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Some Mozilla Employees Demand New CEO Step Down
_xeno_ (155264) writes "Mozilla recently named a new CEO, Brendan Eich, and as commentators in that article noted, there could be some backlash over his private contributions to political campaigns. Well, it turns out that they were correct, and despite a statement from Brendan Eich pledging to continue Mozilla's inclusiveness, some Mozilla employees are calling for him to step down. Should private beliefs be enough to prevent someone from heading a project they helped found?"
At my company, if you start making comments like that, pack your shit.
The employees should make sure the door doesn't hit them on the ass on their way out. Modern day McCarthy's.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Not sure about private beliefs being enough reason but that whole Javascript thing?
Hell YES.
That has inflicted more pain on the web than anything else INCLUDING the BLINK tag!
He actively and publicly contributed to and campaigned for an amendment to take rights away from others. His conduct is most certainly fair game.
--- Generation X: The first generation to have SIG lines inferior to their parents... ---
They're not private beliefs when you use them as a motivation to fund initiatives based on those beliefs.
What do you mean by "that"? Whose comments are you talking about?
First, I'm absolutely 100% against Prop 8. I'm not gay; I just don't think I should have a say in the relationship between two consenting adults.
That said, I'm absolutely 100% for Eich's right to have an opinion I disagree with. If he were acting on his opinion in an official capacity, sure, release the dogs of PR war. But if he maintains a nondiscriminatory policy, even if he may personally not like it, then that's about all you have the right to ask of him.
Remember, sometime it'll be our turn to have an unpopular opinion. Would it be OK for our companies to fire us for them, even if we don't bring them into our workplaces? That's not a society I'd like to live in.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Have you ever uttered this phrase with sincerity?
"what an employee does outside of work hours is nobody's business"
Just some will be more included than others.....
If you are so opposed to this guy's viewpoints that you can't stand to work in the same organization with him, the problem's yours, not his. He's not the one demanding you resign because he doesn't agree with yoru views, you are.
You intolerant clod.
Prop 8 has been a contentious issue for many, and is now largely resolved... yet those who ultimately won are still not happy.
It is interesting to see how those who supported it (even through a simple donation) are now targets for personal and professional attacks such as this... yet this kind of intolerance for the views of other peoples opinions & donations, does seem to be rather unidirectional, but then that is the typical 'tolerance' that the left in this country believes in.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
I do. It was a pivotal day in the history of the organization.
His first action as the CEO was to immediately fire anyone who was in any way, shape or form connected to the GBLT community and issue a public statement that says "Fags should use Chrome or IE. Google and Microsoft like you perverts for some reason, but we don't want any of that here." Within a week, he had diverted a substantial portions of Mozilla's revenue to anti-GBLT orgnizations and publicly backed candidates who actively oppose gay rights. There were unsubtantiated rumors he would be working to remove code contributed by GBLT developers from Firefox, but those turned out to be just rumors.
Oh wait, no. That didn't happen.
He gave some money to a cause he supports a few years ago that a lot of people disagree with (including me) and didn't apologize for it.
But I can see how it's easy to get those two things confused.
"Hey, there is this guy, he has been around for pretty much forever, contributed more than half the goddamn planet, but he donated for Prop 8, what was outlawed anyway, he must be the spawn of Satan! He must step back, stop existing, or we boycott our single biggest hope for a better web and anyone who works there and isn't Eric!"
Those Ars commenters are batsh*t insane, mixing personal feelings and professional stuff. Also, gotta love the comments where he is compared to Hitler or the KKK. It isn't even a different different order of magnitude anymore...
Should private beliefs be enough to prevent someone from heading a project they helped found?"
When your project becomes a corporation you lose the rights of project founder and sadly bend to capitalism of your investors
Mozilla is an open source product that is now made by a for profit corporation.
So why fire him? If I were to donate money in favor of Prop 8 or against it I would like to keep my job.
Regardless of the merits of Eich's actions, or the merits of those calling for his ouster, the fact remains that all that's going to happen is that there will be a kerfuffle and Eich will either ignore it or make some pro-LGBT concession and then things will continue on, the same way things have been going.
Does anyone doubt that the Eich is capable of handling the job? I don't hear that anywhere. Perhaps this whole thing is to focus away from the fact that he may not be the best person to head Mozilla (and remove other candidates from the spotlight by hogging all the attention)? That's a bit CT [1], but I've been accused of worse kinds of thoughtcrime.
[1] http://acronyms.thefreediction...
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He's responsible for that, too.
A homosexual Mozilla employee's take on the topic: http://subfictional.com/2014/0...
A statement from Mitch Baker, Mozilla chairperson: https://blog.lizardwrangler.co...
A statement from Brendan himself: https://brendaneich.com/2014/0...
An official Mozilla statement on its policy regarding employee and contributor diversity: https://blog.mozilla.org/press...
What if that CEO just "gave some money years ago" to Nazis? Now as CEO he is promising to promote "inclusive policies" . Would Jewish people working for this company be justified in asking him to step down?
See, it *is* about the kind of belief that is being dealt with.
In any case, CEO has a right to his opinion and employees have a right to theirs. They are *asking* for him to step down. That's what free speech is for. They can ask, and he can do as he sees fit.
How about those people quit instead. If your not happy about somebody's personal life, then quit. Mind your own damn business and do your job. People are way to nosy in everybody else s affairs. Take that time and reflect upon yourself instead.
So basically, because this guy doesn't enthusiastically cheer for and support gays at every opportunity, he deserves the boot? Doesn't he have a right to express and support his values, too? As an atheist, I think religion is nuts, but the same rights that allow these gay employees to voice their displeasure in the first place, without being booted themselves, should protect him as well. There is no 'controversy' here.
Marriage, religion, and gay rights should have nothing to do with running a software company, which is what he was hired to do. Let him do it. If he sucks at it, then fire him. If he does a good job, then reward him. Part of being an employee is that sometimes you have to work with people you don't like, and this applies equally to him as well as to these gay employees. Apparently, these professional victims think that life lesson should not apply to them, only to their political enemies. Their crocodile tears on twitter do not impress, either, as they are acting like he victimized them just by taking the job at Mozilla. That's bullshit.
Workplaces should be amoral, apolitical places. You were hired to do a job, so was he. Do your jobs well and there'll be no time for stupid political wrangling from any side.
C'mon, there's "prevent" and then there's PREVENT. These people are merely asking him to step down.
It's not like they're spending money to buy a radical new law to expand the government's role into using FORCE to make him "step" down (I think making someone step down is technically called "pushing" or "tripping," but hey, whatever).
(My favorite part of these kinds of issues is that the go-running-to-mommy-government team call themselves "conservatives." That's just awesome. Every day, I try to amuse someone with silly irony, but sometimes reality makes all my efforts seem so inadequate.)
> Should private beliefs be enough to prevent someone from heading a project they helped found?"
Public actions aren't private beliefs. Hugo Chavez, Fred Phelps, or Jane Fonda would be very bad choices as business leaders because they come with a ton of bad PR. A month or so ago Slashdot had story about a small group of Apple shareholders proposing that the company not "waste" money on inefficient attempts to be^H^H appear "green". Over 97% of the shareholders rejected the proposal, preferring to reduce profits by spending money on some solar-electric crap. If the owners want Apple to be a tree-hugging company, they should be able to do that - they are the owners, it's their money. For that reason, they would take that into account in a CEO. That's fine, they are paying the CEO, and should be able to hire one who believes in the mission. The mission, at least at Apple, isn't just about money, it's also about politics.
As another example, Chik-Fil-A's mission is about really good chicken, yes, but it's also about creating a wholesome environment for the employees. For example, all Chik-Fil-A employees have Sunday off to spend with their families. That hurts "the bottom line", but Chik-Fil-A believes the real bottom line is something more important than money. Therefore, to accomplish their mission, they wouldn't put Gene Simmons or Lady gaga on their board of directors.
be against you in any way. It is like buying the ammo for someone who is gunning for you.
And you have to do everything you can to expose who and what they are.
Not sure about behavior, but as a 501c3, Mozilla is not allowed to donate to candidates and has limits on lobbying. But I do not know what exactly the limits are.
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki...
Something in there...
The lobbying ceiling amount for any organization for any taxable year is 150 percent of the lobbying nontaxable amount for such organization for such taxable year, determined under section 4911.
Hopefully someone has a greater interest in deciphering that.^ It does not seem related to anything decided in Citizens v United as far as I can tell.
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Brendan Eich is NOT being asked to step down because of "personal beliefs" so let's drop that BS right now. He crossed the line by donating money to actively strip away rights of individuals which is a whole different ball game. But it comes down to this even though most people won't admit it... It's still socially acceptable to be homophobic. If he had given money to the KKK or something this would not be an issue. But because it is still ok to bash gays and make/keep them second class citizens it's still a "debate"
Anonymous Cowards generally receive no replies because you're a coward and I'm a bitch
.... huh? We'll tolerate you as long as you believe what we believe?
Utter insanity, like targeting a Google employee at THEIR PRIVATE RESIDENCE in Berkeley.
If you thought Nazism and North Korea were bad - just wait until you get on the bad side the political correctness police and the gay mafioso.
You'll wish all your children were gay and your house was painted like a rainbow for crossing a bunch of morally superior homos on a mission.
Should private beliefs be enough to prevent someone from heading a project they helped found?
No, but he didn't keep his beliefs private, he tried to turn them into law. And that still doesn't mean he can't head the project, it just means a lot of people may walk away from it, and Mozilla.org needs to consider that.
Is the backlash itself justified? Well, to some, including myself, it is a bit like supporting segregation in the 1950s. Right now, it is a mainstream political view to believe that gay people should not have equal rights. There's a hundred thousand years of evolution behind that belief, and it is not realistic to expect everyone to switch that internal belief off at the drop of a hat -- no more than it was possible for people in the 1950s to instantly accept equal treatment of black people.
But what good people did do in the 1950s was stop expressing their prejudice. They stopped supporting segregation, and stopped saying that they found it to be an acceptable practice. Most of them still had that deep internal programming. Most people still have it to some extent today. Hundreds of thousands of years of "different looking means dangerous" genetic programming isn't going to go away overnight. But we have reached a point where we treat those beliefs as flawed baser instincts, like the desire to hit a person over the head and steal their BMW. We repress those feelings because we believe in being better than that.
We have reached a point in our society where prejudicial treatment of black people is no longer accepted. We will reach that point with gay people too, and Mozilla will be as embarrassed of having an unrepentant bigot for a CEO as Walt Disney Corp is of Walt's anti-Semitism. It is not that Mozilla should be forbidden from doing so, it is just a question of showing good judgment.
Mozilla, tell Eich to figure it out and recant his position. It's OK to be unable to overcome your baser instincts; that is a reality of being a flawed human. I'll admit that my instinctive reaction to the idea of gay sex is not pleasant. But it is not OK to express prejudicial beliefs or to support prejudicial laws.
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That seems to be a luxury for the 1% these days. If you have nothing to be afraid of, you should have nothing to hide, right?
Mostly random stuff.
And the responsibilities of a CEO mean they can't have personal beliefs that are contrary to those of some of the employees?
If I'm an atheist and I run a Christian college, should the employees be able to boycott me? If I'm a CEO and I voted and supported communist candidates that the majority of my employees don't approve, should I be forced to step down?
As a CEO, can I not have any beliefs?
DUI? Fired. Too Liberal? Fired. Too Conservative? Fired.
We need to only hire CEOs that are robots and have no opinion other than that the company they head is great.
Isn't it ironic that the very people who are asking for more tolerance are totally intolerant of any opposing views ..
You can have them but apparently you can't voice them. Ah well.
So this guy is now submerged in inclusiveness, namely with policies supporting GBLT. In an official statement he said he has people around him guiding him on the culture. Further, as with any company, he works directly with a good number of gay people. This is a perfect experience to change his mind on the issue regardless of the source of his current viewpoint.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Being tollerant towards intollerant people, hasn't worked out very well as history tells.
Extremists will at any time cry foul that some people are intollerant against them, but at the same time perfectly realizing that they were intollerant in the first place.
But if he is activly anti-GBLT his smell and his taste will at one point or another stain Mozillas hiring policies because what the boss says goes, even if it's "private". It's unavoidable and this is bad.
And that is why such a person should not have become CEO of a "colourful" company in the first place. However he should be free to tell his oppinion on LGBT-people, but he should tell it honestly, not the soft washed terms, "think of the children".
He should express his true believes: that he hates LGBT people and thinks that they commit to soddom & gomorra, and that HIV is a devine punishment and that LGBT people should rott in prision like in Uganda because they taint the souls and make other people gay. And that sticking the penis into the ass of another man is dirty and annatural because sex & lust are only ment to produce children so all other uses of the tools is praying to satan.
Most homophobics men fear to see naked men because someone could spot the increasing VECTORSUM.
If he becomes CEO of the Church of the first saints and nostalgics, so be it.
But for now should step down, and a shitstorm is the best way to overcome such a person.
Chik-Fil-A's mission is about really good chicken, yes,
uhh...no. Do you work there or something?
So how does this compare to the rights that the owners of Hobby Lobby have asserted as a means for not paying for health care plans that provide certain forms of birth control? Is asking for this guy to step down as head of Mozilla not the same as asserting that the personal beliefs of the heads of a corporation or organization set them for the organization as a whole? I ask because I don't see how you can ask Brendan Eich to step down because of his beliefs without at the same time allowing the Greens to have religious exception to Obamacare.
Exactly why should they leave the *country*? That's some random bullshit of the finest sort. It may have escaped your notice, but Prop 8 was actually overturned by the government...
But as for the part about quitting, that's fair enough. I'd be tempted to quit in that situation myself, and I'm neither gay nor Californian. That's a reflection of policies and probable motivations I would be extremely concerned to see at the head of my company too!
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
...even be having this conversation if he donated money to the KKK?
I donated for Prop. 8 and I have a gay employee working for me. I know marriage is one man and one woman despite what others may think and society is making a mistake. I also know that having sex outside of marriage is also wrong but nobody is trying to prevent anybody from having a job on that basis. I recognize that others think differently. Now that that I have a large number of commenters hating me and will me homophobic (side note: I'm not scared of homosexuals and I am not sure why anybody who disagrees with anything a homosexual says is automatically homophobic) and assume a lot about me there is more to the story.
I have a gay employee working for me. I treat him with the same respect as my other direct reports and I want him to do well as an employee. My job as a manager is to get the best out of people and do my best to get them the resources they need to do their job. This is the same respect I give others who do things I don't agree with. (I suppose something violent i.e murder would entail a different response, but lets leave violent actions out it). Since our business doesn't have anything to do with marriage there are no conflicts and no tension.
As far as I can tell, Mozilla doesn't have anything to do with marriage as a business. If the new CEO treats his employees with respect, while supporting marriage (one man and one woman) as a person there should be no outcry to remove him as CEO. They should be battling him in the area of public ideas not at work.
He didn't even voice them. The prop8 donor list was outed by the McCarthyits shysters. If they become public knowledge...
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Tolerance is a one-way street.
I wonder how many of these employees voted for Obama before his position on gay marriage "evolved".
sig: sauer
Here, we have the guy that created the horrid abomination that is the JavaScript programming language! He unleashed that horrible language upon hundreds of thousands of wage slave programmers!!! I would place Brendan Eich and his creation of the JavaScript programming language, up there with George W. Bush's occupation of Iraq on the level of horribleness!! Hell, even the NAME JavaScript is bad, since JavaScript has nothing to do with the Java language, or Sun Microsystems.
Now, he is being criticized for giving money to efforts opposing homosexual marriage, and somehow, that is the GREATER evil?!?! I will keep my French mouth shut, but those are some very, very, very, very, very, very fucked up people.
To paraphrase Ahmadinejad, I pray that JavaScript will somehow fade away from the Earth. In the name of Kernighan and Ritchie, may Brendan Eich die a very slow and very painful death.
You can have them; you can voice them.
But don't expect everyone else not to voice THEIR opinion.
So McAvoy is glad he can express feelings without fear of retribution but because of the CEO's private views, *he* should suffer it? What hypocrisy.
What is ironic is that they ask for "equality", while supporting laws that favour "diversity quotas" to give them preference in the hiring process. But then again, that's how socialism corrupts societies. "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others".
Sometimes the job of CEO is not looking out for the best interests of the product and company. Sometimes their job is looking out for some people in a back room that actually hired him to make things fail so that they can make lots of money scavenging parts and losing competition to other companies they own. Unfortunately there are still legal ways to do this, and many venture capital companies prove this over and over.
If the Mozilla staff has justification to question the CEOs motives, he probably should consider either taking steps to end their worry or perhaps stepping down. Even if the employees don't have the power to force the step down, they would have the ability to cause problems and impact profits.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
They should count themselves lucky the CEO does not apply the same standard to those demanding he step down.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
Marriage has absolutely dick to do with religion anymore. Marriage is a state-run institution that affords married couples certain rights and privileges that ensure the steadfastness of their union and protects it from state interference. That is all.
Perhaps the most important part of marriage is that married couples enjoy the right of spousal privilege in legal proceedings. One spouse may not be compelled by the State to testify against the other, nor reveal the contents of privileged communications, for example. That's huge, and it is something that gay couples in states that do not recognize or allow gay marriages do not have. Any two people who are committed to each other should have this right of privilege.
What States really ought to do is just remove the word "Marriage" from all of their books and only offer civil unions, to any couple who desires to have one. If you want to have a religious marriage, get one in a Church, and follow your religion's rules, but leave the rest of us out of it. Religious folk do not have the right to force the rest of us to follow their religion, and in fact our Constitution guarantees that gay couples are free from state-sanctioned discriminatory religious beliefs.
As the creator of the blink tag, I am deeply hurt and offended by your comment. I require a public apology, counseling for everyone involved and restitution for pain and suffering. Didn't you know that everyone in tech, even the blink tag creator, reads Slashdot?
heh. if chik-fil-a really cared about wholesome environments for families, they might figure out a way to pay employees a bit more*. Hourly employees don't always want 'forced' time off either. I'm sure many of them would jump for the chance to work Sundays, after all that's another 50-80 dollars for them.
* -- obviously chik-fil-a needs to turn a profit, but claiming to care even an iota about employees while paying less than subsistence wages is rather disingenuous.
Ironically, those who are calling for him to step down are actually discriminating against him based on his personal beliefs. Pot meet kettle.
So no, he shouldn't be asked to step down for that. Personal beliefs are personal. Work is work. It's about being the right person for the job and doing the work well.
Hugo Chavez, Fred Phelps, or Jane Fonda would be very bad choices as business leaders because they come with a ton of bad PR.
There's a deeper problem than bad PR with two of those people. Just sayin'.
this is about PUBLIC ACTIONS. Nobody is responsible for Brendan Eich's public actions except Brendan Eich. He reaps what he sowed just like we all do.
Brendan Eich publicly funded a political campaign to destroy the marriages and families of about 25% of his fellow Californians. Some of whom work for Mozilla, and some of whom partner with Mozilla. Private beliefs are something that is private, inside your own head. Publicly funding the Prop 8 campaign is public, and takes place well outside of Brendan Eich's own head.
Had Brendan Eich kept his hatred and bigotry inside his own head he would be OK right now. There are CEO's who are racist bigots and they keep it to themselves. What Brendan Eich did by comparison was sign up for the KKK and donate thousands of dollars to *successfully* reimplementing racial segregation in California, by aligning himself with money and groups that came mostly from outside California. Because of the actions of Brendan Eich and other bigots like him, millions of Californians were told by their government to start sitting at the back of the bus, and this went on for years while the courts laboriously went through everything and said, yes, we already knew that creating second-class citizens was wrong. No, you don't have the right to make them into second-class citizens.
Married couples were told that their marriages were invalid. People died while their marriages were invalidated, and their partners got kicked out of the home they had lived in for years because the house was taxed as a gift between two platonic friends.
Me, I am not going to be involved in anything Mozilla-related while this bigot fuck is CEO. I took Firefox out of my development targets. Not because of Brendan Eich's “beliefs” but because of his actions.
Hugo Chavez, Fred Phelps, or Jane Fonda would be very bad choices as business leaders because they come with a ton of bad PR.
There's a deeper problem than bad PR with two of those people. Just sayin'.
Hopefully all three presently. Can't be soon enough...
And the real issue is ... that he donates to those evil "Republicans"? It has to be as donating to Lucifer and his minions is always acceptable.
So this guy named Adolf is hired. He's a strong supporter of the Burn-all-Jews party. Do the workers just give him a pass? No.
It's not that there are more conservatives being fired for their opinions than other groups, it's the whole idea that "the personal is not private" and that who people are/support/believe in their personal lives should be a determiner for/against the rest of their life. People of all stripes should be allowed to compartmentalize, otherwise we're all just one slip up against the group-think away from total destruction. We are all people, not just actors in predetermined roles.
> they might figure out a way to pay employees a bit more
That's an interesting question. I looked it up and they do in fact pay their wage workers a bit more than other fast food places. Not a lot more, but a bit more.
I compared them to the #1 fast food chicken (KFC) and the #1 fast food (McDonald's).
do you even have a vague understanding of what a ceo does? I bet not, based upon your absurd comment. The overall success or failure of a business depends on the ceo having a sound vision for the company and being able to execute upon it. Perhaps when you can do that yourself- showing the leadership skills to get people to do what you want AND show a profit for the business you will be qualified to judge. Until then... ah wth, why am I bothering with an idiot?
Who else could also read the comments in the moderation queue in his blog? I even saw full names and e-mail addresses of people signing the comment with their first name only and admitting in the comment that they're gay. Quite a delicate bug in Brendan Eich's blog software, I'd say. I can upload (censored) screenshots as a proof.
However, Mozilla would be in the right, legally, to fire these guys -- publicly associating yourself with a company and making loud political statements is not your purview. No, you don't get to do that. You get to do that only without associating yourself with (someone else's stuff).
And what exactly was the boss doing again? Or does only the CEO get to come out and show political support? Pun fucking intended. People dense at this freedom shit piss me off.
You can have personal beliefs. It only becomes a problem when your personal beliefs mean you are a bigot.
I think you can justify firing or not hiring someone for a upper management job if their personal beliefs indicate they are stupid or crazy or bigoted. In the same way that having a shitty GPA might mean you don't understand the material you are supposed to, believing that the moon landing was fake, or that evolution is "just" a theory, or that black people are lamanites, or that homosexuality is a sin, etc, might indicate that someone is a fucking idiot, and maybe not the best choice to inspire confidence of all his subordinates.
Strange reactions here on Slashdot. Some "insightful" comments here were about freedom of believe, freedom of speech, intolerance, separation of work and personal believes. Let me first explain that same-sex marriage have absolutely nothing to do with religion. The point of the debate of same-sex marriage are not some pagan rituals from aeons ago, long assimilated by the Christian church, that involves a priest and some blessings. The point of same-sex marriage is the recognition of a partnership of two people by the government on the state and the federal level. In the USA there are currently 1,138 statutory provisions[1] in which marital status is a factor in determining benefits, rights, and privileges. That are 1,138 benefits, right and privileges that gay couples currently cannot benefit from, because they were born like they were born!
Nobody is talking to force the church or any priest to marry same sex couples. It is only about the recognition of the union between two people so they can enjoy the same benefits, right and privileges that heterosexual couples enjoy!
Brendan Eich have all right to exercise his freedom of speech and freedom of believes by his donation to Prop 8. But you have also give the same right to the employees of Mozilla who opposes his bigotry. The definition of a bigot is someone who "strongly and unfairly dislikes other people or ideas" [2]. Nobody except Brendan Eich can know if he have this feelings against gay couples, but his actions are very clearly the actions of a bigot. How can somebody who does not strongly and unfairly dislikes same sex couples to marry donates for a law that would prohibit same sex couples to marry? (keep in mind that by marrying I mean that the state recognizes the union)
How would you feel if tomorrow a Prop 9. would be introduced that would prohibit inter-racial marriage? And if Brendan Eich would donate from his private bank account to Prop 9? Would you still be comfortable that he represents Mozilla as the new CEO? There is no difference here. Two people are forbidden to form a union only because they were born like they were born.
Again, Brendan Eich have all his rights of freedom of speech. But he represents as the CEO Mozilla, and his actions, also his private actions, are tied to Mozilla.
[1] http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d...
[2] http://www.merriam-webster.com...
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
I'm fine with the call for this guy to lose his job over his beliefs.... as long as those who support his ouster ALSO support the right of any other business to drive-out any executive or employee who supports sexual deviance as well. If it works in one direction, then it also goes the other way ... and hint to all the gays: you are, and always will be, outnumbered.
The so-called "progressive" ideology ALWAYS only goes in one direction -> the cultural, political, economic, societal toilet. Anybody who resists the downward plunge MUST be attacked by progressives - NO dissent is permissable, no opposing views will be tolerated, and the "progressive" response to anybody who dares point out any problem is OUTRAGE. The progressive cry of "free speech" and "I disagree with everything you say but will defend to the death your right to say it" only applied in the 1960s when they were demanding the right to use any rhetoric against traditional American views - once they got control of the universities, the "progressives" introduced the concepts of "speech codes" and "hate speech" as supposed justifications for their clamp-down on the free speech of their opponents.
Where progressives are taking us:
More people are unemployed now than when Obama was first sworn in
The nation is twice as far in debt as when Obama was first sworn in
Fewer people have health insurance now than when Obama was first sworn in, and those who have it pay more on avg and face higher deductibles
Marriage rates are going down (which means fewer stable families for the next generation of children)
US military is shrinking fast, and will soon be at pre-WWI levels (levels so low they contributed to the start of World Wars)
More surveillance and monitoring of American citizens than that faced by Germans under the NAZI party
More laws restricting the activities of individual Americans than ever before
More regulations (with force of law but without ever having been debated and voted on by accountable elected legistlators) than ever before
More taxes on more things and activities than ever before
This is "progressive" but it's not progress (unless the goal is destruction)
Just as Hitler murdered over 6 million Jews, the gay activists (with their refusal to close their bathhouses and behave with at least a tiny sliver of sexual morality) introduced AIDS into the US and spread it across the nation resulting in millions of deaths.
It clearly IS about belief systems and the extremely evil behaviors they enable that lead to millions of dead bodies... NOBODY should ever align themselves with such evil... oh, wait... YOU meant... HUH????
Were you trying to say that a guy who opposed evil and never killed anybody was in any way as sick and twisted as people who actively drove policies that killed millions of people? Now I'm confused.
Words still matter. Words have meanings. "Marriage" pre-dates the US and its Constitution - and it means a union of a male and a female.
YOU can choose to call an orange an apple, bit an orange will never BE an apple. Society could pass a law requiring people to call oranges "apples", but people will ALWAYS know the one is not the other... and the action itself will only distort society further by proving that modern laws have become twisted and not respectable (just like the big pro-gun-control Democrat in CA who was just arrested for trafficking in missile launchers and machine guns).
This is not a matter of "discrimination" in the normal sense because it is not about some immutable genetic fact (like gender, hair color, skin color, etc). If opposing gays is being a bigot, then gays are being bigots when they oppose religious people. It's only a recent political tactic to say that opposing somebody's beliefs/behaviours/tastes (as opposed to opposing a person's genetics) makes one a bigot. There is no "gay gene" ... that was a lie gay activists used to get sympathy in the eighties - no such gene exists and studies of identical twins confirm that "being gay" is NOT biological. There are people who claim to be gay then claim to be straight, there are bisexuals, etc. This stuff is all behavioral ... preferences ... some people just wanna get frisky in non-traditional ways. Some people want to eat fish and others prefer pasta. Some people want to work for a living and others want to rob banks. Some people like to play online games and other people want to climb mountains. If I decide I no not like people who climb mountains, it's NOT the same thing as if I decide not to like Asians (for example).
This was NEVER truly about "marriage equality" and if you google it you will find the videos of gay activists admitting that it's really a drive to both destroy marriage generally, and force religous institutions to change their beliefs. The effort will fail. First, because normal people will always still gravitate to the idea of marriage (as they have for at least 5K years no matter the government, culture or laws), and second because while phony religious people will happily conform to anything society demands (there have always been such phonies), the truly religious never will (which is why the world's so-called "great religions" have survived through so many centuries as governments, nations, and entire cultures have arisen and fallen). Presuming that people who take their religious beliefs seriously will simply change those beliefs in the face of temporary pop-culture (every temporary pop-culture has believed itself to be permanent, until it collapsed) is supremely, historically ignorant.
Should private beliefs be enough to prevent someone from heading a project they helped found?
Yes. Since we apparently live in a country where executives' private beliefs can be imposed on everyone else in the organization because "corporations are people too, my friend," then the organization should be answerable for the executives' private beliefs. It cuts both ways.
"What States really ought to do is just remove the word "Marriage" from all of their books and only offer civil unions, to any couple who desires to have one."
This was a good start - it's what this is REALLY all about: destroying traditional marriage, and government support for it
" If you want to have a religious marriage, get one in a Church, and follow your religion's rules, but leave the rest of us out of it."
Ahh, but here you went "off the rails". You "gay marriage" activists have no intention of being "live and let live" on this... your more vocal advocates have already let it be known that they intent to sue any church that will not "marry" gays, and will try to take away the tax status of any church that does not comply (meaning churches that are not "gay friendly" will be oppressed by taxation whereas churches that go along will not be). Sorry, but this pretend-libertatianism does not withstand the light of day.
"Religious folk do not have the right to force the rest of us to follow their religion,"
They are NOT forcing you to go into their churches, pray their prayers, etc nor are they demanding that you marry a real girl instead of a queen... so, NO they are not forcing you ... but you and your friends ARE trying to use government to force THEM.
" and in fact our Constitution guarantees that gay couples are free from state-sanctioned discriminatory religious beliefs."
Wow. I guess I missed that part. Was that the 7th Amendment that covered "gay rights"? Was it the 8th? Just WHERE in the Constitution is that guarantee for "gay couples"????? I've read the document several times and while I've read the part about government not being allowed to establish a church (something that has never happened in the US, but has in places like England, with its "Church of England" that all citizens pay a special tax to support and that has a governmental role) and I've also read the part about government being forbidden from interfering in religion (which it would be by establishing "gay marriage") but I've just never seen any mention whatsoever of any sexual dysfunction ... not homosexuality, bisexuality, pedophelia, zoophelia, necrophelia, or any other perversion. It just aint in there. You COULD take the traditional conservative view that the Constitution is only there to limit the federal government to a few very limited things and the Bill of Rights is just the part that says, "oh, and on these particular items, we REALLY MEAN IT!" (in which case its silence on things like sexuality would mean the feds would have NO role in saying anything about your bedroom, and any fight on any matter involving sex would left to individuals and community or state standards) but you "gay rights" people are almost always lefties who think the federal government should be involved in everything, and find Constitutional limits on power to be inconvenient (Obama calls the Constitution a document of "negative rights") so you should be fine with government power being used to oppress you anytime your opponents have that power...
Blacklisting of people for their membership in the Nazi Party or GALA seems fine to me.
... as a belief I can't fire him right, but if he goes to a gay rights parade, you will support my right to fire him correct? And, I suppose if an employee of mine votes for a liberal Democrat who supports gay marriage, or passes-out one of those "No H8" papers, then you will support my right to fire him? You DID say it was about actions, and NOT beliefs, right?
Why is it that I suspect you are lying and that this is EXACTLY about BELIEFS and your position that nobody has the right to believe differently from you? Typical "progressive".
Just like the "early 20th century progressives" with whom Hillary Clinton self-identifies, I presume it will not be long and you will be calling for the "humane" execution of people who disagree with you (this is where Hitler got the inspiration for his "final solution" for the people he despised). Well-educated people know full-well the history of progressivism; an ideology so foul the American people turned away from it after Woodrow Wilson exposed it's ugliness in the US and the horrors it helped spawn in Germany went on full display. You lefties hid under the mantle "liberal" for a few decades until you tainted THAT word, then Hillary Clinton signalled a return to the term "progressive" a few years ago (probably hoping that term was no longer "toxic"). The truth is that you progressives DESPISE free thought and free speech (the entire century of history of the "progressive" political ideology and movement proves this) and will tolerate no opposition or dissent and you also cling to that other progressive pillar: "the ends justify the means". You "modern" progressives live by the writings of the extremely warped Saul Alinsky, who pushed the idea of demonizing political opponents in his book "Rules for Radicals" which he dedicated to Satan (get a 1st edition and READ it... more-recent editions have been sanitized. It does not matter whether you think "Satan" is a real dude or a fairy tale... the point of that dedication is that it's to a world-view... one that is NOT "good"). ANY belief you guys oppose, you will label as hateful and seek to silence as though you are performing a public service while you are actually suppressing freedom of thought, freedom of belief, and freedom of speech. You simply despise human freedom and liberty. Your pretense that "gay rights" is about some universal "right" is fallacious... you are only wrapping YOUR particular beliefs and preferences as "rights" you are "protecting" while you suppress everything else.... that's the opposite of true human freedom.
So, so important!
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
However if those beliefs are based on their religion, then forcing that person to leave the company is in essence forcing the person to leave because of their religion.
Generally, most people are able to keep their beliefs out of the workplace, even CEOs.
Thing is, there were some non-bigoted reasons out there for being for prop 8. Though I do think many people would disagree and insist loudly that this is impossible. I voted against by the way, but I like everything I vote for I looked at arguments from both sides and read the text of the laws, etc, and ya many of theo official ballot arguments for were pretty stupid.
For example, prop 8 restored what had already been voted on the past just with a bit stronger wording to get around a judicial ruling. There are people who are for more concerned about judicial activism (their words) than in discriminating against gays. Ie, they may think that gays can get civil unions and marriage may come about over time but having a judge overturn a proposition by the people will cause them to explode in righteous anger. There are others who were not bigoted against gays and who felt that civil unions were a good solution but who did not think that redefining the word "marriage" was the right way to go about it (I disagree with that view, but there are many who held it and I do not believe they were bigoted in those views). And finally there were others who just want to see gay marriage be on the ballot rather than be decided by a judge.
You can sit there and call him a bigot all day long, that doesnt make it true.
Bigotry requires hatred, and I dont see any evidence of that from him. I DO see it from you, you seem to have a good deal of venom towards him (hes "retarded"? really?).
Eich would be well within his rights to tell everybody to pack up and not come back. However, that would simply make matters worse. He would be far better off ignoring the complainers, and would actually have a chance to change their opinions by simply inviting to a gripe session.
If you don't live in California, you may not understand how bad this is. Never mind losing his job as Mozilla CEO — Brendan Eich may not work in California again after this, simply because so many of the people at every single company simply won't want to work with him. Or he may go from job to job, failing badly, because the people around him are either not following his leadership or may even actively thwart his leadership and any potential success.
You have to realize 3 key things to understand what is going on here:
* California, and San Francisco and northern California specifically, are LGBT sanctuaries. LGBT people come from all over the US and all over the world to live and work in San Francisco and Silicon Valley primarily or even solely because they can live and work here free from discrimination, or essentially free from discrimination. The LGBT population in SF and Silicon Valley is probably 25%, not 10% as elsewhere. And here we are almost all out of the closet. That means we have lots of straight allies who also don't want to participate in Eich's hate.
* All of the court cases on Prop 8 failed to find a single benefit from it. Not a single benefit. It existed solely and only as a way for bigots to bash on LGBT people. Whether you knew it or not, when you voted for Prop 8 or funded Prop 8, you were 100% expressing hatred against a minority. That is all you were doing. Absolutely NOTHING ELSE. THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR IT. This is maybe the one ironic benefit of Prop 8: the aftermath was like a mass education teachable moment. But Brenden Eich did not participate in this community growth. He still supports Prop 8, even after hearing all the harm it caused to LGBT families for no benefit at all.
* There is a huge amount of anger over Prop 8. A lot of people were badly hurt for no benefit. People are not only not in the mood to work with an unrepentant Prop 8 bigot, they are in the mood to actually confront him or even harm him physically. So many people recanted their Prop 8 support that we were in some sense left without a villain. Especially because the core of Prop 8 support was from out-of-state. But 5 years later, into that vacuum steps Brendan Eich, just got a big new CEO job in Silicon Valley and he's doing fine, totally unrepentant about his Prop 8 funding, says he'd do it again. People can't make rent in northern California and Eich had thousands of extra dollars to spend on trying to prevent his neighbor from having equal rights. He's the perfect villain.
So even though most people in California today may forgive you for voting for Prop 8 — if you later became educated and apologized for the pure, 100% hatred that you expressed — it is very hard to find forgiveness if you were a funder. And he is not even asking for forgiveness. He's like, “I'd do it again if I got the chance.” That is like being elected Governor of Mississippi and we find out you are not only a dues-paying member of the KKK, but you are completely unrepentant about it to this day. You thought you were in the new Mississippi, but turns out you are actually in the old one. But don't worry, the KKK Governor says he'll treat and promote everyone equally. Trust him.
And what Mozilla is saying is, “hey you, who came to Silicon Valley to live a discrimination-free life, whether LGBT or straight, why don't you work all day for the guy who funded that years-long break in your marriage, or your sister's marriage, or your friend's marriage, and who is not even sorry about it, and just trust us that he won't treat you like the second-class citizens he says you are, and hope he doesn't get another chance at something like Prop 8, and now, let's all make a community-sponsored browser together! And lots of partnerships with other companies that don't want to work with Brendan Eich either!”
It's not going to fly. It has already crashed. Mozilla now has to admit that, fire Eich, and put someone more suitable in there.
The Minecraft guy stopped working with Ocu
You can have personal beliefs. It only becomes a problem when your personal beliefs mean you are a pagan.
You have not read the previous comments. He privately makes a donation. Some asshole published the list of donors. And you do not even know all the details. Maybe it is his mother who make the donation with his credit card, who know?
Me, I am not going to be involved in anything Mozilla-related while this bigot fuck is CEO. I took Firefox out of my development targets. Not because of Brendan Eich's “beliefs” but because of his actions.
Awesome!! More firefox for the rest of us!!
Oh, wait...
Though, if any CEO thinks homosexuality should be prohibited, he/she obviously has no idea of basic logic, basic evolution an cause/effect. Though _if_ you know basic logic, than its obvious that such CEO is a danger for any company and he/she should be fired immediately. .. his basic 'believes' have nothing to do with that, it's all about his capabilities which he/she proved to be non-existent with such a donor.
If as an atheist you were hired to run a Christian college and it turned out that you were active in a major political campaign to reduce their religious freedom, I can pretty well guarantee you that you wouldn't merely be asked politely to step down...
Now mostly at Usenet:comp.misc & SoylentNews.org (it's made of people!)
I actually support Prop 8, and all the crazy logical conclusion it leads us to. The stance you take, however, that "you either approve of us, or you’re a bigot" isn't a strong argument. You're effective saying "accept my beliefs, but I will not accept yours." If we're really a happy free-speech loving, multi-cultural, multi-gender-identity & orientation, multi-religion supporting, all-inclusive society how do you so easily discard another's beliefs? That it conflicts with your set of beliefs is insufficient.
Am I a bigot if I oppose bestiality? Bestiality --- that's crazy you insensitive clod! What is the moral underpinning of supporting prop 8? Equal protection under the law, maybe...yet the gay community seems to have rejected the idea of equal legal rights through civil union. OK, so maybe the moral support is that all have the right to be with the person we love? What if I love a pretty little cow, pot-bellied pig, or a horse –giddy up! Maybe the moral underpinning is that we're two consenting adults not harming anyone else—stop denying us out of spite & fear. Well, OK maybe a cow cannot consent to my love (don't tell PITA that --- cows are autonomous thinking beings with feelings). What better way to give cows a voice in society than to support prop 9 (the love your cow prop).
OK, maybe bestiality is a bridge too far.
What about polygamy? (I'm not talking about 12 year old pregnancies here -- 18+ only) I love many people --why don't we all have the right to be together? A polygamous unit makes a ton of sense from a child raising perspective – all the built in day care, extra hands, etc.. As community breaks down having a nuclear family unit of 10 people might be smarter than we accept. But wait, polygamy oppresses the women, and creates a generation like the Lost Boys. Wait, are you saying that women aren’t strong or smart enough to choose for themselves? Wasn’t that an argument homosexuality? You bigot! Well, maybe the oppression we see in crazy Mormon cults is because society has pushed it to the fringes. Now if we were just accepting and support edpolygamy with prop 10 (the love everyone prop) things could be different. The people entering into polygamy are in love and consenting adults. Can you really argue against them following their hearts?
So clearly my tongue has been planted firmly in my cheek, but marriage between man/woman was anchored in widely held tradition. Now, maybe that tradition was too restrictive, excluded too many, or was flat out incorrect. Once we throw out the conceptual underpinning for the man/woman restriction, however, we have to be prepared to take the argument to its logical conclusion. That logical conclusion is, roughly stated -- do what the heck you want when it comes to matters of the heart.
So Eich made a contribution against Prop 8. First, we're assuming his motivation -- -- I don't believe he's ever made a public statement on the donation. Maybe he's a fervent believer in free speech? Maybe he's in a relationship with a guy (still in the closet) working at a conservative organization, and although the rest of the world didn't understand it helped his lover's career. Or maybe the assumptions are correct --- and that bigot doesn't believe in gay marriage. How can you say his heart is wrong and your heart is right?
Don't be a bigot is a good rule to live by, and easy to state. But, be careful where you throw stones. Bigot is defined as "person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices". Isn't support of Prop 8 your obstinate and intolerant devotion?
However if those beliefs are based on their religion, then forcing that person to leave the company is in essence forcing the person to leave because of their religion.
Religion doesn't get special consideration. Everyone is free to believe what they want privately, but if they decided to make something stupid or bigoted their public position then it is absolutely fair to judge their intelligence and suitability for a job based on that.
Some people believe that cows are sacred. They probably wouldn't make good managers at McDonalds. Just because it is a religious belief doesn't mean that McDonalds can't consider it when hiring them.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
or when your personal beliefs mean you think you can clearly and simply label someone as a "bigot" because their opinion or beliefs simply don't align with your own, and punish them for it.
Slapping a label on someone and reducing them to a one dimensional object is convenient, but doesn't make it accurate or fair Is someone still a "bigot" if they just feel that homosexuality is unnatural or weird, but have no problem or discriminatory feelings towards other minority groups, be it blacks, women, latinos, asians, etc.. (or even whites for that matter)? I think there's a difference between being "bigoted" towards one small faction, and just being a bigot, along the lines of Archie Bunker.
People are entitled to their personal beliefs no matter what you think and that's their private business, it shouldn't affect their hiring or firing unless they're behavior openly affects their work or coworkers; they have a right to feel or think as they do, just not a right to act on them (besides, people don't really control gut feelings, just as you don't decide whether you prefer men or women, or redheads or blonds, somehow you just like what you like, and don't what you don't).
Before the wild slashdot accusations fly, no, I am not religious. No, I don't believe it's a "sin". But I don't like seeing discrimination used as a tool against something that is subjective.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Employees are under no more obligation to support anti-gay leadership than they'd be obliged to support anti-black or anti-Asian leadership.
If a CEO supports LESS FREEDOM on gays, those who disagree with him are free to express their desire for his ouster.
Those whining about CEO freedom are forgetting the freedom of others. I regard freedom for others as protecting MY freedom. I'm not gay, but I oppose superstitionists who want a "reduced freedoms set" for others.
"Equality, motherfuckers, DO YOU SPEAK IT?"
Why would you *want* to run a Christian college as an atheist?
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
You mean like the NRA who is currently targeting a prospective Surgeon General because he said a single tweet saying that guns were a public health issue? Because it's simply a public health belief nothing to do with the second amendment rights.
Libertarians are the worst of the lot. They claim manifest destiny and eugenics as good ideas because it will create the best and the brightest, all the while ignoring the pitfalls of their beliefs and the benefits of others.
How about you stop talking about what the "left" loves to do and get your own house in order before spewing your typehole all over?
Brendan Eich publicly funded a political campaign to destroy the marriages and families of about 25% of his fellow Californians.
25%? Where did that come from? The share of LGBT folks in California is estimated at about 4%, and there were about 100,000 same-sex households out of a population of roughly 38 million as of 2010, according to this.
Married couples were told that their marriages were invalid. People died while their marriages were invalidated, and their partners got kicked out of the home they had lived in for years because the house was taxed as a gift between two platonic friends.
I'd like to see a citation for that claim. As far as I can tell, the only same-sex marriages that took place in California that were subsequently annulled were the handful performed by Gavin Newsom in 2004. The fact is that the 18,000 same-sex marriages that took place after the California Supreme Court struck down Proposition 22 and before the passage of Prop 8 were not invalidated
.
"At last check... gay individuals had the same rights as straight ones... and while sometimes those rights may not line up with preferences (ie right to marry someone of the opposite sex where desire is to marry someone of the same sex), the right remains the same regardless... you purposely try to pain the issue as something more than its not."
No that's not having the same right. They don't get tax, medical, employment and many other kinds of rights/protections. You're very wrong int his. It's not a desire to marry someone of the same sex, it's a desire to marry someone that they love and have a life together.
"History tends to be written by the victors... yet up until just two years ago, the President of the United States claimed to be against same-sex marriage... does that mean up until then he should have been viewed as a homophobic and anti-gay bigot? No? Interesting the continued double standard... or do you think history will record it that way?"
Actually yes. His position was homophobic and political. In fact you'd find that politicians get a pass on a lot of issues because they are politicians. Ron Paul for example was a notorious racist, yet he gets a pass.
"Again... do you have a point? It's been clear for some time which way the tide was going... yet the issue is less today about the 'right' to marry someone of the same sex, but of the compulsion to force others to recognize it... and no, I don't mean at the court house, but of even a florist or baker being able to say they do not agree with the union and cannot provide services for such an event."
So you'd support not allowing people of color to be serviced? Denying people service based upon your personal beliefs is prejudiced. The issue is most certainly still about letting gays marry, as these are all trappings of marriage and they still are not allowed to get married in many states. Until it's universal within the country your point is invalid. I personally, don't see forcing churches to marry gays is something that should be forced, but operating a business in the public sphere, getting tax breaks and licenses from the public sphere means that you accept that you're going to be expected to treat all people equally. Once you start saying it's okay to discriminate against some people where do you stop? Your beliefs are yours, your actions are public.
or when your personal beliefs mean you think you can clearly and simply label someone as a "bigot" because their opinion or beliefs simply don't align with your own
I am labeling him a bigot because his beliefs make him a bigot. It is not because they don't align with mine. Karl Marx's beliefs don't align with mine, but he is not a bigot.
lapping a label on someone and reducing them to a one dimensional object is convenient, but doesn't make it accurate or fair Is someone still a "bigot" if they just feel that homosexuality is unnatural or weird, but have no problem or discriminatory feelings towards other minority groups, be it blacks, women, latinos, asians, etc.. (or even whites for that matter)? I think there's a difference between being "bigoted" towards one small faction, and just being a bigot, along the lines of Archie Bunker.
So what you are saying is that in order to be a bigot you need to be bigoted towards all or most minorities? I really don't see what the utility of this definition would be, apart from the fact that I don't think its accurate. If he thought Chinese people were unnatural and shouldn't be allowed to marry, but only felt this way about Chinese people, I think the vast majority of people would be calling him a bigot with me. What I am saying is that this is not really any different.
Furthermore he doesn't just "feel" that homosexuality is unnatural or weird. He supports passing legislation to give them less rights.
People are entitled to their personal beliefs no matter what you think and that's their private business, it shouldn't affect their hiring or firing unless they're behavior openly affects their work or coworkers;
I think people are entitled to their beliefs. I don't think people are entitled to their jobs. I also don't think people are entitled to have their belief's given immunity from criticism.
they have a right to feel or think as they do, just not a right to act on them (besides, people don't really control gut feelings, just as you don't decide whether you prefer men or women, or redheads or blonds, somehow you just like what you like, and don't what you don't).
Yeah I am not particularly attracted to the idea of 2 guys having anal sex either. This is different from supporting laws that would restrict the rights of gay people.
Before the wild slashdot accusations fly, no, I am not religious. No, I don't believe it's a "sin". But I don't like seeing discrimination used as a tool against something that is subjective.
I think public shaming is one of the best tools for effecting social change. Calling for people's resignations from leadership positions seems perfectly reasonable, especially if you feel uncomfortable working for someone who supports laws giving unequal rights to you or your friends. I think this would be exactly the same situation if the CEO had supported legislation to make it illegal for a particular race to be married.
Firefox is distributed outside the US. And what the CEO says in public (or which becomes public) is going to affect the company.
Over here, views like that are views we usually hear from Uganda or Iran. Would you use a browser from Uganda or Iran? If this gets outside a few tech sides, expect a lot of people over here to give Chrome a go.
If you were the CEO of a company losing customers to the competitor because of your views, how many employees would you fire for telling you why you are losing customers?
Brendan Eich publicly funded a political campaign to destroy the marriages and families of about 25% of his fellow Californians.
Gays are so faggotly unstable that a legal document is the only thing holding their relationships together. Great argument you have there.
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My knee-jerk, East coast liberal reaction is that I don't want someone with bigoted views in a position of authority. But, in light of the Hobby Lobby case, I have to reconsider the consistency of my views. If I'm to insist that the owners of Hobby Lobby keep their personal, conservative views out of the running of their business, but I still acknowledge their right to hold these views while in a position of authority, then I must acknowledge the right of Eich to hold, and even to publicly support, his bigoted views, as long as they don't encroach on his running of the company. In short, if we can require Hobby Lobby to play nice with their employees, than we must also require the employees of Mozilla to play nice with their new CEO.
My only qualm with this position is that, as someone pointed out in a prior comment, Eich's political contributions make clear his disagreement with the idea of equal rights for members of a protected class. This doesn't mean that he has discriminated against gay people or any other protected classes in his capacity as an executive, nor that he ever would. My personal opinion is that he ought to have a chance to run the company fairly, despite his views, but he should know that he's on thin ice.
Of course, since campaign contributions legally constitute speech in our country, he has, in essence, made public comments denouncing gay marriage. Thus, he has stated his opposition to a civil right for a protected class. Whether this, in itself, would present a hostile, discriminatory environment for employees under him is down to case law and well outside my knowledge, though my guess is that it wouldn't.
If the boss is doing something counter to the employee's best interest. I think the employee has the fight back. I commend the employees for having a pair.
Look, marriage has for thousands of years meant an agreement to share living with: 2 people, 2 genders, exclusive, for life, one species. It also has meant for the most part being open to having and raising children. If you want to change some of those terms, I see no reason why you cannot make agreements with others which alter some of those terms...number of genders 2, number of people 2, duration other than lifetime and so on. However, first, calling it "marriage" is in some sense a fraud, claiming the agreement to be something it is not. Another word should be used. English is good about that: it's easy to create words.
As for the way that such agreements are handled at law to provide special treatments, one needs to ask whether a substantial majority of the participants are doing something which is needed. Bearing and raising kids is something that marriage, as defined for millennia, on the whole involves. Yes, there are those who may not be able to have kids but such decisions about legal treatment arguably get made based on what social effects they have. Using different terms for different agreements is also likely to assist in gaining clarity about this. Again, using "marriage" to refer to any sort of sharing agreements seems to cover up differences that may be observed in different types of agreements. Seems again fraudulent in intent and effect. I don't think it is government business to tell any people they can't have sharing agreements, so long as no deception is involved (and I think bigamy laws should be based on deception issues rather than limiting this). Of course, independent consideration of social benefits of contracts with same gender folks, of contracts with 3 or more folks, of contracts for short times, etc., will likely result in decisions that some of these should not have any consequences beyond the contracting parties. Maybe the "espousal for a weekend" kinds of agreements will be deemed more trouble than they're worth, even. But the decisions should be separate, clear, and sensibly arrived at.
The views of a random employee does not affect company image. The public views of the CEO do.
Chris McAvoy says he's glad he works at Mozilla, where he can say things "without fear of retribution". Evidently he believes that isn't a courtesy that should be extended to the CEO.
Web love Mozilla. At our office, we often talk Firefox.
Thank Mozilla and everyone from http://bcfamilytour.com
Why are these gay/lesbian Mozillians so obsessed with a religious institution? When I came out as gay years ago, I was quite happy that my relatives stopped asking me when I was going to marry. We should cherish the freedoms we have.
Is it not the case that those, (employees who tweeted) who question the openness of the CEO's equality stance based on his public affiliations, are first to strike an unequal environment of not willing fostering differing options? Are the employees making the case that they themselves do not believe Mozilla should be open to equal opportunity of employment even of those who differ in option or personal stance? This seems to be an insecurity of individual employees who they themselves are not keen on upholding equal opportunity in the work place.
People have marked your post as "Funny", but IMO it should be 100% serious, "Insightful".
Javascript the language is a veritable celebration of ignorance and incompetence. If that's the level of intelligence and skill that Mozilla wants to run the company, then it deserves to sink into oblivion.
What javascript was and is, in fact, is the only girl at the dance.
That is MUCH different from being technically superior.
What I do in my bedroom has no bearing on how I treat my secretary. If I can keep my private life private, and not have it spill over to public, then what am I guilty of?
Given the above example I say, "the new Mozilla leader has a right to a past, and from a nomination committee, was found to be the best candidate. He is there because he was the best of the very fine group of candidates. I say he stays as CEO
Judge him for what he will do as CEO
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Well, that is up to you, but where does it end?
Let us assume that he is let go because of this. Why stop at the CEO? Why not the COO, the CIO and the CFO? And the management level below that? Soon, maybe we are demanding that companies audit their employees to make sure there are none whose views you find objectionable.
Why not go down all the way to the janitor? Basically, if anyone ever expresses a thought that is at odds with the contemporary thinking, they should be barred from any job, because, well, you don't want to support a company that employs bigots right? Because the CEO is just a job holder. He is doing a job which he was given, not because he passes some litmus test on his personal political views.
Why end there? Why not ask every potential employee what their views on every topic you might find objectionable to ensure that you don't employ the wrong sort of people?
I'd hate to live in a country where I am only allowed to earn a living if I have the correct thoughts and the correct political affiliations.
Your views are scary.
As I have said, you dont like this country, then move to a communist or socialist country of your liking, since you are so unhappy here!
Brendan Eich have all right to exercise his freedom of speech and freedom of believes by his donation to Prop 8. But you have also give the same right to the employees of Mozilla who opposes his bigotry.
No, this is exactly what anti-gays are using as a foundation lately to stop gay legislation, and the basis for "religious freedom" laws bills going up around the country. It's wrong, stop playing into it.
If you don't like something, you have a right to that opinion. You can say you hate me, my family, religion, this country, whatever... I'm okay with that. That is your opinion and that is me being tolerant.
He didn't express an opinion, nor did he spend money to announce that he disliked it, this man spent money to help take away someone's already given rights. Gays were allowed civil unions at the time of Prop 8, the goal of Prop 8 was to deny them that right. When you try to actively participate in taking away someones rights, you have crossed over from opinion, to oppression. That is why Prop 8 was shot down every time it went to court and that is what this man supported, publicly.
I've never met a murderer or a rapist and yet I dislike both of them - NOT because of who they are, but because of what they do
Exaggerate much? We're talking about a group that has been determined to be 3% of the population. Are you claiming that California has 8 times the normal concentration? That's insane as is comparing this to the KKK.
Punishing actions is radically different from punishing words. For example, it is understandable to boycott states with the death penalty. It is not OK to demand people to be fired or demoted merely because they support the death penalthy.
Ideas should be debated freely, without fear of retribution. People should express the ideas they believe in, not those ideas that will get them rewards (and refraim from expressing ideas that would be punished).
So pro-choice people should be fired, because they support stripping the rights of the unborn.
People who support the death penalty should be fired, because they support stripping the right to life of criminals.
Or maybe we shoundn't fire people because of their views.
Ad hominem attacks don't help your case. Politics is supposed to be about which ideas make sense; its is not supposed to be about which side is better at name-calling.
I have yet to see a coeherent argument for why it is OK to fire or demote someone who disagrees with the institution of same-sex marriage, while it is not OK to fire someone for any other personal beliefs. Some people try to say "he is on the wrong side of a civil rights issue", but that is incoherent and inconsistent. If we allow whitch hunts when "it's about civil rights" then the powerful will simply define their pet causes to be civil rights issues.
Oh, so you support abortion? You want to deny the rights of the unborn. Fired!
Oh, so you support the death penalty? You want to deny the right to life of felons. Fired!
Oh, so you are against the independence of Quebec? You want to deny the right of political self-determination. Fired!
I, on the other hand, prefer that political, philosophical and religious speech should be free from punishment.
This is yet another case of glbt hypocrisy. Now I am not lumping all glbt together; I am noting there is a vocal minority who believe freedom of speech and freedom of belief are the rights of them and their supporters, but no one else.
"I'm so glad I work for an organisation where I can say these sorts of things" but obviously he doesn't think his CEO should have that right. Fire the CEO for his beliefs!
You don't work for an open company unless EVERYONE can be open. You don't live in a free country unless EVERYONE is free to express themselves. It should apply to the religious add well as the gay.
Who could have a problem with a program that returns /* two.c */ // return twice the input
twice the input?
$ cat two.c
#include
#include
int main( int argc, char *argv[]){
int innie;
innie= atoi(argv[1]);
printf("the answer is: %i \n", innie * (int)3);
}
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
If the members of the christian college you ran found out you were an atheist, they WOULD try to get rid of you.
As a CEO, can I not have any beliefs?
The CEO of a company can have religious beliefs. However, the Supreme Court of the US is about to decide if the a Corporation can have strongly religious beliefs based on the beliefs of it's CEO and if those beliefs justify not complying with Federal Laws (Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc).
While I agree with you *in principle*, I can't agree with you as a blanket statement. If my CEO were an actual Nazi in his off-hours, or a cap-wearing KKK member, I think a) I'd be rightfully worried for how my company would be perceived based on my CEO, and b) I'd find his stances so odious that I wouldn't wish to continue being employed by him. BUT, while not wishing to be employed by him is easily solvable, I'd also hope that the BoD would share my opinions, and would force him to step down.
Furthermore, when I get hired, as a general rule, at the Fortune 500 companies I've worked for, they make me sign something about being careful when in the guise of a $COMPANY employee about what I say, regardless of whether I'm on the clock or not. While I don't know that the CEO would be forced to sign the same stuff I am, I *do* know that the CEO is the CEO 24x7, and that, by choosing that position, he really has acceded to the fact that his personal life and corporate life overlap substantially, and that one is no longer entirely distinct from the other.
So, yeah. Don't think he gets the slack. I side with the FF employees on this one.
However if those beliefs are based on their religion, then forcing that person to leave the company is in essence forcing the person to leave because of their religion.
Religions do not get carte blanche protections for their conclusions and actions. There are many religious people who have reached conclusions about things that a jury/judge would not allow. It doesn't matter what system of belief or logic created an idea, if that idea is illegal.
non-bigoted reasons
more concerned about judicial activism (their words) than in discriminating against gays
Civil rights have never been a matter of public opinion. See the civil rights movement. That is also not a sign of being non-bigoted. It is more a sign of being ignorant of the Bill of Rights, Constitution, and the history of Civil Rights.
who felt that civil unions were a good solution but who did not think that redefining the word "marriage" was the right way
Unequal treatment based on a person's natural attributes (race, orientation, etc..) is pretty close to the definition of bigotry.
And finally there were others who just want to see gay marriage be on the ballot rather than be decided by a judge.
See Civil Rights above.
Valid points. I concur.
that he has made Mozilla liable for judgement when the next round of firings and layoffs happen. He is thus a net loss to Mozilla