Mozilla CEO resigns over anti-same-sex-marriage controversy

[IDemo]

Source: CNN

Just ten days after taking the job, Brendan Eich has resigned as CEO of Mozilla after sparking outrage over his donation to an anti-same-sex marriage campaign.

In 2008, Eich donated $1,000 to California's Proposition 8 campaign. Prop 8 was a ballot initiative that sought to make same-sex marriage illegal in the state. News of Eich's donation was first made public in 2012, but attracted a new wave of attention last week when Eich was promoted to CEO from his previous job as chief technology officer.

Developers of Mozilla's Firefox browser, the gay community, vocal Mozilla employees and Firefox users took to blogs and Twitter (TWTR) to express outrage over Eich's appointment. Many called for his resignation. On Monday, online dating site OkCupid joined the fray and called for a boycott of the Firefox browser.

Eich defended himself in blog posts and interviews, saying he was committed to working with the LGBT community and continuing Mozilla's culture of openness and acceptance. He also apologized for "having caused pain."

Read more: http://money.cnn.com/2014/04/03/technology/mozilla-ceo/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

[Warpy]

1. I didn't think he was going to last long

I guess the BOD forgot for the time it took to hire him who their customer base are.

I would have hated to dump it for the duration of his reign. Chrome is OK but their bookmarking is clunky and inefficient in comparison to Firefox's completely intuitive system.

I'm old. I like intuitive.

[Jackpine Radical]

8. I just reinstalled FF.

Chrome won't run Java 7, which some of my online statistical SW requires, so I had to retreat to Safari, which I also find clunky. I was willing to put up with it to help the boycott, but I'm glad to have FF back on my Mac taskbars.

[Tx4obama]

2. Kick n/t

[Dopers_Greed]

3. Good

Hopefully he didn't get a golden parachute.

[mpcamb]

11. I suspect whatever severance package he agreed to will carry him forward to an enviable lifestyle.

[Ash_F]

4. Way back in 2008 huh?

Lost the culture war. Paying the price now. Should've done the right thing back then.

I am watching our society change right before my eyes. I feel old

[RKP5637]

5. I was ready to dump Firefox. I've been with Firefox since day one, but I

refuse to support knowingly any product or company with bigots, homophobes and the like in the captain's quarters. I also run Chrome on Linux, it works rather well, but I like having Firefox Linux, as well as Firefox Windows which I run under Wine (Linux) as a Windows application. What irks me about guys like this, they suddenly see the light when found out and then they think they can cover up their prior actions with some sweet talking words.

[Maven]

6. Good.

Being a public opponent of equal rights SHOULD disqualify you from such a high profile job.

[ZombieHorde]

28. Both Obama and Hillary had the same opinion

of gay marriage as Brendan Eich when he made that donation.

[yardwork]

35. Posting it over and over again doesn't make your statement accurate.

Neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton were in favor of Proposition 8, and neither contributed to support it.

The issue is not Brendan Eich's "opinion of gay marriage." The issue is his financial contribution to a campaign to make illegal the civil rights enjoyed by a minority group of Californians. It was legal for gay people to get married in California, and then it wasn't. Proposition 8 took a civil right away, and the people who contributed to that campaign paid for advertising that called me and my partner an abomination and said that we were unfit parents because we were pedophiles.

Neither Obama nor Clinton ever said anything remotely like that.

[ZombieHorde]

39. They were both against the legal recognition of your family.

Obama specifically mentioned his Christian faith as the basis for his opposition. Jesus didn't say shit about marriage equality, so Obama must have been pulling from the OT, and that book says some really fucked up shit about you and your family.

People were crying with joy when he --with his openly homophobic views-- was elected.

And I didn't post it over and over again; I posted it twice, you goofball.

[aznativ]

37. Yea- here it is inhis own words

[calimary]

7. Good.

The internet can certainly be our friend. You can't be "committed to working with the LGBT community" when you're supporting a ballot measure that kicks them in the teeth.

[stg81]

9. exactly

[alp227]

10. As the saying goes, if you can't take the heat,

Stay out the kitchen. This guy just won't admit he was wrong. "Free speech" my ***...he donated to a fascist theocratic cause.

[Pterodactyl]

12. Yeah. A company should never hire someone who has done something immoral.

[fujiyama]

13. Hiring him was an incredibly stupid move

Aside from being very insensitive and morally reprehensible, I have no idea what they were thinking hiring him. The tech community, at least on this issue, is very liberal. Tech companies were among the first to extend benefits to same sex couples.

A real bone headed move and I'm glad this douche is out. And actually giving money to something like Prop 8? Wtf?

[paulkienitz]

18. I can tell you why they hired him, I think

because regardless of his politics, he's been a tremendous contributor to web browsers, and was key to preserving free and open competition in that field at a time when Microsoft looked ready to monopolize it. He also personally invented JavaScript, which is the foundation supporting most of the latest new web technologies.

I would say that no matter how homophobic he might be, he's still someone who's left our world better than he found it.

[closeupready]

21. You're not gay, I am. If he supports laws making my family's life worse,

then I think that trumps some stupid web browser bullshit. Sorry.

[paulkienitz]

22. there's a difference in the magnitude of personal impact

On the gay marriage issue, he's a tiny drop in a large bucket. His personal contribution is miniscule in proportion to the group he's part of. But on the web thing, he's one of the inventors of buckets. It's a less important area of life, but his personal share in the outcome is vastly larger.

[closeupready]

23. Right, you don't care that he's a homophobe, and I do. Are we done here?

It's a big deal to me, but not you. Meanwhile, you think his ability to manipulate 1's and 0's excuses his support for Prop 8.

I will not accept your argument that your interests are more important than mine.

[Paladin]

26. +1. Well said. (nt)

[paulkienitz]

27. that's not my argument

as I think you know. But to reject it, and Eich, is your prerogative and I won't question your choice to do so.

[closeupready]

38. Good enough for me. Cheers.

And peace. (There's an irony in the fact that Alan Turing was gay juxtaposed against the context here, but I'll leave that discussion for another time.)

[yardwork]

29. Let's pause to remember what Prop 8 did.

Marriage was legal in California. Proposition 8 made it illegal. A vote for Prop 8 was a vote to take away a civil right.

Next, a vote for Prop 8 was bad enough, but this guy contributed money to fund advertising that called me and my partner an abomination. He paid for ads that said that we were unfit parents to our children because we are pedophiles. That's the kind of thing that ads for Prop 8 said. They called human beings abominations. They equated being gay with being a pedophile and stated that children aren't safe with us.

That's a little more than a drop in the bucket "on the gay marriage issue."

You have to wonder - a person who would give money to support something like that, what else does that person do and believe?

[fujiyama]

40. Meh, the tech world is full of brilliant people

and most are NOT CEOs. The CEO represents your company in most regards. And being a proponent of one of the vilest ballot proposals in CA in recent years is not the kind of person you want representing your company at the VERY highest level.

We're not talking about a simple director or manager level - or even VP level. We're talking CE-Fucking O. No, he didn't deserve to be on the executive board, even if he did invent Java Script.

[blackspade]

14. K&R!

[rocktivity]

15. CUE THE VONAGE THEME!

Now I won't have to stop using Firefox -- giving up Barilla pasta was awful enough.


rocktivity

[Zorra]

16. Yowza! We. Are. Mighty!

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

17. Once a homophobe, always a homophobe?

Is there no redemption, no enlightenment, no evolution, no forgiveness?

It seems odd that a "wrong-way" political donation in 2008 should be the basis for so much invective.

I'd bet there are respectable DUers who may have voted for *gasp* GHWB.

What's the statute of limitations on dumb acts?

...

If there is evidence of continued and consistent public homophobia, then yeah, fire him. Otherwise, I just don't know.

[paulkienitz]

19. this reminds me of the horror over Paula Deen admitting to using the N word 30 years ago.

Maybe sometimes it's more about distancing ourselves from the bad as personified in a selected scapegoat, than it is about a realistic measure of how much harm someone is doing.

[yardwork]

24. Paula Deen's racism was a lot more recent than 30 years ago, and it was on tape.

Google for news reports with links to things she's said and done in recent years.

[paulkienitz]

30. I googled as you suggested

and nothing came up about recent stuff on tape. Can you narrow it down?

[yardwork]

34. This is one of many youtube videos

And there are transcripts of her describing her ideal Southern wedding - complete with black men (she used the n word) dressed in white shirts, acting as slaves.

Edited to add - in the video above, don't miss toward the end where she calls out her "black friend" - "He's black as that board. Come on out here, Hollis! We can't see you against that board."

[yardwork]

25. This was clearly a business decision on the part of Firefox.

I'm gay, and I'm annoyed with people who contributed to Prop 8, but nobody asked my opinion about whether or not this guy should be fired. It's clear that a whole lot of people were upset about his being made CEO, however, and those people made their voices heard. I doubt that they were all gay. Companies don't do anything that isn't directly related to their bottom line. Obviously, this was.

What's interesting to me is that companies have decided, more or less en masse, that homophobia is not a good business strategy. This is because their customers have decided that. That's pretty cool, when you think about it.

[Inkfreak]

36. +1! It is pretty cool. (nt)

[ZombieHorde]

31. Obama and Hillary had the same opinion at the time of the donation.

Vote in a homophobe, and the people cry with joy.

I can't help but wonder if this is really about marriage equality.

[yardwork]

32. Neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton contributed money to support Prop 8

[Pterodactyl]

41. Although her husband did support DOMA and DADT and she was cool with that.

[closeupready]

20. False. The Velvet Mafia FORCED him out.

I read it here on DU last week, so I know it's true.

[ZombieHorde]

33. I'm glad things are changing in favor of marriage equality. nt