The fact that Brendan hasn't publicly changed his position or donated $1000+ to an LGBT organization (to offset his Prop 8 donation) means that this must be a deeply held belief of his. I trust Mozilla will keep him on a short leash, but it's still troubling.
"What's wrong with it being a deeply-held belief?"
Wait, what? Alright, let's start from the beginning.
"Hell, for that matter, what exactly is this position everyone keeps ascribing to him?"
It may seem like we can't really tell, because he never really openly commented on this, but what we do know is this:
* he donated $1,000 of his own money to support Proposition 8
* the full text of Proposition 8 (according to Wikipedia):
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.
Is it really hard to figure out that Brendan Eich is a man who would pay $1,000 so that two consenting people in love can not marry if they are of the same sex?
I am not a gay person myself and I think it's safe to assume you are neither. And you might have read http://www.teamrarebit.com/blog/2014/03/24/goodbye_firefox_m... by now. But I really recommend doing a little bit of a research on the topics of gay marriage and LGBTs to see what exactly is wrong with his belief that LGBT people don't deserve basic human and civil rights.
Note: I was only responding to the quoted text. It's a whole another issue whether he should resign as a CEO of an organization that prides itself for being open and inclusive (or at least issue an apology and/or a statement of his changed mind on this issue). Also another question is whether it is the right solution to boycott a whole company which I am sure is full of people who do not agree with the new CEO's belief.
>It's a whole another issue whether he should resign as a CEO of an organization that prides itself for being open and inclusive (or at least issue an apology and/or a statement of his changed mind on this issue).
Why would either of those options happen? Since when is a person not entitled to his own opinions and beliefs? Him being the CEO has nothing to do with the stand on diversity of the organization itself, that was the whole point of Mozilla's statement. He is not firing his gay employees or enforcing his agenda upon the organization because that has nothing to do with his current position at Mozilla. In fact, the money he spent was his own, not Mozilla's. One can do whatever the fuck one wants with his own money as long as it's legal.
Making his stance against gay marriage public was probably not a good idea from a business standpoint, but there's absolutely nothing from that that should taint Mozilla's image.
The real problem here is that he actually acted on his opinions. If someone is a homophobe, racist or even a pedophile -- while they are not acting on their opinions or whatever drives them, I agree, they are free to think whatever they want. It would be better for them to work those issues out, but hey, if they're not actually harming anyone, I don't personally care.
We don't really know yet how his personal beliefs will affect the company. Read through some of the other comments here, I agree it could just be in very subtle -- yet still negative -- ways.
What I think is more interesting is how this reveals how deeply rooted sexism and homophobia are in our society. Yes, racism is still obviously a problem, but think for a moment what the reactions would be if the new CEO was known to have donated to KKK.
Here are some more fun exercises:
* what if the new CEO was a scientologist?
* what if the new CEO was an African American and it was revealed he donated to a group that attempts to make interracial marriage illegal again because he believes white people are sub-human creatures (the way the actual new CEO probably sees gay people, since he doesn't believe they deserve human and civil rights)?
* what if the new CEO was a neo-nazi sympathizer?
* what if the new CEO was a woman who really, really doesn't like men (and maybe even donated to some cause that attacks men or men's rights in some way)?
You can argue that all of these are just opinions. But where do we draw the line? People are usually very inconsistent with that. Homophobia is tolerated while putting a woman in a leading position makes people question this decision. Heck, people get all riled up over Ben Affleck being the next Batman, but the fact Bill Murray abused his wife doesn't stop him from being a geek idol.
I'm sorry, but you haven't really made any real argument here that wasn't a baseless non-sequitur or slippery slope, and apparently only acted on the fact that you have a strong stance against this person. None of the examples you provided really matter since it just so happens that the fact of the matter is not the opinions or actions this person has in his private life, but what he does for the organization (I'm also going to give you the benefit of ignoring that you just did a huge reductio ad absurdum by comparing being against gay marriage with the killing of black and jewish people).
Yes, making his opinions and actions public were a bad and stupid idea, but he's not a criminal for having opinions that differ from yours, and his current job isn't being the Pope. His job position isn't centered around his morality, it's centered around his performance as CEO of the organization. Again, stupid move to make his unpopular opinions public, yes. But having a personal stance doesn't make him evil.
What on earth are you talking about? Firstly, I don't even know this guy. Actions in private life? His actions could have had a real impact on real people if Prop 8 won. And while being murdered or have your loved ones killed is technically worse than being derived of other human (and civil) rights, human rights are human rights, they are here for everyone. The same for civil rights.
It wasn't a "stupid idea" to make his actions public. Actually he didn't, someone had to discover this. He's actually being a coward and won't even admit what his views are.
And while it's not criminal to stomp on other people's human and civil rights -- that is if those people are gay, one day it will be. Taking away (or at least trying to) someone's rights does make you evil.
In all of those cases, those are the private beliefs, and as long as the leadership is sound why does it matter?
The problem here is with the line "acting on his opinions". He didn't go into a church and bust-up a marriage ceremony. He didn't go drag a guy behind his truck. He didn't go and give weapons to his local skinheads to go make trouble.
He went and gave money, as is acceptable in place of a letter of support and considered an idiomatic way of voicing an opinion, to an organization doing something that many disagree with.
You are trying to make an argument for censuring people based on their participation in local government.
Much as we all hope that in a few years everyone will look back on LGBT discrimination as silly and outmoded, I hope we too will look back at this time of civic indifference and inactivity and say "Well, we now know that we get the kind of governance we work towards".
Yeah, I don't think that is how America works. You can hold any belief and support any organization in any way that is legal so long as that organization itself is not criminal or an enemy of the US. Maybe people will think you're a weird duck, but professionally punishing people ("you can't be CEO!") for something that doesn't affect the job at hand -- well, kind of an ass thing to do. He's apparently a good coder and a good leader by many metrics, so let him do his thing. I know that if the tables were turned, and I was the CEO of a company, and a fundamentalist Christian-majority started to yell,"Fire him! He doesn't believe in God and gives to organizations that seek to lure our children to Satan!", I wouldn't want their beliefs to wreck my professional career. We don't fight our battles in the office like that.
If you disagree with him, then disagree with him. And while you're at it, do it The American Way (TM) by boycotting sh*t and blogging and giving money to organizations that he finds morally reprehensible and electing (buying? :|) politicians that support your view.
I am happy that Mozilla seems to be very diverse and that the staff are openly expressing their feelings that it is a non-issue, but publishing something like this seems pretty weird, like they are overcompensating. I also wonder about all the people who aren't in the public eye who wouldn't write big long blog posts, does everyone at Mozilla feel that it's just swell?
mbrubeck mentioned that the staff asked for a public statement of some sort in yesterday's weekly project meeting, I assume this is in response to that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7460581
Thanks for that, I'm not sure this particular post is a compelling public statement though, but I guess there's no way a singular statement could ameliorate everyone.
I don't particularly think the politics of an executive defines the corporate culture of a company, so I'm not boycotting Mozilla just because the CEO has made some questionable political contributions.
However this post sends the wrong message for one reason - It is left unsigned by the CEO or anybody else in the organization. The omission of any sort of statement on his behalf speaks more than had Mozilla not addressed the concerns at all. At the very least, some high-level executive could have signed the post. The fact it isn't signed by anybody makes it seem like what could be a hollow promise.
I agree. This statement seems very dispassionate, but as stated here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7471718 it sounds like it was done at the request of the org, which might explain why it is not signed by an individual.
That said, from my personal experience, I disagree about the politics of individual executives, but that seems much more like a subjective statement, so I wouldn't enter a knife fight based on that assertion :)
Agreed. Eich needs to make a personal statement. We never questioned the organization, previously.
This is an important matter to the community which created and supported Mozilla from the beginning.
To us, Mozilla represents freedoms and rights for all people. For the incoming CEO to have taken a strong (and public) position at odds with that representation suggests that Mozilla has changed, or will change, or that we were mistaken.
This compromises Eich's ability to be an effective leader of the community. He is presumed to support inequality, bigotry, and hatred.
How can we ignore this? Mozilla is bigger and broader and stronger than one person, but Eich's presumed views are toxic and antithetical to what we believe Mozilla stands for.
These views should not be elevated to a position of official and executive leadership in our community.
> Mozilla provides the same level of benefits and advantages to domestic partners as we do to married couples across the United States, even in states where it is not mandated.
I think this statement is unnecessary. Eich's personal opinion on the matter has never been imposed or interfered with official Mozilla business. It's one of the most ethical companies I know.
Leadership views or behavior can influence corporate culture in subtle ways. For example, by simply lending credence to the private views of others in the company, that the bigwigs agree with them. People tend to align themselves with the viewpoints of people in power, either subconsciously, or consciouslessly (when brown nosing).
You could say that the private views of Chick-Fil-A's owner do not impact how the company does business, but I think it would be naive to say that it doesn't have some effect, both on the employees, and on people external to the company.
Or to give a non-political example, if your CEO believes the best way to motivate people is to scream insults at them, tell them their work sucks, or otherwise keep them in a state of fear, then, even if it isn't official company policy to do so, that management 'culture' will percolate down to middle level managers, so that suddenly you have a whole hierarchy of aggressive, alpha-male scream-bags who think they're the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates.
That statement is neither addressing the issue (some people have deeply held problems with _the person of the new CTO_) nor giving any insight on whether that was even considered this kind of reaction before choosing. It does in no way attempt to speak to the people that were hit badly by this.
Your opinion whether this outrage is justified or not doesn't matter. It is there and Mozilla should deal with it.
Coming from a country where this statement would simply mean "we're obeying the law", I'm not particularly impressed by this cold and formal statement.
It about as strong a stance as saying "we provide clean toilets".
The whole statement suggests that Mozilla believe treating employees fairly and equally (at least on the specific point of insurance) is somehow remarkably good of them.
I found this a very negative statement which makes me think less of Mozilla.
This post is literally a statement that Mozilla won't seek to actively violate California employment law. That's the entire substance. Oddly enough, I'm not convinced that rates applause.
27 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 60.1 ms ] threadOther than the donation, what do we know?
That he doesn't think gay people should have the same rights as straight people? Was this a trick question?
> What's wrong with it being a deeply-held belief?
That we are putting it to a vote at all will be a point of historical embarrassment in the not so distant future. Is this not clear?
I don't understand the incredulity; it's all rather plain.
Wait, what? Alright, let's start from the beginning.
"Hell, for that matter, what exactly is this position everyone keeps ascribing to him?"
It may seem like we can't really tell, because he never really openly commented on this, but what we do know is this:
* he donated $1,000 of his own money to support Proposition 8
* the full text of Proposition 8 (according to Wikipedia):
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.
Is it really hard to figure out that Brendan Eich is a man who would pay $1,000 so that two consenting people in love can not marry if they are of the same sex?
I am not a gay person myself and I think it's safe to assume you are neither. And you might have read http://www.teamrarebit.com/blog/2014/03/24/goodbye_firefox_m... by now. But I really recommend doing a little bit of a research on the topics of gay marriage and LGBTs to see what exactly is wrong with his belief that LGBT people don't deserve basic human and civil rights.
Note: I was only responding to the quoted text. It's a whole another issue whether he should resign as a CEO of an organization that prides itself for being open and inclusive (or at least issue an apology and/or a statement of his changed mind on this issue). Also another question is whether it is the right solution to boycott a whole company which I am sure is full of people who do not agree with the new CEO's belief.
Why would either of those options happen? Since when is a person not entitled to his own opinions and beliefs? Him being the CEO has nothing to do with the stand on diversity of the organization itself, that was the whole point of Mozilla's statement. He is not firing his gay employees or enforcing his agenda upon the organization because that has nothing to do with his current position at Mozilla. In fact, the money he spent was his own, not Mozilla's. One can do whatever the fuck one wants with his own money as long as it's legal.
Making his stance against gay marriage public was probably not a good idea from a business standpoint, but there's absolutely nothing from that that should taint Mozilla's image.
We don't really know yet how his personal beliefs will affect the company. Read through some of the other comments here, I agree it could just be in very subtle -- yet still negative -- ways.
What I think is more interesting is how this reveals how deeply rooted sexism and homophobia are in our society. Yes, racism is still obviously a problem, but think for a moment what the reactions would be if the new CEO was known to have donated to KKK.
Here are some more fun exercises:
* what if the new CEO was a scientologist?
* what if the new CEO was an African American and it was revealed he donated to a group that attempts to make interracial marriage illegal again because he believes white people are sub-human creatures (the way the actual new CEO probably sees gay people, since he doesn't believe they deserve human and civil rights)?
* what if the new CEO was a neo-nazi sympathizer?
* what if the new CEO was a woman who really, really doesn't like men (and maybe even donated to some cause that attacks men or men's rights in some way)?
You can argue that all of these are just opinions. But where do we draw the line? People are usually very inconsistent with that. Homophobia is tolerated while putting a woman in a leading position makes people question this decision. Heck, people get all riled up over Ben Affleck being the next Batman, but the fact Bill Murray abused his wife doesn't stop him from being a geek idol.
Yes, making his opinions and actions public were a bad and stupid idea, but he's not a criminal for having opinions that differ from yours, and his current job isn't being the Pope. His job position isn't centered around his morality, it's centered around his performance as CEO of the organization. Again, stupid move to make his unpopular opinions public, yes. But having a personal stance doesn't make him evil.
It wasn't a "stupid idea" to make his actions public. Actually he didn't, someone had to discover this. He's actually being a coward and won't even admit what his views are.
And while it's not criminal to stomp on other people's human and civil rights -- that is if those people are gay, one day it will be. Taking away (or at least trying to) someone's rights does make you evil.
The problem here is with the line "acting on his opinions". He didn't go into a church and bust-up a marriage ceremony. He didn't go drag a guy behind his truck. He didn't go and give weapons to his local skinheads to go make trouble.
He went and gave money, as is acceptable in place of a letter of support and considered an idiomatic way of voicing an opinion, to an organization doing something that many disagree with.
You are trying to make an argument for censuring people based on their participation in local government.
Much as we all hope that in a few years everyone will look back on LGBT discrimination as silly and outmoded, I hope we too will look back at this time of civic indifference and inactivity and say "Well, we now know that we get the kind of governance we work towards".
If you disagree with him, then disagree with him. And while you're at it, do it The American Way (TM) by boycotting sh*t and blogging and giving money to organizations that he finds morally reprehensible and electing (buying? :|) politicians that support your view.
However this post sends the wrong message for one reason - It is left unsigned by the CEO or anybody else in the organization. The omission of any sort of statement on his behalf speaks more than had Mozilla not addressed the concerns at all. At the very least, some high-level executive could have signed the post. The fact it isn't signed by anybody makes it seem like what could be a hollow promise.
That said, from my personal experience, I disagree about the politics of individual executives, but that seems much more like a subjective statement, so I wouldn't enter a knife fight based on that assertion :)
This is an important matter to the community which created and supported Mozilla from the beginning.
To us, Mozilla represents freedoms and rights for all people. For the incoming CEO to have taken a strong (and public) position at odds with that representation suggests that Mozilla has changed, or will change, or that we were mistaken.
This compromises Eich's ability to be an effective leader of the community. He is presumed to support inequality, bigotry, and hatred.
How can we ignore this? Mozilla is bigger and broader and stronger than one person, but Eich's presumed views are toxic and antithetical to what we believe Mozilla stands for.
These views should not be elevated to a position of official and executive leadership in our community.
That is awesome, actions speak louder than words.
You could say that the private views of Chick-Fil-A's owner do not impact how the company does business, but I think it would be naive to say that it doesn't have some effect, both on the employees, and on people external to the company.
Or to give a non-political example, if your CEO believes the best way to motivate people is to scream insults at them, tell them their work sucks, or otherwise keep them in a state of fear, then, even if it isn't official company policy to do so, that management 'culture' will percolate down to middle level managers, so that suddenly you have a whole hierarchy of aggressive, alpha-male scream-bags who think they're the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates.
Your opinion whether this outrage is justified or not doesn't matter. It is there and Mozilla should deal with it.
It about as strong a stance as saying "we provide clean toilets".
The whole statement suggests that Mozilla believe treating employees fairly and equally (at least on the specific point of insurance) is somehow remarkably good of them.
I found this a very negative statement which makes me think less of Mozilla.