7 ms·

Mozilla is not Chik-Fil-A

63 points by ultimatedelman 13y ago

yaur 13y ago
There are currently two posts on the main page about this. Do we really need a third? Is this really the kind of place where we are going to push a story about Postgres and the Linux kernel off the main page so that we can have another nasty political fight? I guess I'm new here and don't know the community that well, but that seems more than a little sad and absurd. It is a shame though cause this is kind of a decent write-up.
- tiles 13y ago
  I think it's fitting. The Chief Technology Officer for many years at Mozilla, once promoted to CEO, suffers great pushback and voluntarily steps down as a result. For Mozilla, technology in this case was not more important than community values. Postgres and Linux have technological improvements, but I'm eager to see the tech industry be far more self-aware in trying to progress in its social issues, rather than just progress with features. Plus, this was a struggle and many on these forums were affected. The underlying causes won't go away after one day, and more worryingly, perhaps not for years to come.
  - judk 13y ago
    Indeed, in the no-privacy Facebook era, we all look forward to fully vetting the personal lives of our business leaders and employees. With this inspiring precedent, we can have confidence that the next CEO of Mozilla --and every other company, we hope-- will be well vetted to hold the correct behaviors -- the only, obviously morally correct behaviors-- toward the great challenges of our time: women's abortion rights (or is it fetuses' birth rights?), animal abuse rights (factory farm supporters are unfit to lead), gentrification (wealthy SF residents displace evicted tenants, ruining their lives, so they are not leadership material), ...
    - interstitial 13y ago
      Needs more satire, I almost believed you.
    - x0x0 13y ago
      Certain communities are more sensitive to certain insults. SF, in particular, is home to many gay people; many of them came to this area of the country in particular to escape persecution. Even now coming out to your parents can be quite hard, but you don't have to travel back more than a few years to regularly hear stories of children summarily kicked out of the house, parents never speaking to children again, etc. This is a community that also welcomes, and to a certain extent prizes, nonconformists; or others that have had really shit experiences in grade school, high school, or the cities they grew up in All of which says that the community of which mozilla is a part is particularly sensitive to slights against gay people. This should have been, oh, completely unsurprising. And the ceo is often symbolic in a way that a cto isn't. And in particular, I wouldn't work for firefox while he was ceo. He made a donation specifically intended to maliciously hurt my friends and neighbors. I can't support that.
      - tomcorrigan 13y ago
        > He made a donation specifically intended to maliciously hurt my friends and neighbors. Where the fuck did you get that idea? You just made that up. You don't know his specific purpose, you may think you can infer it but you certainly don't know it. Furthermore, there is not a scintilla of evidence to suggest he acted out of malice. It is far more plausible that he considered gay marriage inconsistent with his religious beliefs and that he also felt compelled by his religion to defend his view of what marriage should be.
        x0x0 13y ago
        1 - by their fruits ye shall know them 2 - because i'm not deliberately obtuse or stupid
    - hkphooey 13y ago
      They have to be vegan too. Protect the animals!
- beering 13y ago
  I think it's worth the attention because Mozilla is a huge part of our life as hackers, and their mismanagement of the controversy could be a big case study for the rest of us. Would things have changed if he made a big direct apology instead of mumbling something about "causing pain" buried in some blog post? Could Mozilla have done X or tried Y instead? I think we're going to be dissecting this for a while.
- tptacek 13y ago
  I feel exactly the same way you do, about the prominence this issue has on the front page, the quality of the discussions it's produced, and this particular writeup. I flagged the story; it's not about technology, but, as 'dang would say, about politics using technology as its host organism.
NextUserName 13y ago
If a christian run organization fired an employee (lets not kid ourselves here, Eich was fired) because they paid $1,000 to support gay marriage, how dramatically would the reaction differ from this situation? Why the huge difference? because in our culture, we are not "allowed" to voice a different opinion than the SCOTUS. Even if the majority populous agrees with our opinion. I know what you are going to say... This is a civil rights issue. It is now a homosexual's civil right to be married because the court said so. When I hear the term civil rights, I always think of blacks and whites in America, segregation and unequal rights because of race. Non Caucasian people were not allowed to use the same schools, bathrooms, bus seats, or even drinking fountains that white people used. That was wrong. Everyone is human and should be treated with dignity. These days we have this out of control "equality" thing that just kind of blindly rolls over common sense. If there is no distinction between men and women in marriage now, then what about the rest of the gender based legal things like a law preventing a man from going into a women's locker room at the local gym and showering with 10 year old girls that happen to be showering in there. Well gay men can shower with boys in the locker next door, so why not? Why are there women's battery laws? Special rape laws only for women? There are literally thousands of laws that are preferential toward or only exist to assist women? Can't a gay man have these same laws applied to him just like marriage? It just isn't fair if they aren't. This breaks "Equality". Men and women are different, that is why there are different rules for us. Homosexuals did not fit the description of marriage because it was defined by gender, since this fundamental attribute was thrown out, it seems only fair to throw out any and all gender biased laws, rules, and guidelines. If a women feels that she was violated because a man came into the women's shower while she was shaving, how is this different than a women feeling that her marriage was violated because it also was re-defined as being genderless. I just don't grasp the "logic" (or lack thereof) that people today must use to come up with such thoughts and justifications.
BruceIV 13y ago
I would like to begin by stating that I, personally, support gay marriage - if the government is willing to offer tax benefits, next-of-kin status, etc. to married and common-law couples based on committed, long-term relationships, it seems hypocritical, cruel, and unfair to deny those same rights to homosexual couples with similar relationships. That said, I think it is ridiculous that this is a scandal, and worse that it ended with Brendan Eich being forced out of his job. He made a really quite modest personal political donation on one side of an issue the state of California had deemed contentious enough to hold a referendum. It seems unfair that backing the wrong side in that referendum apparently disqualifies half of California from being Mozilla CEO. Whether you agree with his views or not (and I and most of the Internet seem not to), they have nothing to do with building an accessible Internet for everyone, and as long as those views don't affect his managerial choices, I don't see how they're relevant to his job (Mozilla HR could answer the question about professionalism, but I don't think the rest of us have the necessary data).
- interstitial 13y ago
  More ironic when you consider: "Obama Says He Is Against Same-Sex Marriage" http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2008/11/obama-on-mtv-i/ http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2008/11/obama-on-mtv-i/
  - spikels 13y ago
    So was Hillary Clinton until a year ago. And they both repeatedly raised money to candidates that were against same-sex marriage. I guess neither of them are qualified to run Mozilla. http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/thecaucus/2013/03/18/hillary-clinton-endorses-same-sex-marriage/ http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/thecaucus/2013/03/18/hillary...
    - growupkids 13y ago
      Well they're either hypocrites, or (ahem...) they learned.
      - 13y ago
baddox 13y ago
> One thing’s for sure. If you eat at Chick-Fil-A, your money will support anti-gay causes. Which is also technically true if you do business with any company that employs any people who oppose gay rights. Or if you do business with any company that itself does business with another company that employs any people who oppose gay rights.
mynameishere 13y ago
So if the long march of progress makes a fast food drive-thru a site of civic participation, well, that’s surreal—but it’s democracy in action. I wonder if this guy is aware that "long march" almost always refers to the "long march through the institutions", which is essentially a Marxist plan to subvert society. (When it's not referring to the original "long march" by Mao's forces.) I'm guessing he is. It reminds me of the old commie-styled Mozilla red star logo. Was that an accident? What's with these people? At any rate, if you ever want to donate to any political cause, make sure it's 100 percent anonymous. That includes supporters of gay marriage. When the worm turns, you might get the same as you gave.
- growupkids 13y ago
  I can get behind anonymous donations. After all, we vote anonymously, anonymous speech is protected speech, so why shouldn't anonymous donations be protected as well? In the marketplace of ideas, shouldn't it be the ideas that are judged and not who said them or who paid for the ad?
  - xirdstl 13y ago
    At the level of donation in this example, that probably works. Consider though a donation of say, $1 million. Is it important to know who donates that amount and thus potentially exerting a great deal of influence? Maybe the notable difference is that while votes are anonymous, every vote is equal.
panarky 13y ago
... it was hard to watch as people who should know better pulled out the Chick-Fil-A playbook That's exactly right. By all means, protest a corporation that uses corporate resources to fund hate. That's not what happened at Mozilla. I am equally disappointed in Mozillians and in demagogues who didn’t see the irony in hounding someone for their private opinion because of "intolerance." Mozilla is beautiful because they've united very different people for a common, worthy purpose. To accomplish that, they must firewall personal opinions, politics and prejudices that are not relevant to their mission. That firewall has now been breached. It's scary to think that an important organization with a critical mission could be damaged by this breach. If this is the gay rights movement today – hounding our opponents with a fanaticism more like the religious right than anyone else – then count me out. If we are about intimidating the free speech of others, we are no better than the anti-gay bullies who came before us. Well said and incisively reasoned, Andrew Sullivan.
- bashcoder 13y ago
  I was very disappointed to watch in real time as this post was moderated off the HN front page and into oblivion. It happened at 8:46 PM PDT on April 3. Once it reached #24 on the first page, even as it was gaining points and comments, this post quickly fell several pages. Yes, we had a few posts on this subject already hit the main page, with one garnering over 900 comments. But especially when we're dealing with an issue with such obvious free speech implications, insightful articles like these should be allowed to run their natural course on HN.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  He basically echoes all the points I tried to make, and got hounded for making. But I think folks on the internet are just really fond of a good lynching once and a while. It's a consistent pattern.
  - sentenza 13y ago
    This scandal was really weird from a HN commenter's perspective. For me it was the first time I experienced "wild veering" of comments, where I would write a comment that was downvoted multiple times within a few minutes and then later see it climb to thirty or so positive karma.
carsongross 13y ago
“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” I think that the great tech though-crime purge of 2013-? will end up having a different outcome than intended...
swang 13y ago
> I am equally disappointed in Mozillians and in demagogues who didn't see the irony in hounding someone for their private opinion because of "intolerance." His opinion is no longer private. Once you vote with your dollars you have publicly acknowledged your opinion. I don't know if I really support what happened to Eich, but this whole event opens your eyes to the hypocrisy of the tech community. If some person not well known to the loudest voices of the community says something insensitive they will have their lives ruined. Someone like Eich does something similar and all of a sudden it is, "whoa, now, let's not overreact."
- beedogs 13y ago
  And the people describing his actions to help get gay marriage banned in California as merely "an opinion" that should be respected and treated as "free speech" are just laughably wrong.
  - growupkids 13y ago
    Indeed. They passed a law to make it illegal. That's no longer an opinion, that's an action.
  - swang 13y ago
    Yes let's clear this up. 1. ~52% of Californians voted for Prop 8. True. But Prop 8 was also confusing to votes as to what "Yes" or "No" meant. Supporters of gay marriage were worried that people would believe Yes meant support of gay marriage and vice-versa. 2. The point about Prop 8 wasn't "marriage." The underlying reason gays wanted to marry is for tax breaks and legal privileges. If you cannot be in a "marriage" you are essentially being taxed more and afforded unequal rights to people who can be in a marriage.
- yaur 13y ago
  "His opinion is no longer private. Once you vote with your dollars you have publicly acknowledged your opinion." Here is the thing, SCotUS has ruled that the 1st amendment protects anonymous political speech precisely because a lack of anonymity can lead to the "economic or official retaliation" against those with differing political views and has also ruled that money, in the context of politics, is speech. So is there a constitutional imperative to protect the anonymity of political speech when that speech comes in monetary form? I personally believe that we are better off being able to see how our leaders have financed their campaigns, but what we have hear is prima facie evidence that not protecting speech when it is in monetary forms leads to the exact sort retaliation that the Supreme Court used in the justification of McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission. I emphatically don't agree with his views, but the threat to everyone's right to free political speech and the potential threat to transparency of campaign finances are not to be taken lightly.
beedogs 13y ago
This is not a free speech issue. I wish people would stop making that mistake. A private company can fire anyone they want in California for whatever reason they want.
- Acropal 13y ago
  You're an idiot or incredibly naive if you don't think this is a free speech issue. A guy was forced to resign because he has a different opinion than some group of people. It's bullshit.
  - beedogs 13y ago
    Sorry, but "free speech" really only applies when the government gets involved in regulating it. Read the Constitution sometime. He could just as easily have been ousted from his role for wearing the wrong color shirt to work, if enough people didn't like it.
xirdstl 13y ago
The fallout from this will be interesting to watch. If there are other employees of Mozilla that supported Prop. 8 or are otherwise opposed to gay marriage, do they now fear for their jobs? I keep seeing the argument that it's only because he became CEO, which is completely different than CTO. While there is some truth to that, it mostly comes across as post witch-hunt rationalization to me. Maybe witch-hunt is a little strong, but the level of vitriol in OKCupid's message directed towards Eich (and effectively at anyone who shares that opinion) felt genuinely disturbing to me. Maybe I'm just not cut out for these Internets.
Patrick_Devine 13y ago
I'm going to take a different stand than the one a lot of people seem to keep echoing here. I think it was the right thing for Eich to step down. This isn't about free speech, it's about basic human rights. Let me try to re-frame it this way; had Eich been a white supremacist and had contributed money to the KKK, do you still think he would have been fit to lead Mozilla? The same arguments being bandied around here apply. Whether people want to admit it or not, this guy is (was) the public face of the organization. Despite being an avid user of Firefox, I definitely would hesitate to donate money with him as the CEO. And, were I an employee of Mozilla, I'd probably consider leaving. I'm also sure that I'm not alone in this. If Mozilla is shedding employees and losing donations as a result of him being at the head, he clearly isn't the right person to be the leader. As for free speech, I love the first amendment. Eich certainly has the right to express his (completely ridiculous and hateful) opinion. Everyone else also has the right to pressure him to not be the head of a charitable organization which promotes tolerance.
- intslack 13y ago
  >had Eich been a white supremacist In this first part, you equate white supremacists with what I assume would be "homophobic bigots," implying that there's concrete evidence of Eich being such a "homophobic bigot." When there's not.
  - Patrick_Devine 13y ago
    ... other than giving $1,000 to support Prop 8 and denying people the right to get married.
    - intslack 13y ago
      That's not concrete evidence, sorry. Your logic is faulty: 1) You're equating his monetary support for Prop 8 as evidence of homophobic bigotry, which by itself it is not. It's quite obvious that Eich is deeply religious: the herd mentality in those circles is that because same-sex couples can’t produce biological children together, they shouldn't be recognized as marriages. This is rational if you see the institution of marriage as a state-recognized union between that's only between a man and a woman, which has long social and cultural roots. The same can not be said for bans on interracial marriages which are just backed by racism, and not objective facts. Ultimately, assuming that these are Eich's views (which is very likely,) they are ignorant because they focus too much on sex and too little on the idea of commitment and love. What they aren't: grounds for throwing around labels like "homophobic bigot," as there are many who empathize with those who are discriminated against, abused, disowned, lynched and executed because of their expression of gender identity. They see nothing wrong with homosexuals, but rather take issue with marriage as an institution being redefined. Haven't seen any evidence that Eich opposes civil partnerships. I want nothing to do with marriage personally and would much rather a civil partnership for my relationship, but dissolving the state-recognized institution of marriage completely is very messy. So redefining marriage is the best choice, lest we have separate but equal legal frameworks: marriages for heterosexual couples and civil unions for homosexual couples as well as heterosexual couples who want nothing to do with marriage but want the benefits it brings. 2) You're comparing Eich to the KKK which executed thousands of people, which is a disgusting comparison but you may just be historically ignorant. Eich was pressured to resign just because he wouldn't parrot empty words about how he's "evolved" on the issue in the court of public opinion, like President Obama has. And we're worse off for it, because he was the most qualified to lead Mozilla.
whyenot 13y ago
Proposition 8 took away my right to marry. It's a pretty shitty thing to find out that the majority of voters in your home state believe it's OK to treat you as a second class citizen. When Brendan Eich sent in that check for $1,000 in support of Proposition 8, he was making the statement that I should not continue to have the right to marry the person I love and that explicit discrimination against gay people should be enshrined in California's constitution. It left a lot of people very upset. I don't agree with with lashing out at Eich, but I understand it.

yaur 13y ago

There are currently two posts on the main page about this. Do we really need a third? Is this really the kind of place where we are going to push a story about Postgres and the Linux kernel off the main page so that we can have another nasty political fight? I guess I'm new here and don't know the community that well, but that seems more than a little sad and absurd. It is a shame though cause this is kind of a decent write-up.

tiles 13y ago
I think it's fitting. The Chief Technology Officer for many years at Mozilla, once promoted to CEO, suffers great pushback and voluntarily steps down as a result. For Mozilla, technology in this case was not more important than community values. Postgres and Linux have technological improvements, but I'm eager to see the tech industry be far more self-aware in trying to progress in its social issues, rather than just progress with features. Plus, this was a struggle and many on these forums were affected. The underlying causes won't go away after one day, and more worryingly, perhaps not for years to come.
- judk 13y ago
  Indeed, in the no-privacy Facebook era, we all look forward to fully vetting the personal lives of our business leaders and employees. With this inspiring precedent, we can have confidence that the next CEO of Mozilla --and every other company, we hope-- will be well vetted to hold the correct behaviors -- the only, obviously morally correct behaviors-- toward the great challenges of our time: women's abortion rights (or is it fetuses' birth rights?), animal abuse rights (factory farm supporters are unfit to lead), gentrification (wealthy SF residents displace evicted tenants, ruining their lives, so they are not leadership material), ...
  - interstitial 13y ago
    Needs more satire, I almost believed you.
  - x0x0 13y ago
    Certain communities are more sensitive to certain insults. SF, in particular, is home to many gay people; many of them came to this area of the country in particular to escape persecution. Even now coming out to your parents can be quite hard, but you don't have to travel back more than a few years to regularly hear stories of children summarily kicked out of the house, parents never speaking to children again, etc. This is a community that also welcomes, and to a certain extent prizes, nonconformists; or others that have had really shit experiences in grade school, high school, or the cities they grew up in All of which says that the community of which mozilla is a part is particularly sensitive to slights against gay people. This should have been, oh, completely unsurprising. And the ceo is often symbolic in a way that a cto isn't. And in particular, I wouldn't work for firefox while he was ceo. He made a donation specifically intended to maliciously hurt my friends and neighbors. I can't support that.
    - tomcorrigan 13y ago
      > He made a donation specifically intended to maliciously hurt my friends and neighbors. Where the fuck did you get that idea? You just made that up. You don't know his specific purpose, you may think you can infer it but you certainly don't know it. Furthermore, there is not a scintilla of evidence to suggest he acted out of malice. It is far more plausible that he considered gay marriage inconsistent with his religious beliefs and that he also felt compelled by his religion to defend his view of what marriage should be.
      - x0x0 13y ago
        1 - by their fruits ye shall know them 2 - because i'm not deliberately obtuse or stupid
  - hkphooey 13y ago
    They have to be vegan too. Protect the animals!
beering 13y ago
I think it's worth the attention because Mozilla is a huge part of our life as hackers, and their mismanagement of the controversy could be a big case study for the rest of us. Would things have changed if he made a big direct apology instead of mumbling something about "causing pain" buried in some blog post? Could Mozilla have done X or tried Y instead? I think we're going to be dissecting this for a while.
tptacek 13y ago
I feel exactly the same way you do, about the prominence this issue has on the front page, the quality of the discussions it's produced, and this particular writeup. I flagged the story; it's not about technology, but, as 'dang would say, about politics using technology as its host organism.

NextUserName 13y ago

If a christian run organization fired an employee (lets not kid ourselves here, Eich was fired) because they paid $1,000 to support gay marriage, how dramatically would the reaction differ from this situation? Why the huge difference? because in our culture, we are not "allowed" to voice a different opinion than the SCOTUS. Even if the majority populous agrees with our opinion. I know what you are going to say... This is a civil rights issue. It is now a homosexual's civil right to be married because the court said so. When I hear the term civil rights, I always think of blacks and whites in America, segregation and unequal rights because of race. Non Caucasian people were not allowed to use the same schools, bathrooms, bus seats, or even drinking fountains that white people used. That was wrong. Everyone is human and should be treated with dignity. These days we have this out of control "equality" thing that just kind of blindly rolls over common sense. If there is no distinction between men and women in marriage now, then what about the rest of the gender based legal things like a law preventing a man from going into a women's locker room at the local gym and showering with 10 year old girls that happen to be showering in there. Well gay men can shower with boys in the locker next door, so why not? Why are there women's battery laws? Special rape laws only for women? There are literally thousands of laws that are preferential toward or only exist to assist women? Can't a gay man have these same laws applied to him just like marriage? It just isn't fair if they aren't. This breaks "Equality". Men and women are different, that is why there are different rules for us. Homosexuals did not fit the description of marriage because it was defined by gender, since this fundamental attribute was thrown out, it seems only fair to throw out any and all gender biased laws, rules, and guidelines. If a women feels that she was violated because a man came into the women's shower while she was shaving, how is this different than a women feeling that her marriage was violated because it also was re-defined as being genderless. I just don't grasp the "logic" (or lack thereof) that people today must use to come up with such thoughts and justifications.

BruceIV 13y ago

I would like to begin by stating that I, personally, support gay marriage - if the government is willing to offer tax benefits, next-of-kin status, etc. to married and common-law couples based on committed, long-term relationships, it seems hypocritical, cruel, and unfair to deny those same rights to homosexual couples with similar relationships. That said, I think it is ridiculous that this is a scandal, and worse that it ended with Brendan Eich being forced out of his job. He made a really quite modest personal political donation on one side of an issue the state of California had deemed contentious enough to hold a referendum. It seems unfair that backing the wrong side in that referendum apparently disqualifies half of California from being Mozilla CEO. Whether you agree with his views or not (and I and most of the Internet seem not to), they have nothing to do with building an accessible Internet for everyone, and as long as those views don't affect his managerial choices, I don't see how they're relevant to his job (Mozilla HR could answer the question about professionalism, but I don't think the rest of us have the necessary data).

interstitial 13y ago
More ironic when you consider: "Obama Says He Is Against Same-Sex Marriage" http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2008/11/obama-on-mtv-i/ http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2008/11/obama-on-mtv-i/
- spikels 13y ago
  So was Hillary Clinton until a year ago. And they both repeatedly raised money to candidates that were against same-sex marriage. I guess neither of them are qualified to run Mozilla. http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/thecaucus/2013/03/18/hillary-clinton-endorses-same-sex-marriage/ http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/thecaucus/2013/03/18/hillary...
  - growupkids 13y ago
    Well they're either hypocrites, or (ahem...) they learned.
    - 13y ago

baddox 13y ago

> One thing’s for sure. If you eat at Chick-Fil-A, your money will support anti-gay causes. Which is also technically true if you do business with any company that employs any people who oppose gay rights. Or if you do business with any company that itself does business with another company that employs any people who oppose gay rights.

mynameishere 13y ago

So if the long march of progress makes a fast food drive-thru a site of civic participation, well, that’s surreal—but it’s democracy in action. I wonder if this guy is aware that "long march" almost always refers to the "long march through the institutions", which is essentially a Marxist plan to subvert society. (When it's not referring to the original "long march" by Mao's forces.) I'm guessing he is. It reminds me of the old commie-styled Mozilla red star logo. Was that an accident? What's with these people? At any rate, if you ever want to donate to any political cause, make sure it's 100 percent anonymous. That includes supporters of gay marriage. When the worm turns, you might get the same as you gave.

growupkids 13y ago
I can get behind anonymous donations. After all, we vote anonymously, anonymous speech is protected speech, so why shouldn't anonymous donations be protected as well? In the marketplace of ideas, shouldn't it be the ideas that are judged and not who said them or who paid for the ad?
- xirdstl 13y ago
  At the level of donation in this example, that probably works. Consider though a donation of say, $1 million. Is it important to know who donates that amount and thus potentially exerting a great deal of influence? Maybe the notable difference is that while votes are anonymous, every vote is equal.

panarky 13y ago

... it was hard to watch as people who should know better pulled out the Chick-Fil-A playbook That's exactly right. By all means, protest a corporation that uses corporate resources to fund hate. That's not what happened at Mozilla. I am equally disappointed in Mozillians and in demagogues who didn’t see the irony in hounding someone for their private opinion because of "intolerance." Mozilla is beautiful because they've united very different people for a common, worthy purpose. To accomplish that, they must firewall personal opinions, politics and prejudices that are not relevant to their mission. That firewall has now been breached. It's scary to think that an important organization with a critical mission could be damaged by this breach. If this is the gay rights movement today – hounding our opponents with a fanaticism more like the religious right than anyone else – then count me out. If we are about intimidating the free speech of others, we are no better than the anti-gay bullies who came before us. Well said and incisively reasoned, Andrew Sullivan.

bashcoder 13y ago
I was very disappointed to watch in real time as this post was moderated off the HN front page and into oblivion. It happened at 8:46 PM PDT on April 3. Once it reached #24 on the first page, even as it was gaining points and comments, this post quickly fell several pages. Yes, we had a few posts on this subject already hit the main page, with one garnering over 900 comments. But especially when we're dealing with an issue with such obvious free speech implications, insightful articles like these should be allowed to run their natural course on HN.
sliverstorm 13y ago
He basically echoes all the points I tried to make, and got hounded for making. But I think folks on the internet are just really fond of a good lynching once and a while. It's a consistent pattern.
- sentenza 13y ago
  This scandal was really weird from a HN commenter's perspective. For me it was the first time I experienced "wild veering" of comments, where I would write a comment that was downvoted multiple times within a few minutes and then later see it climb to thirty or so positive karma.

carsongross 13y ago

“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” I think that the great tech though-crime purge of 2013-? will end up having a different outcome than intended...

swang 13y ago

> I am equally disappointed in Mozillians and in demagogues who didn't see the irony in hounding someone for their private opinion because of "intolerance." His opinion is no longer private. Once you vote with your dollars you have publicly acknowledged your opinion. I don't know if I really support what happened to Eich, but this whole event opens your eyes to the hypocrisy of the tech community. If some person not well known to the loudest voices of the community says something insensitive they will have their lives ruined. Someone like Eich does something similar and all of a sudden it is, "whoa, now, let's not overreact."

beedogs 13y ago
And the people describing his actions to help get gay marriage banned in California as merely "an opinion" that should be respected and treated as "free speech" are just laughably wrong.
- growupkids 13y ago
  Indeed. They passed a law to make it illegal. That's no longer an opinion, that's an action.
- swang 13y ago
  Yes let's clear this up. 1. ~52% of Californians voted for Prop 8. True. But Prop 8 was also confusing to votes as to what "Yes" or "No" meant. Supporters of gay marriage were worried that people would believe Yes meant support of gay marriage and vice-versa. 2. The point about Prop 8 wasn't "marriage." The underlying reason gays wanted to marry is for tax breaks and legal privileges. If you cannot be in a "marriage" you are essentially being taxed more and afforded unequal rights to people who can be in a marriage.
yaur 13y ago
"His opinion is no longer private. Once you vote with your dollars you have publicly acknowledged your opinion." Here is the thing, SCotUS has ruled that the 1st amendment protects anonymous political speech precisely because a lack of anonymity can lead to the "economic or official retaliation" against those with differing political views and has also ruled that money, in the context of politics, is speech. So is there a constitutional imperative to protect the anonymity of political speech when that speech comes in monetary form? I personally believe that we are better off being able to see how our leaders have financed their campaigns, but what we have hear is prima facie evidence that not protecting speech when it is in monetary forms leads to the exact sort retaliation that the Supreme Court used in the justification of McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission. I emphatically don't agree with his views, but the threat to everyone's right to free political speech and the potential threat to transparency of campaign finances are not to be taken lightly.

beedogs 13y ago

This is not a free speech issue. I wish people would stop making that mistake. A private company can fire anyone they want in California for whatever reason they want.

Acropal 13y ago
You're an idiot or incredibly naive if you don't think this is a free speech issue. A guy was forced to resign because he has a different opinion than some group of people. It's bullshit.
- beedogs 13y ago
  Sorry, but "free speech" really only applies when the government gets involved in regulating it. Read the Constitution sometime. He could just as easily have been ousted from his role for wearing the wrong color shirt to work, if enough people didn't like it.

xirdstl 13y ago

The fallout from this will be interesting to watch. If there are other employees of Mozilla that supported Prop. 8 or are otherwise opposed to gay marriage, do they now fear for their jobs? I keep seeing the argument that it's only because he became CEO, which is completely different than CTO. While there is some truth to that, it mostly comes across as post witch-hunt rationalization to me. Maybe witch-hunt is a little strong, but the level of vitriol in OKCupid's message directed towards Eich (and effectively at anyone who shares that opinion) felt genuinely disturbing to me. Maybe I'm just not cut out for these Internets.

Patrick_Devine 13y ago

I'm going to take a different stand than the one a lot of people seem to keep echoing here. I think it was the right thing for Eich to step down. This isn't about free speech, it's about basic human rights. Let me try to re-frame it this way; had Eich been a white supremacist and had contributed money to the KKK, do you still think he would have been fit to lead Mozilla? The same arguments being bandied around here apply. Whether people want to admit it or not, this guy is (was) the public face of the organization. Despite being an avid user of Firefox, I definitely would hesitate to donate money with him as the CEO. And, were I an employee of Mozilla, I'd probably consider leaving. I'm also sure that I'm not alone in this. If Mozilla is shedding employees and losing donations as a result of him being at the head, he clearly isn't the right person to be the leader. As for free speech, I love the first amendment. Eich certainly has the right to express his (completely ridiculous and hateful) opinion. Everyone else also has the right to pressure him to not be the head of a charitable organization which promotes tolerance.

intslack 13y ago
>had Eich been a white supremacist In this first part, you equate white supremacists with what I assume would be "homophobic bigots," implying that there's concrete evidence of Eich being such a "homophobic bigot." When there's not.
- Patrick_Devine 13y ago
  ... other than giving $1,000 to support Prop 8 and denying people the right to get married.
  - intslack 13y ago
    That's not concrete evidence, sorry. Your logic is faulty: 1) You're equating his monetary support for Prop 8 as evidence of homophobic bigotry, which by itself it is not. It's quite obvious that Eich is deeply religious: the herd mentality in those circles is that because same-sex couples can’t produce biological children together, they shouldn't be recognized as marriages. This is rational if you see the institution of marriage as a state-recognized union between that's only between a man and a woman, which has long social and cultural roots. The same can not be said for bans on interracial marriages which are just backed by racism, and not objective facts. Ultimately, assuming that these are Eich's views (which is very likely,) they are ignorant because they focus too much on sex and too little on the idea of commitment and love. What they aren't: grounds for throwing around labels like "homophobic bigot," as there are many who empathize with those who are discriminated against, abused, disowned, lynched and executed because of their expression of gender identity. They see nothing wrong with homosexuals, but rather take issue with marriage as an institution being redefined. Haven't seen any evidence that Eich opposes civil partnerships. I want nothing to do with marriage personally and would much rather a civil partnership for my relationship, but dissolving the state-recognized institution of marriage completely is very messy. So redefining marriage is the best choice, lest we have separate but equal legal frameworks: marriages for heterosexual couples and civil unions for homosexual couples as well as heterosexual couples who want nothing to do with marriage but want the benefits it brings. 2) You're comparing Eich to the KKK which executed thousands of people, which is a disgusting comparison but you may just be historically ignorant. Eich was pressured to resign just because he wouldn't parrot empty words about how he's "evolved" on the issue in the court of public opinion, like President Obama has. And we're worse off for it, because he was the most qualified to lead Mozilla.

whyenot 13y ago

Proposition 8 took away my right to marry. It's a pretty shitty thing to find out that the majority of voters in your home state believe it's OK to treat you as a second class citizen. When Brendan Eich sent in that check for $1,000 in support of Proposition 8, he was making the statement that I should not continue to have the right to marry the person I love and that explicit discrimination against gay people should be enshrined in California's constitution. It left a lot of people very upset. I don't agree with with lashing out at Eich, but I understand it.