Gay Marriage Partisans Should Speak Out But Avoid Witch Hunts
Is it fair to pressure companies into firing top officials because you don't agree with their political views? Since when, I am asking, is fairness a defining business value?
I raise this question because so many notable conservatives, ranging in intelligence from the thoughtful to the semi-deranged, have been complaining of "McCarthyism" (Andrew Sullivan) and "liberal fascist bullies" (Rush Limbaugh) over the forced resignation of Mozilla's CEO Brendan Eich.
Eich resigned as CEO of for-profit Mozilla Corp., which makes the popular Firefox web browser and other software, and also from the board of the nonprofit foundation which wholly owns the company, less than two weeks after his promotion from chief technical officer was announced.
What upsets conservatives and, I will allow, more than a few voices on the left is how and why Eich was forced out.
It had nothing to do with his job performance and everything to do with his contribution of $1,000 to California's anti-gay marriage Proposition 8 campaign in 2008.
That measure to ban same-sex marriages passed, only to be overturned later in federal court.
Disclosure of Eich's donation ruffled feathers in the Mozilla community in 2012 but erupted with new ferocity after he was promoted to CEO. An angry contingent of Mozilla employees demanded his resignation. A public petition was circulated demanding that he step down. The dating site OkCupid recommended that its customers stop using Firefox.
Is that fair? The Wall Street Journal and other members of the business press tended to cover this dustup as a business story, which fundamentally is what it is. Appropriate headline: Rising CEO Resigns Under Pressure.
But some of my fellow bloviators in the punditocracy have turned it into a free speech issue, as if government had something to do with it.
My first response to the "McCarthyism" and "liberal fascism" charge from the right is an equally sarcastic, "Ah, a taste of your own medicine, isn't it?"
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