Mozilla is not Chik-Fil-A

http://www.benmoskowitz.com/?p=971

by ultimatedelman • 12 years ago

63 64 12 years ago

yaur2• 12 years ago

There are currently two posts on the main page about this. Do we really need a third? Is this really the kind of place where we are going to push a story about Postgres and the Linux kernel off the main page so that we can have another nasty political fight? I guess I'm new here and don't know the community that well, but that seems more than a little sad and absurd.

It is a shame though cause this is kind of a decent write-up.

tiles• 12 years ago

I think it's fitting. The Chief Technology Officer for many years at Mozilla, once promoted to CEO, suffers great pushback and voluntarily steps down as a result.

For Mozilla, technology in this case was not more important than community values. Postgres and Linux have technological improvements, but I'm eager to see the tech industry be far more self-aware in trying to progress in its social issues, rather than just progress with features.

Plus, this was a struggle and many on these forums were affected. The underlying causes won't go away after one day, and more worryingly, perhaps not for years to come.

judk• 12 years ago

Indeed, in the no-privacy Facebook era, we all look forward to fully vetting the personal lives of our business leaders and employees.

With this inspiring precedent, we can have confidence that the next CEO of Mozilla --and every other company, we hope-- will be well vetted to hold the correct behaviors -- the only, obviously morally correct behaviors-- toward the great challenges of our time: women's abortion rights (or is it fetuses' birth rights?), animal abuse rights (factory farm supporters are unfit to lead), gentrification (wealthy SF residents displace evicted tenants, ruining their lives, so they are not leadership material), ...

beering• 12 years ago

I think it's worth the attention because Mozilla is a huge part of our life as hackers, and their mismanagement of the controversy could be a big case study for the rest of us.

Would things have changed if he made a big direct apology instead of mumbling something about "causing pain" buried in some blog post? Could Mozilla have done X or tried Y instead? I think we're going to be dissecting this for a while.

tptacek• 12 years ago

I feel exactly the same way you do, about the prominence this issue has on the front page, the quality of the discussions it's produced, and this particular writeup. I flagged the story; it's not about technology, but, as 'dang would say, about politics using technology as its host organism.

BruceIV3• 12 years ago

I would like to begin by stating that I, personally, support gay marriage - if the government is willing to offer tax benefits, next-of-kin status, etc. to married and common-law couples based on committed, long-term relationships, it seems hypocritical, cruel, and unfair to deny those same rights to homosexual couples with similar relationships.

That said, I think it is ridiculous that this is a scandal, and worse that it ended with Brendan Eich being forced out of his job. He made a really quite modest personal political donation on one side of an issue the state of California had deemed contentious enough to hold a referendum. It seems unfair that backing the wrong side in that referendum apparently disqualifies half of California from being Mozilla CEO. Whether you agree with his views or not (and I and most of the Internet seem not to), they have nothing to do with building an accessible Internet for everyone, and as long as those views don't affect his managerial choices, I don't see how they're relevant to his job (Mozilla HR could answer the question about professionalism, but I don't think the rest of us have the necessary data).

interstitial3• 12 years ago

More ironic when you consider: "Obama Says He Is Against Same-Sex Marriage" http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2008/11/obama-on-mtv-i/

spikels2• 12 years ago

So was Hillary Clinton until a year ago. And they both repeatedly raised money to candidates that were against same-sex marriage. I guess neither of them are qualified to run Mozilla.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/thecaucus/2013/03/18/hillary...

growupkids6• 12 years ago

Yeah no kidding. I remember dem friends ardently trying to convince me that it was pro gay to be anti-gay marriage and pro-civil union. No, you're not pro gay, you're just trotting out talking points so you can appear to have to both way, ala Bill Clinton's Dont Ask Don't Tell. Separate but Equal.

I'm so tired of the double talk. Look, if you truly believe in human rights, then you have to respect people's choices of what to do with their bodies. If you can't don't that, then you think you know better and want to tell people what to do with their bodies. I just can't get behind that. I'm not perfect, so who am I to tell someone else to do with their body if it's not hurting them?

Meh, politicians.

smtddr• 12 years ago

FWIW, I never believed Obama when he said that. I just assumed he had to say it for the votes.

Eich is a different story; for a modern tech company with a presence in SF, which is super-pro-LGBT. Also I see mozilla more as a family than a company(I'm sure it's due to branding/marketing) and having a person who +++donated funds+++ to prop8 as the CEO was a very awkward concept for me to accept. It's one thing to believe different things than I do, it's another thing altogether to ///donate funds/// to prevent something that really does him no harm yet inconveniences/saddens others. To me, that's an ethically corrupt action. Then he becomes the CEO of a company that is soaked in a culture of leftwing pro-LGBT. It's the donation that crosses the line for me.

Furthermore, it makes me wonder if he'd use his legally-obtained funds as Moz-CEO to do similar, more significant, donations in the future to other laws that would conflict with the Moz culture.

I guess you have to decide when opinion is just that, or something more harmful. A KKK member shouldn't be leader of the BlackGirlsCode effort and Eich shouldn't be the head of Mozilla. Of course, this analogy shows that I think of Mozilla as a very open-minded, liberal, pro-LGBT promoter rather than just a company that makes software. I can't convince anyone to see mozilla the way I do, but somehow they've put that spell on me... and clearly on enough people to cause this whole ordeal and resulting fallout.

growupkids6• 12 years ago

I hear ya, but I guess I look at it like this: if you believe something and want to practice it while respecting other peoples beliefs with which you disagree, and importantly you don't put money and power into laws that prevent them from doing something that doesn't hurt you, and is none of your business, hey that's respectful. I can get behind that. That's being a decent human being. Mind you this is not an indictment of Mozilla, just him.

But, if you spend money to prevent other adults from doing something your religion tells you is wrong, but it's so etching that (1) not hurting you, (2) not hurting them, (3) involves love(!), and (4) frankly is none of your damn business anyway: yeahs you're not being respectful, you think you know better and want to force your beliefs on someone else. Well, maybe I'm crazy, but that's just wrong. Mind your own business I say. Again, not Mozilla, but well I get the politics of mAking a scene. This kind of know-it-all-ness has got to stop. Respect your fellow man. Stop trotting out religion as an excuse to force your idea of victimless morality on other people.

So yeah, I feel ya, but seriously, what loving adults do between each other, in the name of love for goodness sake(of all the things to be opposed to!), that's just wrong to get between. Your deserve a smack if you want to pass laws to make that illegal. Mind your own business dude.

So, look, I understand he thinks he was doing the right thing, but he wasn't. He backed a proposal to oppress people. That's never good.

But hey, we are all allowed to learn, everyone can change, so it may be a bit harsh if he's penalized after apologizing. But it was still a mistake to back this kind of nonsense on his part. Mind your own business dude.

BruceIV3• 12 years ago

That's totally a fair argument. I'm only as okay as I am with the donation because it's not large with respect to Branden Eich's net worth (which I don't know, but I assume an engineer of his calibre and seniority makes a very comfortably six-figure salary, even working for a non-profit), and thus seems to be an act of roughly the same order of magnitude as his vote on the issue.

There is some point (I don't know where - $5k, $10k?) where I'd stop being okay with it.

Aloha3• 12 years ago

I'm openly gay - I came out at 15.

I agree with you, I don't think this is a scandal, its effectively mob/victors justice - why should there be social or employment consequences for expressing profoundly held religious beliefs - in my mind this is just as bad as when employers fire employees for being gay.

Now personally, I'm a about as religious as a door stop and honestly in my opinion most of the arguments against gay marriage either seem to boil down to "I think its icky" or "My deity tells me its bad", that said, I think anyone ought to be welcome to hold opinions contrary to mine, and speak them in the public square without fear of reprisal - so long as they are not violating the law, or actively discriminating personally.

growupkids6• 12 years ago

With respect, isn't the process funding a law to make gay marriage illegal actively discriminating against said same people? It seems fair, I think, to call someone out for something like that. What if his religion called for outlawing marriage between some other group of consenting adults? Perhaps I'm just less willing to make the free speech street one: he can express his opinion, but we shouldn't express our opposition to his opinion. Seems reasonable that it should flow both ways, if that's what you're saying. I may have misconstrued your point, if I did, meaculpa.

BruceIV3• 12 years ago

Agreed. Laws reflect society's view of morality; on gay marriage, those views are changing and the laws haven't quite caught up. Now, I am very carefully not saying that it's okay to use the democratic system to persecute minorities, because it's not, but no sensible person is going to argue that laws against theft should be struck down because they persecute kleptomaniacs. There must exist a grey area somewhere in the middle of the scale where it's hard to tell whether the law is persecuting a minority or upholding a legitimate moral principle (the fact that euthanasia is illegal likely falls in that area right now), and though that grey area is hard to discern (contentious public political discussions would be a reasonable approximation though) I think at least in principle we should be able to respect other people's views on issues in it.

baddox• 12 years ago

One thing’s for sure. If you eat at Chick-Fil-A, your money will support anti-gay causes.

Which is also technically true if you do business with any company that employs any people who oppose gay rights. Or if you do business with any company that itself does business with another company that employs any people who oppose gay rights.

mynameishere• 12 years ago

So if the long march of progress makes a fast food drive-thru a site of civic participation, well, that’s surreal—but it’s democracy in action.

I wonder if this guy is aware that "long march" almost always refers to the "long march through the institutions", which is essentially a Marxist plan to subvert society. (When it's not referring to the original "long march" by Mao's forces.) I'm guessing he is. It reminds me of the old commie-styled Mozilla red star logo. Was that an accident? What's with these people? At any rate, if you ever want to donate to any political cause, make sure it's 100 percent anonymous. That includes supporters of gay marriage. When the worm turns, you might get the same as you gave.

growupkids6• 12 years ago

I can get behind anonymous donations. After all, we vote anonymously, anonymous speech is protected speech, so why shouldn't anonymous donations be protected as well? In the marketplace of ideas, shouldn't it be the ideas that are judged and not who said them or who paid for the ad?

xirdstl2• 12 years ago

At the level of donation in this example, that probably works. Consider though a donation of say, $1 million. Is it important to know who donates that amount and thus potentially exerting a great deal of influence?

Maybe the notable difference is that while votes are anonymous, every vote is equal.

panarky• 12 years ago

  ... it was hard to watch as people who should know better pulled
  out the Chick-Fil-A playbook

That's exactly right. By all means, protest a corporation that uses corporate resources to fund hate. That's not what happened at Mozilla.

  I am equally disappointed in Mozillians and in demagogues who didn’t
  see the irony in hounding someone for their private opinion
  because of "intolerance."

Mozilla is beautiful because they've united very different people for a common, worthy purpose. To accomplish that, they must firewall personal opinions, politics and prejudices that are not relevant to their mission.

That firewall has now been breached. It's scary to think that an important organization with a critical mission could be damaged by this breach.

  If this is the gay rights movement today – hounding our opponents
  with a fanaticism more like the religious right than anyone
  else – then count me out. If we are about intimidating the free
  speech of others, we are no better than the anti-gay bullies
  who came before us.

Well said and incisively reasoned, Andrew Sullivan.

sliverstorm• 12 years ago

He basically echoes all the points I tried to make, and got hounded for making. But I think folks on the internet are just really fond of a good lynching once and a while. It's a consistent pattern.

sentenza• 12 years ago

This scandal was really weird from a HN commenter's perspective. For me it was the first time I experienced "wild veering" of comments, where I would write a comment that was downvoted multiple times within a few minutes and then later see it climb to thirty or so positive karma.

nefasti• 12 years ago

Being against gay marriage is not free speech, it's plain and simple hate, don't try to flip the table like that.

intslack5• 12 years ago

Donating and voting for prop 8, and therefore not in favor of redefining their "institution of marriage" (ignorant as that may be on their part) is not plain and simple hate, it's clear that you didn't even bother to read the blog post if you're willing to trivialize this issue like that. Even if you don't respect Brendan's beliefs, beliefs that I certainly don't respect, please stop trying to turn this into a black and white, "tolerant" vs "bigot" issue.

derefr• 12 years ago

Most of the people I know who are against gay marriage (yes, I know some such people) aren't against gay people being considered married by the state. Civil unions, and most other forms of marriage ceremony, are A-OK with them.

People against gay marriage are, as far as I'm aware, really just against gay people being considered married by the (Christian) church, because--in their opinion--Christianity has a specific definition of "marriage", and gay marriage doesn't qualify.

It seems to just be a bunch of people talking past one-another. Each group sees their definition of "marriage" ("marriage" as in "legally considered together", or "marriage" as in "accepted as a couple by your local congregation") as the only one that actually matters, and so obviously that's the one their opponents are arguing about as well.

hkphooey3• 12 years ago

This faux outrage over one man's views, which were hardly extremist given they were shared by 7 million Californians in a vote, has robbed Mozilla of its co-founder. Who the hell is Hampton Catlin to call a boycott? I doubt anyone had even heard of him or his software company.

Message to Hampton Catlin and Michael Lintorn Catlin: if you want to make a brave stand for gay rights, why don't you start protesting outside a mosque or an embassy where under Islam the penalty for simply being gay is DEATH ?

[1] Goodbye, Firefox Marketplace: http://www.teamrarebit.com/blog/2014/03/24/goodbye_firefox_m...

[2] Five Reasons Eich Should Step Down: http://www.teamrarebit.com/blog/2014/03/28/five-reasons-eich...

[3] A Sad Victory: http://www.teamrarebit.com/blog/2014/04/03/a-sad-victory/

pfortuny• 12 years ago

Plain and simple "hate"? Have you considered the idea that they are trying to defend what they consider a social institution as important -to them- as "property" is for you? Or "money"?

Because it may be so and not hate.

bashcoder• 12 years ago

I was very disappointed to watch in real time as this post was moderated off the HN front page and into oblivion. It happened at 8:46 PM PDT on April 3.

Once it reached #24 on the first page, even as it was gaining points and comments, this post quickly fell several pages.

Yes, we had a few posts on this subject already hit the main page, with one garnering over 900 comments. But especially when we're dealing with an issue with such obvious free speech implications, insightful articles like these should be allowed to run their natural course on HN.

carsongross• 12 years ago

“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”

I think that the great tech though-crime purge of 2013-? will end up having a different outcome than intended...

swang2• 12 years ago

I am equally disappointed in Mozillians and in demagogues who didn't see the irony in hounding someone for their private opinion because of "intolerance."

His opinion is no longer private. Once you vote with your dollars you have publicly acknowledged your opinion.

I don't know if I really support what happened to Eich, but this whole event opens your eyes to the hypocrisy of the tech community. If some person not well known to the loudest voices of the community says something insensitive they will have their lives ruined. Someone like Eich does something similar and all of a sudden it is, "whoa, now, let's not overreact."

beedogs3• 12 years ago

And the people describing his actions to help get gay marriage banned in California as merely "an opinion" that should be respected and treated as "free speech" are just laughably wrong.

growupkids6• 12 years ago

Indeed. They passed a law to make it illegal. That's no longer an opinion, that's an action.

swang2• 12 years ago

Yes let's clear this up.

1. ~52% of Californians voted for Prop 8. True. But Prop 8 was also confusing to votes as to what "Yes" or "No" meant. Supporters of gay marriage were worried that people would believe Yes meant support of gay marriage and vice-versa.

2. The point about Prop 8 wasn't "marriage." The underlying reason gays wanted to marry is for tax breaks and legal privileges. If you cannot be in a "marriage" you are essentially being taxed more and afforded unequal rights to people who can be in a marriage.

yaur2• 12 years ago

"His opinion is no longer private. Once you vote with your dollars you have publicly acknowledged your opinion." Here is the thing, SCotUS has ruled that the 1st amendment protects anonymous political speech precisely because a lack of anonymity can lead to the "economic or official retaliation" against those with differing political views and has also ruled that money, in the context of politics, is speech. So is there a constitutional imperative to protect the anonymity of political speech when that speech comes in monetary form? I personally believe that we are better off being able to see how our leaders have financed their campaigns, but what we have hear is prima facie evidence that not protecting speech when it is in monetary forms leads to the exact sort retaliation that the Supreme Court used in the justification of McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission. I emphatically don't agree with his views, but the threat to everyone's right to free political speech and the potential threat to transparency of campaign finances are not to be taken lightly.

beedogs3• 12 years ago

This is not a free speech issue. I wish people would stop making that mistake. A private company can fire anyone they want in California for whatever reason they want.

Acropal• 12 years ago

You're an idiot or incredibly naive if you don't think this is a free speech issue. A guy was forced to resign because he has a different opinion than some group of people. It's bullshit.

beedogs3• 12 years ago

Sorry, but "free speech" really only applies when the government gets involved in regulating it. Read the Constitution sometime.

He could just as easily have been ousted from his role for wearing the wrong color shirt to work, if enough people didn't like it.

xirdstl2• 12 years ago

The fallout from this will be interesting to watch. If there are other employees of Mozilla that supported Prop. 8 or are otherwise opposed to gay marriage, do they now fear for their jobs?

I keep seeing the argument that it's only because he became CEO, which is completely different than CTO. While there is some truth to that, it mostly comes across as post witch-hunt rationalization to me.

Maybe witch-hunt is a little strong, but the level of vitriol in OKCupid's message directed towards Eich (and effectively at anyone who shares that opinion) felt genuinely disturbing to me.

Maybe I'm just not cut out for these Internets.

Patrick_Devine3• 12 years ago

I'm going to take a different stand than the one a lot of people seem to keep echoing here. I think it was the right thing for Eich to step down.

This isn't about free speech, it's about basic human rights.

Let me try to re-frame it this way; had Eich been a white supremacist and had contributed money to the KKK, do you still think he would have been fit to lead Mozilla? The same arguments being bandied around here apply.

Whether people want to admit it or not, this guy is (was) the public face of the organization. Despite being an avid user of Firefox, I definitely would hesitate to donate money with him as the CEO. And, were I an employee of Mozilla, I'd probably consider leaving. I'm also sure that I'm not alone in this. If Mozilla is shedding employees and losing donations as a result of him being at the head, he clearly isn't the right person to be the leader.

As for free speech, I love the first amendment. Eich certainly has the right to express his (completely ridiculous and hateful) opinion. Everyone else also has the right to pressure him to not be the head of a charitable organization which promotes tolerance.

intslack5• 12 years ago

had Eich been a white supremacist

In this first part, you equate white supremacists with what I assume would be "homophobic bigots," implying that there's concrete evidence of Eich being such a "homophobic bigot." When there's not.

Patrick_Devine3• 12 years ago

... other than giving $1,000 to support Prop 8 and denying people the right to get married.

whyenot• 12 years ago

Proposition 8 took away my right to marry. It's a pretty shitty thing to find out that the majority of voters in your home state believe it's OK to treat you as a second class citizen. When Brendan Eich sent in that check for $1,000 in support of Proposition 8, he was making the statement that I should not continue to have the right to marry the person I love and that explicit discrimination against gay people should be enshrined in California's constitution. It left a lot of people very upset. I don't agree with with lashing out at Eich, but I understand it.

NextUserName• 12 years ago

If a christian run organization fired an employee (lets not kid ourselves here, Eich was fired) because they paid $1,000 to support gay marriage, how dramatically would the reaction differ from this situation?

Why the huge difference? because in our culture, we are not "allowed" to voice a different opinion than the SCOTUS. Even if the majority populous agrees with our opinion.

I know what you are going to say... This is a civil rights issue. It is now a homosexual's civil right to be married because the court said so.

When I hear the term civil rights, I always think of blacks and whites in America, segregation and unequal rights because of race.

Non Caucasian people were not allowed to use the same schools, bathrooms, bus seats, or even drinking fountains that white people used. That was wrong. Everyone is human and should be treated with dignity.

These days we have this out of control "equality" thing that just kind of blindly rolls over common sense.

If there is no distinction between men and women in marriage now, then what about the rest of the gender based legal things like a law preventing a man from going into a women's locker room at the local gym and showering with 10 year old girls that happen to be showering in there. Well gay men can shower with boys in the locker next door, so why not? Why are there women's battery laws? Special rape laws only for women? There are literally thousands of laws that are preferential toward or only exist to assist women? Can't a gay man have these same laws applied to him just like marriage? It just isn't fair if they aren't. This breaks "Equality".

Men and women are different, that is why there are different rules for us. Homosexuals did not fit the description of marriage because it was defined by gender, since this fundamental attribute was thrown out, it seems only fair to throw out any and all gender biased laws, rules, and guidelines.

If a women feels that she was violated because a man came into the women's shower while she was shaving, how is this different than a women feeling that her marriage was violated because it also was re-defined as being genderless.

I just don't grasp the "logic" (or lack thereof) that people today must use to come up with such thoughts and justifications.

Mozilla is not Chik-Fil-A

Related Stories