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?"

It astounds me that people who defend the billionaire Koch Brothers' right to make unlimited political conations to conservative causes -- often while criticizing the billionaire George Soros for doing the same thing on the left -- would be shocked, shocked to learn that political actions often spark harsh reactions.

My second response is to remind everyone that the First Amendment only protects us all from being muzzled by government. It does not protect corporate officers from being held accountable to their stockholders, stakeholders, customers or valued employees.

Besides, the rising up of a protest does not mean that the targeted corporate officer has to resign. A few days after Eich's resignation, another protest movement erupted online against the appointment by Dropbox, another popular software company, of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to its board of directors.

Objections listed on such protest sites as "Drop Dropbox" have nothing to do with her international business expertise and everything to do with torture, eavesdropping and other controversial policies of the George W. Bush administration.

But in sharp contrast to Eich's swift departure from Mozilla, Dropbox CEO Drew Houston stood by their woman. In a post on the Dropbox blog, Houston praised Rice as an asset to the company in pursuit of overseas markets and restated the company's commitment to privacy rights, "transparency and government surveillance reform."

Eich's case reveals a different kind of corporate damage to be controlled. It shows how much same-sex marriage and other gay rights causes have gone mainstream, especially in the new-century business cultures of Silicon Valley.

Yet it is important to note, Eich, by all accounts, is far from anti-gay. He supports the rest of the gay rights agenda, including civil unions. However, unlike former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and others who have reversed their previous objections to same-sex marriage, Eich still opposes it.

I disagree with Eich, yet his views are still too widely held to be equated with racism, as his harshest critics do. Same-sex marriage supporters would be wise, in my view, to avoid tactics that resemble a witch hunt. That's how otherwise worthy movements look like its own worst enemy.

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E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.