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> Isn't it his right to vote how he pleases?

Yes, that was his right, and no one has ever said differently. But freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences in the realm of public opinion. Funding Prop 8 had a direct negative impact on the LGBT community of California. To expect that community to have no reaction to his actions would be naive.

The reaction is disproportionate to his contribution, though. His donation was quite small, and at no point did he use his status as a public figure to speak out in favor of Prop 8.

What he did was wrong, but it was not enough for us to prop him up as a sacrificial lamb in the name of equality. It would serve no common good, bringing us no closer to repealing the law, but could lead to consequences for Brendan far worse than any well-meaning blogger could conceivably intend.

Let us instead work to change his moral stance, whether by argument or by example. If tomorrow Brendan Eich were to say - and genuinely believe - that marriage is just as much a right for gays as it is for heterosexuals, then that would be a victory far sweeter than punishing him for having once believed wrongly.

Sacrificial lamb, what are you talking about? What kind of sacrifice would it have been for Eich to not become CEO of Mozilla? I already make that sacrifice every day.

So many commenters want to make it all about what a small donation it was, or about Brendan Eich's right to support the causes of his choice. Of course he has that right, but consider the classic analogy for this issue: if the CTO of a company made a small donation toward banning interracial marriage, how would you feel about that company? How about if that person were then promoted to CEO? I can only speak for myself but my answers are "not great" and "disgusted", respectively.

What's important here is not Brendan Eich's right to hold whatever position he wants and simultaneously whatever job he wants. He came out against equality, and Mozilla knew it, and promoted him, and specifically promoted him to CEO. This is how they weigh their priorities. If you think that marriage equality matters then you should think that this decision matters.

> The reaction is disproportionate to his contribution, though. His donation was quite small, and at no point did he use his status as a public figure to speak out in favor of Prop 8.

What difference does donating 10cents vs $10,000 to a cause make? By donating you are supporting the bill/policy/action.

> What he did was wrong, but it was not enough for us to prop him up as a sacrificial lamb in the name of equality. It would serve no common good, bringing us no closer to repealing the law, but could lead to consequences for Brendan far worse than any well-meaning blogger could conceivably intend.

The law was already struck down as unconstitutional. But it took 5 years to do so.

> Let us instead work to change his moral stance, whether by argument or by example. If tomorrow Brendan Eich were to say - and genuinely believe - that marriage is just as much a right for gays as it is for heterosexuals, then that would be a victory far sweeter than punishing him for having once believed wrongly.

I think there is some anger over how Brendan Eich responded; which is not directly admitting to anything.

I don't know if I would ask for his resignation, but he still hasn't addressed this very well. The problem seems to be that he refuses to address his stance on it. So you can't very well work with him when he doesn't even admit to donating the money, nor admit to believing that gays should not marry.

>I think there is some anger over how Brendan Eich responded; which is not directly admitting to anything.

There's nothing to admit though, he didn't commit a crime, he gave money to an organization. What is there to admit?

The fact that his donation was so small makes it much worse in my opinion. That indicates that the primary intent was to make a public, symbolic statement on the matter. Or he completely whiffed at thinking through the implications of his action. Both are pretty bad for someone wanting to be CEO of Mozilla. IMO.

> The fact that his donation was so small makes it much worse in my opinion. That indicates that the primary intent was to make a public, symbolic statement on the matter.

Making a donation is a pretty ridiculous way to try to make a public, symbolic statement on the matter. It relies on someone taking advantage of the election disclosure laws to get a list of donors, then going over the list of donors, then picking him out of the list of thousands of donors, and then calling public attention to that.

He's not the Robot Devil. If he wanted to make a public, symbolic statement on the matter, wouldn't he simply tweet, or use Facebook, or blog about it?

Yeah, you're right. Really bizarre move by him given the makeup of Bay Area tech.

Garnering the intent through no actual evidence... wonder how it would be if he had made a bigger donation - worse that way as well?

The first amendment does not guarantee freedom from consequences, but it's not absurd to expect people to also have a social notion of freedom of speech that encourages tolerance of different viewpoints.

>The first amendment does not guarantee freedom from consequences

It should. Freedom of speech without freedom from consequences is meaningless. If you have to self-censor yourelf because you might lose your job or whatever, then there's no freedom of speech.

> Freedom of speech without freedom from consequences is meaningless.

What is protected by the Constitution -- freedom (from government restrictions) of speech does guarantee (is, in fact, equivalent to) freedom from (government imposed) consequences of speech -- the former is present exactly to the extent that the latter is provided.

However, the much of the theory behind that guarantee of free speech is the idea that it is best to allow ideas to compete in the marketplace of ideas, and for people to hear the speech from all sides and to decide, individually, which speech to reward and which to punish(within their scope of power as market participants, rather than with the compulsory power of government). It was not about making speech free from private consequences, so long as those consequences were restricted to the kind that are not otherwise criminal.

The marketplace of ideas isn't as robust if ideas are allowed to corner the market by forcing other ideas off the market. If you disagree with someone, disagree with them (civilly, please), don't force them to shut up.

Since some people get paid to speak for someone else, I'm not sure you could make a blanket right like that. But certain forms of retaliation (like firing people) for certain forms of speech (like voting on ballot issues) should be grounds for a lawsuit.

>Yes, that was his right, and no one has ever said differently. But freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences in the realm of public opinion.

Those consequences shouldn't include "losing your job" or "being treated differently at work", else there's no freedom of speech.

How would LGBT community liked it they could lose their jobs for being LGBT?

> How would LGBT community liked it they could lose their jobs for being LGBT?

Under the interpretations until recently of federal statutes [1], and under the law of most US states, they can, and largely the same groups fighting against marriage equality have been fighting to preserve and extend that condition, as well.

[1] Though recent EEOC decisions finding that discrimination based on gender identity and/or sex stereotypes are subtypes of discrimination based on sex may significantly limit the degree to which that is in practice true under federal law, but AFAIK those agency interpretations have not yet been tested in the courts.

> How would LGBT community liked it they could lose their jobs for being LGBT?

The fact that LGBT people can be fired without recourse is a central issue.

So let's make a law that LGBT people can't be fired at all? I personally know one straight person that claimed he is gay and sued the company that fired him for discrimination. And he won.

Identities of the parties aside, How is this case different? Aren't you still harming someone for a bad reason (you don't like them and what they stand for)?

I can't quite parse what you're saying. Can you rephrase or clarify?

Would Eich have recourse if he were passed up for the CEO spot? Why makes discriminating against LGBT people in the workplace different than discriminating against Eich in this case?

I don't see how firing someone for an opinion is comparable to firing someone for sexual orientation. Neither should be allowed, but they're fundamentally different things.

Sometimes opinions flow seamlessly from a person's identity.

What if a gay principal is fired for supporting gay marriage. What if someone is a religious pacifist and the ballot issue had to do with gun control? Are those just opinions or is there no other option for a person given his or her identity?

I'd even go so far as to say that sometimes opinions are core to someone's identity. As in, the person would be fundamentally different if that opinion changed.

I'm not sure the issue is so cut-and-dry as you presume.

All I'm pointing out is that they're fundamentally different. Sexual orientation is something you're born with. Opinions can be changed. Neither should be grounds for termination. What are we arguing about here?

> Those consequences shouldn't include "losing your job" or "being treated differently at work", else there's no freedom of speech.

Yes, they can. Freedom of speech is a right that you have before the state, not in front of you fellowship.

Everyone is fully entitled to refuse to follow you, on whichever ground they please, including a public or private statement by you.

Just because you can punish someone for political views doesn't mean you should. The freedom of speech can be an idea and an attitude that is bigger than the First Amendment.

I don't care about the first amendment, as it doesn't cover me.

Please don't assume that I am speaking about that.

That's fine. Even more so, then, freedom of speech can be a social norm (tolerance of other viewpoints) that protects people beyond the minimum standards the government sets.

They can. It's legal in most states, ignoring states with "right to work" laws even. It's a known, serious issue in the United States.

I think your missing a few things here. Yes, of course, it's his right to vote however he wants. It's also perfectly fine for his constituents to take his voting record or other public actions/statements into consideration regarding pretty much anything. There's a big difference between "love us" and "avoid making a symbolic public statement against us".

For a lot of organizations, this wouldn't merit this much discussion. But it's easy to make the case that Mozilla is a bit different. It's mission-based. It's employee and constituent bases probably skew LGBT. The tech industry is one of the biggest supporters of LGBT rights. Mozilla is a fairly flat org. We're talking about the CEO role which requires a sphere of influence both internally, and in this case, to a great extent externally.

The guy made a huge mistake if he ever had an eye on moving into the CEO role. His donation was pretty much insignificant so we can only view it as a symbolic gesture. And the symbolism is very antagonistic towards his constituents.

Financially backing prop 8 constitutes taking direct action against the LGBT community, yes.

Some people opposed Prop 8 due to their notions of tolerance or acceptance. Being tolerant of Prop 8 supporters would be a consistent position for these people.

Some people opposed Prop 8 because they want to advocate for a particular worldview (homosexual marriage is a natural right). It doesn't follow that they would necessarily tolerate people who supported Prop 8.

I suppose people can belong to both camps, but this case surely crystallizes the idea that these motivations aren't the same.

>Has he taken any direct action against someone in the LGBT community?

Yes, a thousand dollars of political speech. This was a direct action on his part to try to take away rights people already had at that time. He admits he took this action.

Would you take the same position if this guy had contributed money to a less socially acceptable cause? Would you defend a CEO with a history of donating to the KKK anti-interracial-marriage fund as the public face of Mozilla?

You are trolling.

And like most trolls on this subject, you try to twist hateful bigotry into "political views". There's nothing political about considering other people subhuman. It's pure, unadulterated vicious hatred.

And even then there is a fundamental difference believing that something is against your religion and actually trying to prevent people from having equal rights. The former maybe a personal view, but the latter is just outright viciousness.

He has the right to believe whatever he wants, but nobody should be expected to work for this asshole, or want to have anything to do with him.

It's also completely beyond me why any company would want such a hateful extremist as their leader.

no, this is trolling. Steve Jobs was an asshole, nobody would argue that. He treated people like shit, but he did great things... So, I guess it's ok to own an apple device because, hey, he didn't hate MY culture, he just hates all people. Attacking one man because he disagrees with your political/emotional/sexual views is the problem. As a group that claims accept people that are different, your community comes off as hypocrites. So you only accept people if they're your kind of different?