Besides, he never said he hated same-sex couples. Supporting Prop 8 was a bad decision, but the vitriol directed at Eich is a non-sequitur. There's varying opinions on varying sides of the debate, so why is Eich singled out for having one?
People can hate Eich. I frankly don't care what anyone thinks of him. But it's so boneheaded that someone would need to step down from a CEO position just because he supported a bill. It's scary. And remember, Eich isn't just "some guy"; he was CTO of Mozilla for years and invented JavaScript.
The whole situation is kind of pathetic.
When it comes to personal/political beliefs, there is a line. Having beliefs that go beyond that line means it will (should) affect your professional life. But people draw that line at different places, meaning that, in aggregate, you don't know where the chips will fall in situations like Eich being the CEO of Mozilla. Some people draw the line in a place, such that supporting anti-gay marriage legislation is acceptable, others do not.
I think few people would be surprised if there was an uproar upon the revelation that the CEO of Mozilla (or any company) was a supporter of, say, the KKK. Most everyone would agree that that's an unacceptable "political" belief, such that he should be not be the CEO.
So the question isn't whether Eich's beliefs should be an issue. The question is whether supporting anti-gay marriage legislation goes beyond the line of acceptability. And the public has spoken pretty clearly here. Good for them.
Rather than becoming "the anti-gay rights company which courageously stood on its anti-gay rights principles".
Publishing Nazi tracts might be protected by the First Amendment, but you can't compel it to be protected from social disapproval.
Only somewhat more challenging to frame climate change the same way.
Political views are already covered under human rights via freedom of speech, thought, and conscience.
Some people view animal rights as equivalent to human rights.
These are not fundamentally different things. At most it's a matter of framing.
I'm disagreeing with Brendan on that opinion. That was $1000 - and I was thinking about donating an equivalent amount to the other cause before I learned I'm way too late. But having him step down? Now, we can have our - even good - corporations run by moral people - scratch that: by people whose most important virtue is morality. That could be good. Good for everybody. But I'm not so sure - so I'd hesitate to demand Brendan to step down.
Because he has quite a talent to be useful in other important places.
Or, alternatively - what would you think about my original question? Should we closely scrutinize executives on their beliefs across the whole spectrum? I suspect there are other important issues, besides LGBT opinions.
Cynically, it's about conforming to the views in your given industry, company, culture, or society.
The lofty way to put it is a Mozilla CEO should represent the organization's ideals of tolerance, diversity, etc.
The cynical way to put it is tribalism. Humans want people with similar beliefs around, because they are good, and believe the other side to be evil (this being one of the strongest issues). One way for ordinary people to enforce their political power is through means like this. There's no need to dress it up in terms of fundamental rights, bigotry, intolerance etc. And in the tech world, gay marriage is one of those "not OK's" to oppose. I'm sure in the Southern Baptist world, donating to Planned Parenthood, will immediately get you called for an ouster as a baby-killer. It's just that the climate in the tech world has already shifted to this point, whereas the climate in Brendan Eich's church probably has not.
It's really about what acceptable opinions. For some opinions, there are silent majorities in some areas, that are silenced in others. I'm just trying to come up with a way to understand this, that can be applied to all situations and all ideologies.
Additionally, I think a negative opinion on gay marriage is particularly contentious, as opposed to a view on environmental or immigration matters, because it could affects the rights of employees, and additionally it creates a toxic work environment for supporters of gay marriage.
Companies shouldn't stray into the realm of political opinion because their employees do not have homogenous political views.
1) "opinion on gay marriage is a political view" 2) "Companies shouldn't stray into the realm of political opinion because their employees do not have homogenous political views."
Employees may have - even strong - opinions against gay marriage. But they can't be homogenous?.. So they shouldn't be considered? Or being "particularly contentions (because)" makes them exempt?
Looks like a really complicated subject, don't you think?
I have a same-sex partner, Brendan is willing to work and make a real effort to take away our recognition. To unmarry our children's parents. To eliminate our shared benefits, and impair the other 1148 rights conferred by marriage.
I am not happy that my money and time might go towards his salary and to further empower his views, so it's a logical decision for me to boycott his company. Many others feel similarly.
To be fair, at any point he could have said "My views have evolved, and I no longer think it is my right to deny others marriage.". He chose not to.
But really, (D) this caused a lot of scandal for Mozilla that runs contrary to its mission, and some internal scandal too. If it were chartered as a conservative political organization they could have laughed it off. but it's not Mozilla's purpose to play Moral Majority or Larry Flynt.
So - given there's a pile of real-world data to reason from - what do you think made this different?
Aside from that, much of the job of being a C-level executive is about perception and trust. People need to see you're a "good person" who is frictionlessly aligned with the company's public profile. Weird outliers, like denying gay people the right to get married, cause friction.
- "Political views" is too vague to comment on.
- Immigration opinion is absolutely grounds for changing a CEO - it affects groups of people, potentially both employees and customers of any company. If the CEOs views affects them sufficiently negatively, this should surely be addressed?
- Animal rights - possibly , particularly if the company's role is animal-related.
- Climate change - as above.
All the above might not apply to a company / CEO that is not as directly "public-facing" as Mozilla, but generally for any company with a widespread reputation to uphold and an outspoken employee base, then absolutely any of the items you listed could be grounds for change.
That's how it's supposed to work, isn't it? If a widget-maker is a bigot, there's supposed to be a boycott while everyone moves over to his competitor so that the bigot goes out of business, right?
I agree that this shouldn't have been a controversy to begin with (though a conciliatory move in reaction to public outrage is hardly unreasonable), but isn't this a victory for libertarianism?
Definitely not FAIL, this is a big win for Mozilla and civil rights.
He made a private donation privately, 6 years ago.
