>He donated to leave the existing law in place that defined marriage as between a man and a woman.

This is wrong in every way that actually matters.

The California State Supreme Court struck down the law which banned gay marriage, and gay couples were allowed go be married. Many many gay couples were married during this period.

Eich donated to Proposition 8, a ballot initiative which provided an amendment to the California State Constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman within the state consitution, in effect overruling the judgement of the California Supreme Court.

It was not an effort to "leave the law in place", it was an effort to remove from gay couples a right which they had already been granted by the court system, and to freeze this into the constitution itself.

So imagine being a gay Mozilla employee and knowing that your boss not only wants to prevent you from gaining civil rights, but wants to remove civil rights which you were already granted.

> Hell, even Obama ran on keeping that the law.

DOMA is completely unrelated. This is about the California Constitution, not any state or federal law.

I agree with you that the internet version of torches and pitchforks is probably more counterproductive than righteous, but I think in Eich's case the backlash and ultimate result were probably fair. In his own words, he could not be an effective leader under the circumstances. That was exactly right. In 2014, LGBTQ rights were still very much an active fight, and placing someone who was publicly fighting against those civil rights into a position to be the public face of the organization and the leader to everyone working for and with it was untenable. Public protests in that very specific scenario were warranted, and their success should be held as an example of when and how the influence of public opinion was wielded appropriately and effectively.

Brendan Eich was in no way destroyed, and it certainly wasn't over speech. The anger against Eich was because of _actions_, specific and concrete, the entire purpose of which was to deny people like you basic civil rights.

>FYI: I'm queer.

So are Aaron Schock and Lindsey Graham, but that doesn't mean they're not also self loathing bigots.

https://signorile.substack.com/p/lindsey-grahams-queer-predi...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/us/politics/aaron-schock-...

It wasn't the opinion, it was the actions that were taken. As CEO you're in the spotlight. A CEO also (together with the board) sets direction. That's quite different from any other position within the company. Meaning, for most positions I do not understand why people are getting fired. For a CEO to act in a way that is highly frowned upon, plus goes against what the company is trying to convey, that's just plain weird. IMO keeping such a person on would be strange.