Brendan Eich Steps Down As Mozilla CEO 1746
New submitter matafagafo (1343219) writes with this news, straight from the Mozilla blog, which comes in the wake of controversy over Brendan Eich's polticial views (in particular, his support for California's Proposition 8, which would have reversed a decision legalizing same-sex marriage within the state). and how they would reflect on the organization : "Brendan Eich has chosen to step down from his role as CEO. He's made this decision for Mozilla and our community. 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 ..."
Re:I think this is bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
What if he had said, "blacks don't deserve the right to vote"?
If someone said that in Alabama in 1957, would it be justified to deny them employment for the rest of their life even if they changed their mind after the Civil Rights Act passed?
Publicly acceptable positions on gay marriage are changing quickly. In 1996, Congress overwhelmingly passed, and President Clinton signed, a bill (DOMA) banning recognition of gay marriage across state lines. 10 years after that, few Democratic politicians, at least outside the most conservative states, would defend that position. But views changed slowly. In 2004, when running for the Senate, Barack Obama said that he thought marriage should be between a man and a woman. He said in 2010 that his views were "evolving", and at that point said he supported civil unions. Shortly afterward he came down on the side of supporting gay marriage without reservations.
The point is that this is an issue on which decent, well-meaning people have disagreed. To the extent that there is a majority consensus, it has only formed recently. Going back and retroactively persecuting people for their views before the consensus formed seems grossly unfair.
Re:I think this is bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
He donated money to a cause that tried and succeeded in passing proposition 8 that denied right to people.
And if a corporation decided it's in the best interest to give the CEO the boot do to public outrage, they can do that. Happens alot. I don't hear you morning the loss of GM's CEO.
Re:Victory for the Thought Police? (Score:5, Informative)
The Supreme Court disagrees with you, as I recall. https://www.afer.org/blog/14-s... [afer.org]
Whether this is philosophically true or not, it's true in the context of the US legal system. I think it's a fundamental human right to associate with and make a family with whomever you please. If the government provides benefits, privileges and rights associated with marriage, it's a right to receive those, regardless of who you chose to marry.
Re:I think this is bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
It was against the self-contradicting phenomenon called "gay marriage".
gay marriage is only 'self-contradicting' if marriage is defined as not involving same sex unions, marriage is a human invention, it does not arise from the facts of physics, chemistry, biology or any other natural process, neither does it arise from basic philosophical or ethical thought. a society is free to define 'marriage' how it likes. prop 8 was an argument about definitions, just because the proponents (not all though) claimed that god was on their side and that therefore 'marriage' was somehow akin to a physical property of the universe does not make it so.
snake
Re:I think this is bullshit (Score:2, Informative)
This issue is a large group of people attempting to put pressure on a company to get rid of an employee based on their personal views. I don't care what you do but trying to use your social clout to strong arm a group is something we've seen in the past. It's a dangerous road to go down and I know you'd agree if it was some powerful homophobic group putting pressure on a company for having a homosexual employee. Remember when the American government (your government I assume?) had to step in and put an end to voluntary racial segregation? Now that power roles are reversed you think that it is okay.
You should ease up on the strawman tactics at the end there. What you wrote had absolutely nothing to do with what I said.
Re:I think this is bullshit (Score:4, Informative)
If you argue that free speech should only be protected against the government and not against employers, then you are in effect saying that a majority of people shouldn't have any free speech protections at all.
That's all the Freedom of Speech covers in the Constitution -- against the government denying it (and only in America and a handful of other countries with similar protections to boot). It doesn't apply to all other (private) situations, legally.
Re:I think this is bullshit (Score:4, Informative)
Freedom of speech does NOT mean that you get to say whatever you want and safely escape any consequences no matter how bigoted or nasty you are.
It just means you get to say what you want in public.
Re:I think this is bullshit (Score:3, Informative)
No, this is getting the cook fired by claiming there is hair in your food, because you spotted an Obama sticker on his car in the parking lot.
He didn't get fired, he quit.
So, kinda completely different than the non sequitur you've posted here.
Re:Freedom of political activism (Score:4, Informative)
That is sophistry.
The employees knowingly put their own company in a difficult position by demanding, on twitter, for the resignation of their CEO. Of course you can't just fire the CEO. But you can make his position untenable, which is what this employee did.
Re:I think this is bullshit (Score:4, Informative)
quite convincingly
it was close to 50/50. how do you see that as anything other than 'some agree, some don't ?
if it was 60/40 or 70/30 or 80/20, sure, call it 'convincingly' but when its noise level around 50/50, uhm, that's pretty uncertain to me. all that says is that its evenly split and therefore, no clear mandate either way.