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Comment by mbrubeck | Hacker News Reader

For the record, Mozilla does provide employee benefits that cover same-sex domestic partners, and I would be shocked if any CEO attempted to change this. (I am a Mozilla employee.)

The Mozilla community is governed by participation guidelines that state: "support for exclusionary practices must not be carried into Mozilla activities," and "support for exclusionary practices in non-Mozilla activities should not be expressed in Mozilla spaces."

http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/parti...

UPDATE: In a meeting with Mozilla staff this morning, Brendan reiterated that he was involved in the creation of that code of conduct, and supports it 100%. He also specifically said that he should be held accountable to it, and that it's important for those in positions of power to be accountable to those with less power.

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It would have been nice if he also addressed that issue in this message instead of a staff meeting. I mean, like, there is literally a world watching (geographically, not necessarily when it comes to population).

We (the staff) asked for a public statement of some sort, and he seemed open to that.

There is a difference between a statement someone got asked for or an immediate statement (even a short one like: "I acknowledge that some people in the developer community have issues with this decision because of my donation to prop8, an issue I will address soon").

The current state of things shows that he didn't feel like this needs to be addressed by himself.

That would be welcome to hear, as a Mozilla user and someone who wants to trust the org to stand for inclusive, humanist values in Internet technology.

Wow, so every CEO should be be asked to state their position on social issues?

What are staff going to do if they don't like the answers? Quit? Strike?

Mozilla is a non-profit that takes moral stances. So their CEO has to embody those values as well.

As a policy, no.

But when they've taken a public position that implies they consider some employees to be less equal than others, yes.

Anything should of "I was wrong" implies he is not fit to lead a diverse organization.

He hasn't taken a public position. He's pretty consistently refused to speak publicly about politics at all. The only reason we know his private position is because somebody found his name in a list of private donors to a ballot initiative six years ago.

He was too chicken to open his own mouth. Instead, he paid others $1000 to get the state of California to call my friends f----ts for him. That's enough of a public position for me.

You are making a mountain out of a mole-hill. Grow up.

Well, if donating money is political speech that's covered by the first amendment, then he shouldn't be surprised if his money talks.

I am curious to know if you (the staff) were satisfied by the public statement put out?

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