Would a CEO be fired if it came out that he had donated to a group that advocated treating non-whites like second class citizens, even if he had done it 6 years ago? At virtually ever company in America, the answer is yes.
This is a false analogy. Support for same-sex marriage has been a mainstream position for, what, three, four years? Even (especially?) among gay rights activists support for buying into arguably archaic, patriarchal structures like marriage has been controversial.
It certainly is. I don't know how Republicans feel about it, nor do I care.
Honestly oakvale, I'm pro-marriage equality, but I agree with you. I don't agree that this is somehow a violation of the First Amendment (like some of this CEO's supporters are saying), but come on, he made a small donation to a bigoted cause. Would it be alright if a CEO of a different company was forced out if they donated to a pro-marriage equality or an environmental cause? I'm not going to yell "those who want tolerance are intolerant", but it seems distasteful somehow, since he hadn't really done anything since Prop 8 unlike say, Chick-Fil-A.
Yeah, I'm for gay marriage (if we must have marriage), but whipping up outrage against private citizens for expressing their personal political views is pretty disturbing - there's no suggestion that his personal views were going to affect policy at Mozilla in any way, yet heresy against mainstream liberalism must, apparently, be swiftly punished.
As Mozilla themselves announced, he wasn't 'pushed'; he quit. He lost the support of his own company and indeed, Eich only announced he was stepping down after it was revealed on Wednesday that he'd given money to Pat Buchanan's presidential campaign in 1992, and later to Ron Paul's campaign. The fact that he wasn't literally fired doesn't weaken my criticism here. He position became untenable because people decided that what he does with his own money (i.e. supporting the position, that FTR I think was wrong, held by a majority of Californians just six years ago) makes him unacceptable as the leader of a technology firm. The fact that he contributed to some right-wing Presidential campaigns, and that that's apparently unacceptable sacrilege, only furthers my point here.
I can understand it being a make or break issue for people if he were a candidate for political office or something. I don't know why the left is apparently okay with McCarthyism against people who, for whatever reason, oppose same-sex marriage when, again, there's
no evidence whatsoever that his personal views would have any impact whatsoever on the policy of the company.
Where does this logically stop? Maybe McCain/Romney supporters should be automatically disqualified from running companies since they presumably support policies that hurt the working poor and oppose state-sponsored healthcare?
