW's who think forcing a guy out of a job is fair are equally vile and evil.

Murdering someone and briefly hurting the reputation of a millionaire who represents a whole company are two different things. I can guarantee you his life is not ruined, nor his reputation. He is an amazing programmer and I'm sure someone will hire him, just not as the face or leader of a company. Or he could just retire and roll around in his piles of cash all day and not care what you think about him.

 

[CloudAtlas]

According to some folks here, publicly supporting discrimination of gays seems to be totally fine, but deciding to not use the products of someone who is publicly discriminating is not. Because clearly I'm free to be a bigot, but I'm not free to decide not to associate with a bigot. Because we all know that freedom of speech, of choice, of business and so on applies to some more than it does to others, right?

 

[Nocturnus]

Umm... welcome to this notion of... choice.

People can choose not to use the browser for whatever reason they want to: From just liking another one better, to not supporting an employee that they think is a douchebag, to not liking it because the buttons are blue or something.

If enough people stop using that browser, then the company hurts, and it has to make a decision to help preserve said company.

An employee, likewise, has a choice to NOT remain in a job that they don't like... yes, even if it's because of a supervisor/CEO they don't agree with. That's their decision.

Enough employees leave, then once again, the company hurts, and it has to make a decision to help preserve said company.

Put two and two together, and with all accounts pointing to one person, doesn't matter what he believes. He could have attacked My Little Pony, and ... The Brony Fansite could have done the same thing. If it impacts the business in a significant way? I'd bet that he'd be gone too.

This is putting away all my feelings about how I think the CEO is a bigot, but hey... at the end of the day, business will be business.

 

[Nocturnus]

According to some folks here, publicly supporting discrimination of gays seems to be totally fine, but deciding to not use the products of someone who is publicly discriminating is not. Because clearly I'm free to be a bigot, but I'm not free to decide not to associate with a bigot. Because we all know that freedom of speech, of choice, of business and so on applies to some more than it does to others, right?

You just said it a lot better than I did. Great post.

 

[Lightknight]

you have been personally hurt by Eich? Did he hit you? did you call the police?
He supported a law, which is his legal right as US citizen, which was later supported by 52% of California voters. why are you singling him out? What exactly has he done to you?

Not me. His employees.
Also, yeah, just as it's his right as a US citizen to donate to this organisation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Man/Boy_Love_Association
The fact that it's legal doesn't make it any less tasteless.

Just going to skip over the mentioned fact that this was all because he supported a law that the majority of Californians also voted for, huh?

Believing that the term marriage actually means something doesn't make him a gay hater or something like that. It just means that he, like most Americans, doesn't understand that a Marriage license has nothing to do with the religious and cultural ceremony of the same name any more. This confusion was true when the license was first created to prevent minorities from marrying whites (look it up, not joking. Through the mid 19th century common law marriages were standard and then circa the civil war things changed to accommodate the changes). The fact that this license born out of racism is still in existence and is still be used to prevent certain unions is hilariously backwards. But the confusion makes sense in light of this. Even though it no longer really legislates what ministers can do it's still perceived as part of the marriage process.

Now, I don't give two shits what two consenting adults decide to do with one another. But I can look at this situation objectively and acknowledge that there are reasons outside of bigotry why people may hold onto this position in such large numbers.

 

[Fsyco]

Does it matter if a police man is gay? Nope. Does it matter if a fireman is gay? Nope. Does it Matter if a Lawyer is gay? Nope. So why should it matter if a CEO is anti-gay.. or at least anti-gay marriage.. The two are not mutually inclusive.

Once again, even though this shouldn't need explaining. Being gay is not a choice. Being anti-gay is a choice.

You cannot prove either of those statements. For all you know being anti-gay may be due to certain genetic predisposition when combined with specific hormone and behavioural conditioning. It's really hard to say how much of our behaviour or of how we think is choice or predetermined.

You're close. Morality is linked to your sense of disgust, not anything logical. Homosexuality is 'gross', and therefore many people think it's wrong. So being anti-gay is kind of not a choice. In fact, almost all your decisions are not a choice (conservatives and liberals have different brain structures, for example). There's actually a term for when something is considered 'wrong' for no rational reason: moral confoundment (If i remember correctly, anyway.) It's why a lot of abnormal behavior is considered wrong or shameful. There are pretty much zero logical arguments against homosexuality, masturbation, or watching porn, but people think they're nasty and deem them bad.

Anyone interested can read more here: http://www.epjournal.net/blog/2012/11/disgust-morality/

 

[balfore]

you have been personally hurt by Eich? Did he hit you? did you call the police?
He supported a law, which is his legal right as US citizen, which was later supported by 52% of California voters. why are you singling him out? What exactly has he done to you?

Not me. His employees.
Also, yeah, just as it's his right as a US citizen to donate to this organisation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Man/Boy_Love_Association
The fact that it's legal doesn't make it any less tasteless.

Just going to skip over the mentioned fact that this was all because he supported a law that the majority of Californians also voted for, huh?

Believing that the term marriage actually means something doesn't make him a gay hater or something like that. It just means that he, like most Americans, doesn't understand that a Marriage license has nothing to do with the religious and cultural ceremony of the same name any more. This confusion was true when the license was first created to prevent minorities from marrying whites (look it up, not joking. Through the mid 19th century common law marriages were standard and then circa the civil war things changed to accommodate the changes). The fact that this license born out of racism is still in existence and is still be used to prevent certain unions is hilariously backwards. But the confusion makes sense in light of this. Even though it no longer really legislates what ministers can do it's still perceived as part of the marriage process.

Now, I don't give two shits what two consenting adults decide to do with one another. But I can look at this situation objectively and acknowledge that there are reasons outside of bigotry why people may hold onto this position in such large numbers.

See one big problem (With the majority of the posts here) is that they are generalizing and assuming that this is just because of the Prop 8 support. Take a few minutes and read a few other sources, any company that has half of its Board of Directors resign after he was appointed CEO has much more to do with him immediately resigning than the OKCupid post.

Source:
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/03/28/three-mozilla-board-members-resign-over-choice-of-new-ceo/

 

[ThatDarnCoyote]

This is why I keep advocating to stop calling the government issued license a marriage license. It blurs the line between government and religious/cultural practices in a system people generally insist on being separate. These people don't think that they're preventing gays' access to unions, they just think that they're protecting a term that means something to them. Most of the people I've spoken with don't care about the actual rights involved and just care about the term. That's why Civil unions have become a thing. An attempt to give all the rights of marriage without controversially stepping on the actual term marriage (even though a marriage license shouldn't be confused with a marriage ceremony).

Agreed. It would be nice to see the government uncouple (heh) itself from the religious and cultural aspects of marriage. Just let people enter into civil union type contracts, which would still be registered with the government for tax and estate purposes, etc., and then arrange their affairs as they see fit. The people involved are then free to call it what they like.

And by the way, nobody forced him to resign. After he was elected CEO, many people voiced their displeasure with the decision (Several Mozilla board members resigned in protest, in fact).

That's actually a matter of some dispute [http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/03/28/three-mozilla-board-members-resign-over-choice-of-new-ceo/]. Two of the three departing board members had already announced they were leaving after the CEO search was completed. It also seems to be the case that their chief objection to Eich was that they wanted a CEO from outside the organization, preferably someone from the mobile-browser sector, an area where Firefox was lagging and wished to catch up.

Oops, I see balfore has made the same point here:

See one big problem (With the majority of the posts here) is that they are generalizing and assuming that this is just because of the Prop 8 support. Take a few minutes and read a few other sources, any company that has half of its Board of Directors resign after he was appointed CEO has much more to do with him immediately resigning than the OKCupid post.

Source:
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/03/28/three-mozilla-board-members-resign-over-choice-of-new-ceo/