Mozilla employees tell Brendan Eich he needs to “step down”
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
You have a right to work for whom you choose, but not to demand that everyone above you in a company concurs with your political views. This is the social media witch hunts we've seen in last few years reaching into actual corporate boardrooms and tossing out a man's career because he holds a view that is not only mainstream, but that he has demonstrated he won't bring into the workplace.
Let me be clear: I believe Brendan Eich is wrong about gay marriage. But I don't think the price of his convictions should be his career at Mozilla, a company he's played a large role in building, when there is no documented instance of him ever disparaging or otherwise harming LGBTQ employees or community members.
EDIT: Downvote away, but it's pretty obvious that these folks are abusing the freedom they have to attack somebody who deserves our respect and admiration, and are tarnishing the reputation of their cause.
This witch-hunt isn't helping anyone--it's saying that those involved care more about politics and sex and gender and bullshit than about creating good code and leading well and supporting freedom.
"these folks are abusing the freedom they have to attack somebody..." What abuse? These people are exercising their freedom. Their freedom of speech, their freedom of association. There is no abuse here, this is exactly what people have a right to do.
"politics and sex and gender and bullshit..." There is more to life than technical ability.
That's a far cry from hopping up on a podium and decrying the evils of the homosexual agenda. Had a muckrake not come across it, nobody would've known, and fewer still would've cared.
-> Demanding that he resign and step down and/or pressuring people to force him to resign? If that comes to pass, that he is forced out of his position against his will, then that isn't free speech at work, it's tyranny of the majority. He will have been effectively fired for his religious beliefs.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Section 703(a)(1) and (2)
"(a) Employer practices
It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer -
(1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or
(2) to limit, segregate, or classify his employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin."
What the hell else do you (rhetorical you) need? Why is anyone suggesting that he should be forced out of his position and that he "should have known that there would be ramifications". Perhaps a shitstorm, but never unemployment. This violates the law.
It would be if Mozilla Corp (an employer) fired him or told him he must resign, hence the part "pressuring people to force him to resign". You can demand and complain all you want, but until management responds to that opinion with a loss of employment, no it is not abuse, and I would agree. Sorry if I didn't make that clear.
Except the bit where he contributed $1000 to a campaign to vilify them and take away their rights.
http://www.ag.ca.gov/cms_pdfs/initiatives/i737_07-0068_Initi...
It hardly vilifies anyone--it's pretty stupidly worded as is ("marriage"? What is that? How does it compare with "civil union"?)
Look, did you vote for Obama or Bush? Then you too have actively vilified people and acted to take away their rights.
We can't punish people for participating in our form of government, even if we disagree with them. Aaargh.
Marriage is a defined legal construct, not an abstract idea.
>We can't punish people for participating in our form of government, even if we disagree with them.
Of course we can. It's the government that can't. We can freely choose who we associate with, and we can freely choose to not associate with people who hold opinions that we feel are immoral, even if the opinion isn't illegal.
Is that true? I'm not American or a lawyer so I don't know what workplace discrimination laws are like, but I would assume that in many western countries, you can't legally discriminate against or harass workers or fellow employees based on their beliefs.
This opens up a legal question to which I don't know the answer: Where would these "step down" tweets tread legally with respect to workplace harassment?
You may have a point on workplace harassment, although I would doubt that he would push for that because of the negative PR that would rain down upon the company.
He lives in the UK, so I doubt it.
Also: when there are only two candidates with any real chance of winning, voting for the one who (personally and party-affiliation-wise) has a more liberal attitude to gay rights is obviously not actively vilifying gay people and acting to take away their rights.
But Prop 8 is much more simple. Here is the full text:
>SECTION I. Title >This measure shall be known and may be cited as the "California Marriage Protection Act." >SECTION 2. Article I. Section 7.5 is added to the California >Constitution. to read: >Sec. 7.5. Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or >recognized in California.
Voting on that measure is a very simple decision: you either agree with that one point or you disagree with it. So yes, it is possible to create a much better opinion of a person's view on a particular matter who votes one way or another on Prop 8 than on which candidate they vote for.
For a long time, everybody was opposed, but now it's just fine with most people:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/163697/approve-marriage-blacks-wh...
Hardcore racists now know that talking about "miscegenation" will get them ostracized. So yeah, the KKK is a pretty reasonable parallel here.
Also, it's not about "not liking the gays". It's about things like letting gay partners have the same rights in medical cases of their spouses as straight spouses. It's about child custody, death benefits, and lots of other very important things that may not be a war in Uganda but they are massively important and life-changing for the people involved.
It may not be "the war in Uganda", and it may not affect you personally, but it's certainly a critical issue for some people.
If a person in a position of power over others (hiring/firing/promoting) has openly held views of discrimination against a certain group of people, it is a problem. It doesn't matter if he's the president, or a CEO of a tech company.
Of course, its entirely possible that he doesn't let his views impact his work or the way he treats his employees.
The relevance to the CEO job is that he is a) boss of everybody at Mozilla, and b) the public face of Mozilla to customers, donors, partners, and the public. Having actively worked against the civil rights of gay people gives both groups cause to question their involvement, and has to make some employees nervous that they will face the same sort of discrimination at work that they have faced elsewhere in their lives.
Redefinition of marriage is not a human right, sorry. I can't decide I'd like to marry my work and have society accept that as marriage. Marriage has a definition, that up until now hasn't included gay couples. Changing that is not trivial, is not a law of nature and is not supportable on human rights grounds.
Let's, for the sake of argument, assume that gay couples are already free to live together and enjoy the protection given to married couples: inheritance, hospital/prison visiting rights, IRS deductions, [whatever social right I may be missing]. I know that is not the case; bear with me.
Now, imagine that a group wants to reserve the right to call marriage limited to a long term commitment between man and woman. Also imagine that gay couples want to call their long term commitment a marriage.
Now, you have an unsolvable problem. Both groups may argue that it is their right to define what marriage is all the way to the end of times. The problem is mostly with the naming of the concept; it is not with rights attributed to gay couples. Framing the discussion around the concept is actually hurting LGBTQ movements.
My personal opinion? Grant all, and I mean all rights to gay couples that classic couples have. Use the first-come-first-served rule and maintain the term marriage to mean a classic family. Create a new term for gay couples.
Give it two generations and this whole shout war will subside, and by then everyone will naturally call gay couples married couples, just like any other. In the mean time, important goals can be reached faster (like visiting rights).
Straight folks just want an exclusive right to define it, and on that basis deny that right to other people. Well, sorry, but nobody ought to have that exclusive right, especially when it's little more than a fig leaf to deny privileges to a group of people. We all know the real reason. It's religious, which just doesn't hold any water, and everybody knows that.
And your remedy is "separate but equal." Non-starter.
> "Gay couples have been allowed since 2005 to enter "civil partnerships", conferring the same legal rights as marriage, but campaigners say the distinction gives the impression that society considers gay relationships inferior."
http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/03/27/britain-gaymarriage...
Discrimination exists, and this same "different name" concept has existed, with socially damaging results, in the past:
What has been the symbolism of marriage in our culture? Part of it is definitely gender-neutral: celebration of a couple's love and their commitment to each other. But it has also been about the particular dynamic and beauty of a relationship between a man and a woman, including procreation. This part is very important to many people and it is taken away if the custom of marriage is changed to include gay couples.
I think this is a legitimate cultural dilemma where both sides can be empathized with. Opposing gay marriage (but not legally equivalent civil unions) can be a legitimate position that doesn't necessarily imply any sort of intolerance or hostility towards gays. Moreover, it is intolerant not to respect this position. I find it unacceptable for people to be ostracized and disenfranchised just for wanting to preserve a custom which they hold dear and which is part of their cultural identity.
You may think it's all just academic, but I'm actually convinced that a significant proportion (though probably not the majority) of gay marriage opponents isn't anti-gay. The unnecessary polarization of the debate doesn't serve good to the gay community either, as they feel more threatened than they should - such as in the case of Brendan Eich becoming Mozilla's CEO.
As for me, I think marriage shouldn't to be sanctioned by the state any more. Civil unions for everybody and let the cultural stuff be figured out organically.
Oh wait, they did: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separate_but_equal
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullity_of_Marriage_Act_1971
Marriage is tweaked when needed.
I don't know what the price of Eich's convictions should be, but I think that a good way to find out is for people who have been strongly affected by his convictions to say clearly what they think about it.
I don't know whether Eich will (or should) remain CEO, but whether he does or not, having people speak up in this fashion seems unambiguously positive.
However, the specific behavior in the article does not seem like that. It is employees making tweets like "I love @mozilla but I'm disappointed this week" and "I'm an employee of @mozilla and cannot reconcile having @BrendanEich as CEO with our org's culture & mission. Brendan, please step down." That doesn't seem to be harassing or threatening or a witch hunt to me; it's individuals doing an honest job of saying their opinion.
Time will tell whether people start behaving worse than that, but I feel that so far this is an OK model of something you can do in a society when you feel strongly like someone has wronged you (but have no direct recourse.)
Nobody wants to literally burn someone alive. But at the same time, nobody wants to live with a witch in their community. Alone, nobody would go so far; but there's comfort and safety in numbers, and the more people support a cause, the easier it is to jump behind the masses and throw sharp objects without being singled out. If you'd like to see how an entire village can murder someone for, say, being a homosexual, google "necklacing".
Also, your idea of abusive behavior completely negates the real experience of people being harassed online. Women bloggers often get threatening letters and tweets that are hidden from view, telling them they should be raped, murdered, and worse. Even just a majority of people telling you you are a bad person is enough to cause severe depression and anxiety. Without experiencing it yourself, you really have no idea how horrible it can get. And if Brendan actually had a history of mental illness, this could easily drive him to kill himself, as many people have committed suicide from online bullying over the years.
Also: Are you saying these Mozilla employees were wronged? I'm certainly not aware if they were, so I don't see how any of this is justified.
These sorts of convictions, that people hold on controversial topics, are like the (modern, non-fundamentalist) practice of religion: something you speak about to espouse your identification with a group, but which holds no sway one way or another with your day-to-day decision-making. They are, in Robin Hanson's terms, "far-mode beliefs."
And, as with the (modern, non-fundamentalist) practice of religion, the best attitude to follow, I think, is "as long as it doesn't affect anything important [like someone else's life], you can think whatever you like." This attitude allows people with diametrically-opposed far-mode beliefs to get along.
If these employees are such bigots and fascists, that they can't fathom someone having a different opinion to their own, they should resign and work elsewhere.
Mozilla is a technology company with the mission to promote a free and open web. If these employees believed that Mozilla was some kind of political organisation, they are wrong and have been deluding themselves.
Labelling the people who criticised Eich as fascists is as bad as calling him one for his beliefs.
BTW:
Marriage equality? So why doesn't the campaign include polygamous families? They exist, they have kids, they even have TV shows, and there has been a cultural history of polygamy around the world for thousands of years until modern times.
The campaign for gay marriage is exactly that, gay marriage, but it is not a campaign for civil rights for everyone, because if it were, it would support the right for polygamous marriages to be recognized.
When you speak in public, it's possible that you will face censure from your employers, your employees, or your customers. You can't control how other people feel about what your actions.
His suitability for a leadership position is openly questioned by employees in light of his publicly espoused views. Nothing more, nothing less.
No, it's more than that: people are actively calling him to step down.
Or they're willing to risk speaking out, regardless.
This argument can obviously be applied to any employee in the company, but it's severely exacerbated when it's applied to the CEO, who's getting a huge paycheck and is serving as the face of the company. It would be nice if we could separate his work from his personal life, but that separation does not actually exist. His personal endeavors are fueled by his professional life. (This is why we all work, really).
I don't understand what charities have to do with this, though. Surely there are charities which would be morally objectionable. If he'd donated to a charity with similar aims to the Prop 8 campaign, I imagine it would change people's opinions rather little. Or how about a charity which campaigned against interracial marriage?
People were calling for a boycott of all things Russian, or did you forget that?
The irony of course being that Russia decriminalized same-sex relationships in 1993 long before the US, effectively, did the same in 2003 even though 14 states still ban sodomy.
I don't really see how this is relevant except for a tit-for-tat comparison b/w Russia and the US, which is kinda pointless.
So, you're saying then, that they should go through the donations of every employee, ever, and fire anyone who donated to a cause that a sub-group of employees disagrees with?
With this line drawn, it's not about going through and ratting out people who donate to stuff you don't like, and it's not about limit free speech. This is about supporting human rights, and more specifically to the private company, maintaining a workplace that is inclusive to everyone, and a vision for the company that everyone can get behind.
Yes, everyone has free speech and should be able to support whatever they want, but when you support oppression, I think it's completely fair that there is backlash and questioning of whether you should be part of, and benefitting from, a inclusive group. The employees have every right (freedom of speech, remember?) to voice opposition to you in your role, because it really does affect everyone in the company.
How much money has he spent (as CEO) {i'm having trouble with wording here} keeping Mozilla a safe play for LGBTQ staff?
I don't see any difference in the two positions (both are using their paychecks to advanced a political cause), except that you personally agree with one position and not the other.
Of course, I don't need to feel threatened by people disagreeing with life choices I've made just because they don't like them, nor do I need to retaliate against people having different views. I can act like a professional at work while expressing my dissent in the marketplace of ideas.
I don't think Mozilla employees are wrong to say he's wrong on Twitter - I think they're wrong to link it to workplace politics sans any demonstration of him doing so.
Regardless, it sounds like you haven't experienced significant workplace discrimination. Some people are prone to see discriminatory behavior as threatening because they have been threatened or harmed.
I certainly agree that workplace discrimination is a problem, I just don't think that one necessitates the other, as people are claiming here.
> Do you often tell your boss he's an asshat? If so, you should read the people commenting here that the Mozilla employees speaking out may be making career-limiting moves.
I'd expect that the career limiting move is largely that they're linking their speaking out to how things should be at Mozilla, rather than distancing their speaking out from workplace politics.
But for the record, yes, I've told superiors, up to the CTO (while I was working in IT) that they're wrong on a number of social issues. I've also literally used the word "asshat" to describe people who hold opinions contrary to mine on those same issues on social media.
I just don't go out of my way to link it in to workplace politics, and haven't worked for people petty enough to punish their subordinates for having differing opinions.
If the Mozilla CEO is doing that, I'd be happy to see evidence of it. If the Mozilla CEO is discriminating at work because people are gay or support gay marriage, I'd like to see evidence of that. So far, all I see is people intentionally linking their dissent to workplace politics and people trying to punish him for having a view they don't like.
Feel free to cite evidence to prove me wrong.
I agree that nobody has come forward with proof that he has done something wrong at Mozilla. Which is why he's still at Mozilla.
But I don't think "hasn't been caught being an egregious bigot at work" is the only bar a CEO of a major nonprofit needs to clear. And whether or not he stays on as CEO, I think it's entirely reasonable for some Mozilla employees to decide that they're better off elsewhere.
Sure, he holds views that some people should be discriminated against, and contributes to political causes advocating that. Lots of people hold those kind of views, and lots of people hold other objectionable views. My objection is to punishing him at work for that, and that alone.
I'm fine with Mozilla employees deciding that they're better off somewhere else, because they don't like their boss for any reason. That's their decision about who they associate with.
I think it's more of a problem when they decide he should be somewhere else because they don't like his opinions, or his political actions. I think that's discriminatory, and a large problem in a free society.
What Eich believes goes against basic human rights. This isn't some argument about tax rates.
In all sincerity, if you had to write down a list of human rights, ordered by most-to-least basic, where would it fall on the list? Which rights would be more basic? Which less?
Say they are funding a campaign calling for speech restrictions of a group of which you are a member, for instance. You presumably have a line somewhere.
edit - that's a pretty unfair hypothetical, and it would be directly affecting your work then, but I still suspect you have a line, if only to avoid things ever getting a little bit too Kafka.
I just don't think that stripping them of their lands and titles really helps anybody. Arguably they won't have a source of income, except that they probably would receive a fairly nice severance package, and could still look for more work elsewhere.
----
I really like your last line of "things ever getting a little bit too Kafka".
So the right to marry whomever you choose is universal, for everybody, no exceptions?
So why doesn't the campaign for "marriage equality" fight for the right of a brother and sister to get married, or a mother and her son?
I'm not saying Eich's contributions are irrelevant, just that he would hardly be the first CEO to hold political opinions many or all of the people who work with him find repugnant.
> it's severely exacerbated when it's applied to the CEO, who's getting a huge paycheck
I haven't looked at their financials, but I would have to assume that CEO of Mozilla is one of the less lavishly paid "CEO of a major tech organization" jobs. Nobody goes to work at Mozilla to get rich.
Is this supposed to amaze anyone ? You should see how bad this get in some parts of Europe, although that could just be me having more experience with it in that part of the world.
The problem liberals have is that while they're endemic in the rank and file of these companies, they're not exactly common at the top.
Here it's obvious that the exception is that this is predicated on you wanting exactly the same they want. The problem is the hypocrisy. The problem is that liberals constantly scream bloody murder if anyone uses the "but those guys do the same" defense.
The problem is that they enforce their own rules on others but not themselves. The problem is the blatant intolerance, the attempt to destroy a man's career because of his beliefs.
I think you are really confused, that's some anarchists and libertarians. Liberal democracy is about the idea of a social contract and trying to balance the greatest freedom for the greatest number, not limitless individual freedom. It has always been philosophically against limitless individual freedom as it considers that damaging.
Not that I necessarily think having Eich as CEO would make Mozilla unable to welcome LGBTQ employees, but this argument is absurd. It is not at all difficult to imagine a rule set that permits free speech while still discriminating against LGBTQ employees in some other way.
Anti-gay bigotry is socially unacceptable. Honestly anyone who thought about it at length ought to have realized we were heading in this direction. And the bar for denying an entire category of people's rights out to be relatively high, personal religious beliefs or not.
He might not have personally expressed bigotry, sure. But putting up $1K to a cause is almost worse, given that it's one of the more efficacious ways to support a cause. That cause happened to be in favor of denying civil rights.
What you're saying is it's ok to deprive a man of his livelihood based on the current state of public opinion, which shifts by the decade. Tell me you see how wrong that is.
I think you're presupposing that principles are interchangeable and I don't accept that. I believe in some inherent human rights, and the merits of this particular issue are incredibly relevant. The gentleman in question made a substantial monetary contribution aimed at denying a collection of people a set of privileges.
The reasons for why society ought to privilege views like his over the rights of other people are flimsy at best; it's just a lousy idea given that the basis is wholly religious. Substitute something interracial marriage if you prefer. The fact is that some views are not just immoral in the face of society's avowed principles but unsound as well.
This is essentially saying "my (current) religion is the only true one". Look at history. Principles are interchangeable, there's no reasonable way to deny that.
> I believe in some inherent human rights, and the merits of this particular issue are incredibly relevant. The gentleman in question made a substantial monetary contribution aimed at denying a collection of people a set of privileges.
So you don't believe in religious freedom then ? Or rather, if you are offended by this, just how offended are you by, say islam, which openly advocates beheading homosexuals inside America, and practices it in parts of the world. It even advocates beheading victims of homosexual rape (yes, really, they actually mention that).
The majority of humans currently alive are in favor of killing all homosexuals (not just muslims). Do you believe in democracy ?
All these things are in conflict, making reality way more complex than you suppose here.
Or are you merely having this opinion because you have a good chance of imposing it on this particular "witch" ?
The concept of human-rights is quite recent and not fixed, that's for sure.
Political, economic, or other personal positions, those should be fine as long as they don't affect your work conduct.
People are not saying (as far as I have heard) that there should be no place at Mozilla for Brendan Eich due to his political views but they are clearly uncomfortable with him leading a political organisation. A commitment and career somewhere does not entitle you to be CEO of the organisation if that is not what is best for the organisation.
What about the freedom to have personal beliefs, and do what you want with your own money and time?
If anything the people criticizing Brendan Eich are trying to take away his freedom...
Freedom of speech isn't freedom from criticism, and criticism isn't censorship. Freedom of speech isn't freedom from social consequences for speech. Freedom of speech isn't an unconditional guarantee of employment.
Sometimes, freedom of speech becomes distasteful. I don't feel like this is one of those times, but I can understand why someone might disagree. In this situation, I see one person exercising their freedom of speech (in the form of a campaign donation) and a group of people responding with their own speech. That seems fine to me; if you disagree, could you elaborate on why, or describe what you think these employees should do instead? It seems to me that people responding to Brendan Eich should not have less freedom of speech than him.
Or these employees have consciously chosen that they'd rather the knife come, if it's going to come, sooner than later.
The notion that them speaking out now proves that they have nothing to worry about is ridiculous. If nobody had spoken out, that would also have been used as proof that everything is fine.
In short, are they speaking out against real offenses, or merely hypothetical ones?
If Brendan Eich being CEO means they are not able to perform their duties as stipulated in their employment contract, they should resign.
You expect employees to keep working for a CEO who doesn't consider them equal human beings?
Why do people keep pretending this is a valid political view? This is about vicious hatred, and if he can keep that under control I admire his discipline, but no employee should have to work under that threat.
Not to be cheeky, but in my experience, many CEOs don't consider their workers to be equal beings (and I find this to be more true with very large organizations), and it has less to do with demographics/politics/religion than it does with the status that comes with the position of power.
--edited a word for clarity
Other than financially supporting and lobbying for the passage of Proposition 8, you mean?
I've always held to the idea that my job is to make my manager look good. I don't know that mouthing off on twitter such that Ars Technica picks it up is fitting to that philosophy.
I'm a little troubled by the chilling effects that career and public opinion can have on political expression, but it's hard to generate sympathy for blatantly unconstitutional, horrendously discriminatory forms of political expression.
What makes this case so interesting is that the campaign in question is so specifically wrong. If it were for a candidate or party who has some questionable views, I'd feel inappropriate holding it against someone, but I'm not aware of any saving graces for Prop 8.
By this same logic, should they not be arguing for the firing of every Catholic employee, who ostensibly spend 10% of their income received from the company to the same end?
2. No one is saying that every employee who does as Eich did should be fired. Some people are saying that someone who has done as Eich did shouldn't be CEO of Mozilla.
What I'm saying is that not all Lutheran denominations work directly to prevent gay marriage.
a) Contributing financially to many religious institutions is explicitly financing groups who opposed gay marriage, and is an activity than many religious people undertake.
b) Advocating for something that in some views is unconstitutional is a constitutionally protected activity. The practice itself may be unconstitutional (I certainly think so), however, the political advocacy itself is not.
b) Advocating for something that is purely prejudicial and hateful is deserving of censure.
As I said, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about holding people accountable for their political views in general, but I do have some rationale for leaning toward censure in this particular case.
I don't even agree with these people, but people who express views like yours - that we should censor views we find distasteful so they can't even be discussed openly - make it really hard to comfortably take a stand against them.
I'm not for censorship, even of views I find extremely distasteful, and don't advocating punishing people merely for holding or articulating them.
Is there any evidence he's done anything besides be part of the political process, such as discriminate in the running of the nonprofit?
*Edit to fix typo.
I would never say that changing the definition of marriage is blatantly unconstitutional. The constitution says nothing about the right of two people of the same sex getting married nor does it say anything about traditional marriage. You could argue equal protection under the law, but as it stands a heterosexual man and a homosexual are both legally not permitted to marry a man. Blatantly is absolutely the wrong word to use.
Also, your insinuation that religious people should not use their deeply held beliefs to influence the societies in which they live is disturbing. You have a vote and they have a vote.
So, you can believe whatever you want, as long as you don't act on your beliefs?
> ... to a political movement specifically pursuing institutional discrimination of a large class of Americans.
Prop 8 was proposed by the voters of California, it would not have had direct ramifications on the rest of the US.
> ... blatantly unconstitutional...
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/27/us/politics/supreme-court-...
The last big ruling by the SCOTUS on gay marriage came down to a 5-4 vote. The supreme court justices are not amateurs at enforcing the US Constitution. That it was 5-4 is a good sign that the issue is hard to argue one way or the other from the constitution.
EDIT: typo
It's insane that there's this witch-hunt over someone's personal views, and the fact that this outlandish behaviour is actually supported and applauded by people.
If anything this just gives more credence to the 'gay agenda' conspiracies that up until fairly recently no one took seriously...
Marriage has always been about community and religion, in many countries people never bother registering it with the government. In some countries like Canada, common-law partners get the same benefits as married partners.
Personally, I'd be all for doing away with the entire government institution of marriage, and simply have 'civil unions' for all, with each community and religion being able to decide for themselves what 'marriage' means.
At least in Europe, that's pretty much backwards -- marriage has always been about property, and, it was fairly late that the Church even got involved at all, and the Church getting deeply involved in governing marriage was largely a trend that happened as the Church deepened its involvement in government more generally.
In some religions at least marriage signified a bond between two people, and not merely a transfer of property. My views are shaped somewhat by the fact that in Orthodox Christianity (the type I'm most familiar with), marriage isn't a transfer of property, and the bride isn't 'given' from father to husband. It's an equal arrangement. Whereas in Islam and 'western' Christianity the bride is 'given', much like property.
I wasn't talking about women as property, though that's also a factor in some cases (which undermines the whole "traditional marriage" as a good thing argument.) I was talking about marriage being about property arrangements, not the parties being property.
Doing away with government marriages if it was for everyone. At the moment it is important because it has tax benefits and not having it equal makes gay people seem like second class citizens.
This is also not a witch-hunt. I honestly cannot believe that people are so apathetic about equality
There are sensible people on this thread trying to argue that Brendan Eich shouldn't be forced to resign because of his private political views, and there are idiots like you using words like 'witch-hunt' and talking about the 'gay agenda' (what, you think they have a committee somewhere drawing up a hit-list?). I sincerely doubt that you are trying constructively to help here.
In the UK, the Labour (political party) Gay Rights Manifesto of 1985 said,
"A socialist society would supersede the family household... Gay people and children should have the right to live together... It follows from what we have already said that we favour the abolition of the age of consent."
But whatever you do, don't go near John, because I hear he gets upset over cartoons and he might react violently rather than meekly accepting punishment like a good Christian.
If you're sick of the political correctness and need a good laugh, watch this short piece by British aethist comedian Pat Condell, 'How gay is Islam?'
You have the right to say almost whatever you want. That doesn't mean you fucking should, does it? There's a big difference between the two
Should I be able to ask my boss to quit if I don't like his politics? Yes (though you should not expect him to agree to this).
Is it a good thing for the world in general if people are asked to quit their jobs because of their politics? My instinctive reaction is that it isn't a good idea, because we can't know what political views will be popular or unpopular in the future (in other words, it could be your opinions that make you the object of some campaign in the future). I can't defend Eich's opinions, but the principle that "you are not your job" and that what you do outside of the job should remain outside is something that should protect everyone and I'd require some pretty strong arguments to convince me otherwise.
We should remember, however, that plenty of people don't have Eich's profile or history of positive contributions (he was contributing to what became Mozilla before Mozilla even existed). Political firings do happen, and people do get fired for stuff that they might reasonably expect should be part of their private sphere, and only sometimes does this result in a court case or compensation being paid. Anyone who defends Eich's right to his political views should remember that, the next time a colleague or acquaintance is on the wrong side of an inappropriate dismissal.
edit: typos
So, yeah, we should strive to protect freedom of speech and be tolerant, even when people are shitbags.
The freedom to have your own opinion on things does not protect you from the consequences of those opinions.
Yes. In the same vein, people publicly calling out their employers in social media (even when justified) should also realize that it's a potentially career limiting move.
I'm pretty sure there's a significant number of companies and HR managers who would be reluctant to hire people who have engaged in this type of communication in the past.
I wouldn't want a member of the KKK running my organization either, and I would imagine most minorities would speak out about that as well. Racist or anti-gay, a bigot is a bigot. This isn't about politics or personal views. It's about denying human beings their deserved civil liberties for no good reason at all. Would you want to work for someone who hates you enough to force a law to break apart your family?
Listen, I get where you're coming from. This is an important issue for me too. (As an aside: I have spent an inordinate amount of time working with one of the world's largest human rights organizations, including time on the board of directors for one of its structures.) I like and appreciate your passion to fight the good fight.
But! Be careful when you reach into your toolbag to fight that fight. The ends never justify the means. If we violate one person's rights by trying to protect another person's rights, we'll descend into chaos.
Always be respectful that in 7+ billion people, we're going to have a lot of opinions.
We must stop behaviors that are directly harmful. But we must always also protect people's opinions.
They're important. You have the freedom to believe whatever you want to believe. The minute that opinion crosses into a behavior -- boom! You can drop the ax. People have the right to any opinion but not any behavior. Do you see? If Brendan wants to donate money to a bill that would do x, he can. If he punishes an employee because they're x, that's wrong. (And you cannot jump in and say, "He will have a behavior because of his opinion.")
The way to handle this is to respect his opinion and be on guard that no behavior follows from it. Period. Put that important passion instead into educating and enlightening the populace. Put it into doing positive work.
Forcing Brendan to step down because he donated money to a legitimate political proposition is witch-hunting and shameful. This issue deserves better than that.
Of course, the problem here isn't his view, which nobody actually knows. It's that he helped strip a civil right from a bunch of people, including some of those he will now be in charge of.
Context matters though. If you make these opinions at the workplace and someone feels threatened, discriminated against or harassed, there are legal repercussions.
And I assume this goes both ways. If you have an unpopular view that is expressed outside the workplace but are harassed by your coworkers, there is a risk of legal repercussions on those coworkers too.
If he is biased against gays, a concern raised by helping fund the removal of one of their civil rights, people can be reasonably afraid that this will eventually affect them in the workplace.
It need not be something obvious, either. Most decisions made by CEOs, especially decisions on who to reward and promote, are almost entirely judgment calls. Do you want to work for a guy who might not treat you fairly? "Yes" and "no" are both reasonable answers.
In the workplace, anti-discrimination and harassment laws do not make him free to express his opinions.
>> If he is biased against gays, a concern raised by helping fund the removal of one of their civil rights, people can be reasonably afraid that this will eventually affect them in the workplace.
I would think this concern would be true of any manager who has a fundamentalist interpretation of a particular religion too.
I am a supporter of equal rights and gay marriage. When I see comparisons made to other civil rights issues (i.e. "Would we accept this guy as CEO if he thought interracial marriage was wrong?" or "Would we accept this guy as CEO if he thought women deserved less pay?") it seems like a no brainer to me that, no, a person who held those views would never be tolerated as a CEO. And gay marriage, gay rights are an important issue and should be held in the same regard. Using that logic, one could conclude he is not CEO material. Not to mention that as a representative of the company they are getting some unpleasant press over this, nor does he seem to have the confidence of his employees that a leader should have.
On the other hand, it seems distasteful to me that we say to people, "We don't like your views. You need to go away now." ... Shouldn't diversity of thought, diversity of social and cultural and religious views be considered a good thing in an organization? Shouldn't we be trying to build teams of people with whom we aren't always going to agree on things with?
Watching this with great interest - how will it play out? Will Brendan Succumb to the pressure and quit to avoid this issue becoming a distraction?
Will he ride it out? Provide clear guidance that it was a personal issue and emphasize personally that this does not reflect Mozilla policy? Something else..?
Assuming it's the former and as long as he's not pushing his agenda through Mozilla (discriminating against gay employees or whatnot) I'm not sure it's a good reason to "fire" a CEO.
My read on this is that there are employees at Mozilla who feel strongly enough about this to speak publicly, and the most likely reason is because they believe that Eich as CEO will affect their workplace.
This is not so far removed from saying Mary Jones shouldn't be CEO of Mozilla because she donated to a campaign against CO2 emission restrictions: Again by analogy with a settled political issue, "She's denying Global Warming. You'd be OK if she denied the Holocaust?"
I'm not arguing against voting pragmatically, I'm arguing that calling opposition to same sex marriage akin to racism today is a nonsensical comparison. Maybe it will look that way in hindsight, but it's not fair to hold anybody to hypothetical future standards.
Of course we want to encourage as many people as possible to contribute and therefore anything that pushes large groups of people away (for no good reason) is bad.
May only be true because of how many eyes are on this. Regardless on how enlightened a company is I don't think you'll have a good time of things for very long if you're calling out your boss to quit his job.
For me it is clear and simple. He can not say he will be inclusive if he at a low level doesn't believe in it. In his blog post he only apologized he hurt anyone.. not that his views are outdated, and has changed his mind on the topic.
[1] http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/california-employment...
You really are being a little silly
People who criticise another person for an act which is contentious is not going to produce a drop in market share.
Perhaps even this is not obvious enough for you. You're probably being deliberate obtuse though. The simple point is that you can't infer a technical ability from their belief on whether gay marriage is right or not.
In addition, even if these people were proven to be bad at their jobs, I doubt that would cause the drop in market share either. Three people who are not at the very top of the company are unlikely to have that effect.
The thought has not fully crystallized, and possibly not quite the same, but Nikola Tesla was a Eugenisist. But we LOVE him.