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I wouldn't call it a witch hunt. Now every Mozilla employee's work is contributing to Eich's paycheck. The paycheck with which he will (has) donate(d) to oppose

I wouldn't call it a witch hunt. Now every Mozilla employee's work is contributing to Eich's paycheck. The paycheck with which he will (has) donate(d) to oppose gay marriage. If I was a Mozilla employee, this is not something I would want to be contributing to. This argument can obviously be applied to any employee in the company, but it's severely exacerbated when it's applied to the CEO, who's getting a huge paycheck and is serving as the face of the company. It would be nice if we could separate his work from his personal life, but that separation does not actually exist. His personal endeavors are fueled by his professional life. (This is why we all work, really).

Mikeb85 13y ago
It definitely is a witch hunt. What next? Are you going to fire any employee that goes on vacation to Russia, Turkey, or gasp Cuba? Or anyone that contributes to a charity you don't agree with?
- wonderzombie 13y ago
  There're any number of reasons why someone might visit those countries. When you put up $1K towards a political campaign whose raison d'etre is to deny gay people the right to marry, it's rather well defined what the expectation is. I don't understand what charities have to do with this, though. Surely there are charities which would be morally objectionable. If he'd donated to a charity with similar aims to the Prop 8 campaign, I imagine it would change people's opinions rather little. Or how about a charity which campaigned against interracial marriage?
  - hkphooey 13y ago
    > There're any number of reasons why someone might visit those countries. People were calling for a boycott of all things Russian, or did you forget that? The irony of course being that Russia decriminalized same-sex relationships in 1993 long before the US, effectively, did the same in 2003 even though 14 states still ban sodomy.
    - wonderzombie 13y ago
      And yet the US, EU, et al, still sent their Olympic teams to Sochi. I remember hearing something about how companies are usually pretty happy when people call for a boycott because it means it's a vocal minority and nothing organized. I don't really see how this is relevant except for a tit-for-tat comparison b/w Russia and the US, which is kinda pointless.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
drone 13y ago
"This argument can obviously be applied to any employee in the company, but it's severely exacerbated when it's applied to the CEO" So, you're saying then, that they should go through the donations of every employee, ever, and fire anyone who donated to a cause that a sub-group of employees disagrees with?
- Jormundir 13y ago
  I don't see it simply as disagreement. I draw the line at oppression. He's spending money earned, in part from any given employee's contribution to the company, to support the oppression of a group of people. It actually doesn't really matter if it's the CEO, this type of thing at any level in the company derails morale. With this line drawn, it's not about going through and ratting out people who donate to stuff you don't like, and it's not about limit free speech. This is about supporting human rights, and more specifically to the private company, maintaining a workplace that is inclusive to everyone, and a vision for the company that everyone can get behind. Yes, everyone has free speech and should be able to support whatever they want, but when you support oppression, I think it's completely fair that there is backlash and questioning of whether you should be part of, and benefitting from, a inclusive group. The employees have every right (freedom of speech, remember?) to voice opposition to you in your role, because it really does affect everyone in the company.
DanBC 13y ago
How much money (as a private citizen) has he spent on anti-gay causes? How much money has he spent (as CEO) {i'm having trouble with wording here} keeping Mozilla a safe play for LGBTQ staff?
DerpDerpDerp 13y ago
Do you support employees being fired for supporting gay marriage then? I don't see any difference in the two positions (both are using their paychecks to advanced a political cause), except that you personally agree with one position and not the other.
- wpietri 13y ago
  The difference is that only one of those positions in a boss is threatening. Take interracial marriage as a parallel. If you are in a mixed-race marriage and your boss has tried to prevent interracial marriage, you could reasonably feel threatened. Whereas if your boss supports equality, you won't worry whether you are in a same-race or mixed-race marriage.
  - twoodfin 13y ago
    Threatened how?
    - wpietri 13y ago
      Threatened with the sort of discrimination that minority groups often experience from people who have an irrational bias against them.
      - twoodfin 13y ago
        Sorry, when did those threats happen?
        wpietri 13y ago
        I said "reasonably feel threatened". You don't have to have someone directly threaten you to reasonably feel threatened.
        twoodfin 13y ago
        OK, so what was the reasonable cause to feel threatened?
smacktoward 13y ago
If you work for a private company, and look up the causes that your CEO contributes to, you might be surprised at what you find there, too. I'm not saying Eich's contributions are irrelevant, just that he would hardly be the first CEO to hold political opinions many or all of the people who work with him find repugnant. > it's severely exacerbated when it's applied to the CEO, who's getting a huge paycheck I haven't looked at their financials, but I would have to assume that CEO of Mozilla is one of the less lavishly paid "CEO of a major tech organization" jobs. Nobody goes to work at Mozilla to get rich.
- waps 13y ago
  Liberals have power, feel the need to enforce their social order. Is this supposed to amaze anyone ? You should see how bad this get in some parts of Europe, although that could just be me having more experience with it in that part of the world. The problem liberals have is that while they're endemic in the rank and file of these companies, they're not exactly common at the top.
  - dllthomas 13y ago
    The problem is the liberals "enforcing their social order" with their power... by individually reacting to someone spending money to make sure the government resumes enforcing a particular social order? This is entirely a contest between a liberal desire to enforce social order A and a conservative desire to enforce social order B. There's a few who basically want government out of marriage all together, but that's a tiny minority in my experience and is made up of people from both sides of the left-right spectrum.
    - waps 13y ago
      Except of course that conservatives are pretty much about that, while liberals' great claim is that they don't enforce any social order. They are about freedom, you can do anything you want, believe anything you want, want anything you want ! Here it's obvious that the exception is that this is predicated on you wanting exactly the same they want. The problem is the hypocrisy. The problem is that liberals constantly scream bloody murder if anyone uses the "but those guys do the same" defense. The problem is that they enforce their own rules on others but not themselves. The problem is the blatant intolerance, the attempt to destroy a man's career because of his beliefs.

Mikeb85 13y ago

It definitely is a witch hunt. What next? Are you going to fire any employee that goes on vacation to Russia, Turkey, or gasp Cuba? Or anyone that contributes to a charity you don't agree with?

wonderzombie 13y ago
There're any number of reasons why someone might visit those countries. When you put up $1K towards a political campaign whose raison d'etre is to deny gay people the right to marry, it's rather well defined what the expectation is. I don't understand what charities have to do with this, though. Surely there are charities which would be morally objectionable. If he'd donated to a charity with similar aims to the Prop 8 campaign, I imagine it would change people's opinions rather little. Or how about a charity which campaigned against interracial marriage?
- hkphooey 13y ago
  > There're any number of reasons why someone might visit those countries. People were calling for a boycott of all things Russian, or did you forget that? The irony of course being that Russia decriminalized same-sex relationships in 1993 long before the US, effectively, did the same in 2003 even though 14 states still ban sodomy.
  - wonderzombie 13y ago
    And yet the US, EU, et al, still sent their Olympic teams to Sochi. I remember hearing something about how companies are usually pretty happy when people call for a boycott because it means it's a vocal minority and nothing organized. I don't really see how this is relevant except for a tit-for-tat comparison b/w Russia and the US, which is kinda pointless.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

drone 13y ago

"This argument can obviously be applied to any employee in the company, but it's severely exacerbated when it's applied to the CEO" So, you're saying then, that they should go through the donations of every employee, ever, and fire anyone who donated to a cause that a sub-group of employees disagrees with?

Jormundir 13y ago
I don't see it simply as disagreement. I draw the line at oppression. He's spending money earned, in part from any given employee's contribution to the company, to support the oppression of a group of people. It actually doesn't really matter if it's the CEO, this type of thing at any level in the company derails morale. With this line drawn, it's not about going through and ratting out people who donate to stuff you don't like, and it's not about limit free speech. This is about supporting human rights, and more specifically to the private company, maintaining a workplace that is inclusive to everyone, and a vision for the company that everyone can get behind. Yes, everyone has free speech and should be able to support whatever they want, but when you support oppression, I think it's completely fair that there is backlash and questioning of whether you should be part of, and benefitting from, a inclusive group. The employees have every right (freedom of speech, remember?) to voice opposition to you in your role, because it really does affect everyone in the company.

DanBC 13y ago

How much money (as a private citizen) has he spent on anti-gay causes? How much money has he spent (as CEO) {i'm having trouble with wording here} keeping Mozilla a safe play for LGBTQ staff?

DerpDerpDerp 13y ago

Do you support employees being fired for supporting gay marriage then? I don't see any difference in the two positions (both are using their paychecks to advanced a political cause), except that you personally agree with one position and not the other.

wpietri 13y ago
The difference is that only one of those positions in a boss is threatening. Take interracial marriage as a parallel. If you are in a mixed-race marriage and your boss has tried to prevent interracial marriage, you could reasonably feel threatened. Whereas if your boss supports equality, you won't worry whether you are in a same-race or mixed-race marriage.
- twoodfin 13y ago
  Threatened how?
  - wpietri 13y ago
    Threatened with the sort of discrimination that minority groups often experience from people who have an irrational bias against them.
    - twoodfin 13y ago
      Sorry, when did those threats happen?
      - wpietri 13y ago
        I said "reasonably feel threatened". You don't have to have someone directly threaten you to reasonably feel threatened.
        twoodfin 13y ago
        OK, so what was the reasonable cause to feel threatened?

smacktoward 13y ago

If you work for a private company, and look up the causes that your CEO contributes to, you might be surprised at what you find there, too. I'm not saying Eich's contributions are irrelevant, just that he would hardly be the first CEO to hold political opinions many or all of the people who work with him find repugnant. > it's severely exacerbated when it's applied to the CEO, who's getting a huge paycheck I haven't looked at their financials, but I would have to assume that CEO of Mozilla is one of the less lavishly paid "CEO of a major tech organization" jobs. Nobody goes to work at Mozilla to get rich.

waps 13y ago
Liberals have power, feel the need to enforce their social order. Is this supposed to amaze anyone ? You should see how bad this get in some parts of Europe, although that could just be me having more experience with it in that part of the world. The problem liberals have is that while they're endemic in the rank and file of these companies, they're not exactly common at the top.
- dllthomas 13y ago
  The problem is the liberals "enforcing their social order" with their power... by individually reacting to someone spending money to make sure the government resumes enforcing a particular social order? This is entirely a contest between a liberal desire to enforce social order A and a conservative desire to enforce social order B. There's a few who basically want government out of marriage all together, but that's a tiny minority in my experience and is made up of people from both sides of the left-right spectrum.
  - waps 13y ago
    Except of course that conservatives are pretty much about that, while liberals' great claim is that they don't enforce any social order. They are about freedom, you can do anything you want, believe anything you want, want anything you want ! Here it's obvious that the exception is that this is predicated on you wanting exactly the same they want. The problem is the hypocrisy. The problem is that liberals constantly scream bloody murder if anyone uses the "but those guys do the same" defense. The problem is that they enforce their own rules on others but not themselves. The problem is the blatant intolerance, the attempt to destroy a man's career because of his beliefs.