Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich resigned from his position with Mozilla. He also resigned from his position as board member of the corporate foundation.
The crime which forced his resignation? He donated $1,000 to the 2008 campaign to pass Proposition 8.
Can you imagine if the shoe was on the other foot?
What if, say, a Vice President at a Catholic school was asked to resign because he had “married” his male partner in direct violation of the contract he had signed with the school; a school he presumably knew was Catholic when he went to work there?
These “haters,” meaning the Catholic school, would be lambasted, excoriated, picketed, petitioned and, of course sued.
But a private citizen who is the CEO of a publicly held corporation who exercises his free right to participate in a public election by making a legal donation of what, for him, is the minuscule sum of $1,000?
Nope.
Huh-uh.
Not having it.
As Mozilla put it in its pretentious little press release,
Mozilla prides itself on being held to a different standard and, this past week, we didn’t live up to it. We know why people are hurt and angry, and they are right: it’s because we haven’t stayed true to ourselves.
We didn’t act like you’d expect Mozilla to act. We didn’t move fast enough to engage with people once the controversy started. We’re sorry. We must do better.
Mozilla believes both in equality and freedom of speech. Equality is necessary for meaningful speech. And you need free speech to fight for equality. Figuring out how to stand for both at the same time can be hard.
Our organizational culture reflects diversity and inclusiveness. We welcome contributions from everyone regardless of age, culture, ethnicity, gender, gender-identity, language, race, sexual orientation, geographical location and religious views.
Mozilla supports equality for all.
Yeah Mozilla, you support inclusiveness. And the Titanic sails into New York Harbor tomorrow morning.
The Mozilla in question is Mozilla Firefox.
You know.
The web browser that can be replaced by a whole host of other browsers.
The web browser I’ve deleted from my computer in the name of free elections.
This isn’t about gay marriage, per se. The computer I’m typing on is made by Apple, and they came out against Prop 8 on their web site. I never considered switching to another computer because of it. I didn’t agree with them about Prop 8, but it was their right to disagree with me and I knew it.
The issue here is the First Amendment right of Americans to petition their government, including by means of making donations to causes and issues they believe in, without fear of organized reprisals from a bunch of — here comes the word folks — haters.
This whole thing is getting awfully close to pressuring, bullying and threatening people about how they vote in an election. In fact, I’m pretty sure that if it wasn’t for the secret ballot, that’s exactly what the “equality” for us, “inclusiveness” for us, but not for anyone else crowd would be doing right now.
I am making a donation to the National Organization for Marriage after I publish this post. It’s a matter of protest in one of the two ways that I can protest. I’ve already done the other by removing Firefox from my computer.
If you want to harass me about it, you can find me at this blog, or just look for my name at the Oklahoma House of Representatives. If you do decide to harass me, you won’t get much for your time. You see, I don’t care.
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