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*I* didn't go after anyone, and firefox is my browser of choice at home, so I don't know who you think you're talking to or making ASSumptions about.
This is about private consumers making informed, free market decisions about where they want to spend their money or what products they want to use, based on ANY CRITERIA that is important to them.
That's how the market works. That's how free speech works.
This was NOT the free market at work. It was coercion plain and simple. Group think is NOT the free market.
Regardless of whether you liked his opinion or not, if you support the Mozilla CEOs forced resignation than congratulations, you are now offically supporter of Fascism! You can no longer claim to believe in liberty or tolerance . Fascism, whether it comes from Nazis or The Rainbow Gestapo, has no place in a free society.
Funny thing though, most of the gay people I know in real life think that what happened to the Mozilla CEO was wrong. Too bad their voice is drowned out by the Militant Fascist screaming and yelling. I don't think they represent the average homosexual, they are giving them a bad name and only hurting their cause.
Them uppity gays should be more like the good gays that know their place eh?
Oh yeah? Well too bad he didn't see fit to keep his personal BELIEFS out of and separate from other people's PERSONAL LIVES.... maybe then he wouldn't be in this situation.
Isn't that EXACTLY what YOU are doing? Installing YOUR beliefs into someone else and punishing them if they don't comply? Why YES IT IS!
I think everybody, even Eich, should use their money as they see fit. Vote with their wallets.
That's one of the reasons I don't see anything wrong with what happened to Eich.
Let me ask it this way:
Question 1. Eich had the right to spend his money the way he wanted to, according to his conscious, even if it hurt other people. Should Gay-rights supporters have the same right?
Question 2. Why was it okay for Eich to use his spending power to hurt gay people, but the reverse is found offensive?
Question 3. Why should people who support gay rights feel guilty about choosing not to use products of companies that are led by people who support financially gay prejudice?
Each of your questions presupposes gays as the victims. I don't see gay people as victims. I see them as people who were persecuted, but the injustice of that persecution is now becoming glaringly apparent to their fellow Americans, because persecution is by its very nature unjust and indefensible. It's wrong when it is happening to gay people, and it's wrong when it's being done BY gay people.
Come on gay community..Go after ALL of those evil corps that made a donation to prop 8 or ANY anti-gay cause. Do it, show you are not hypocrites. You went after Eich because the CEO of a GAY dating site, who did the exact same thing mind you, told you to. Your loyalty is to the homosexual horde and nothing else.
... and for donating money to a campaign that sought to strip existing marriages of their validity and further prevent his fellow citizens from having equal rights. But, ya know, he was just "exercising free speech."
That is more than "having an opinion." Just like the Chick-Fil-A guy did more than "have an opinion." He sent money to causes that have very real adverse effects on LGBT people.
There's a thin line between speech and action.
Of course you "don't care how terrible" it was. Even if you disagreed with it, the reality is whether it passed or not does not and did not affect you. But for millions of others in this country these issues are VERY personal. MUCH more personal or even more so than a religious belief, because religion is a chosen belief system (speech), and not an innate characteristic (not speech).
He "became a target" because some other people in the tech world decided to make it an issue. Not even really "gay people" made an issue about it, but you can see how once known gay folks might think twice about using service and a company headed by someone who literally thinks they are undeserving of all the benefits and rights of citizenship.
And he was elevated to be the figurehead of a company. All the nonsense on this thread about "60 employees from Intel donated to Prop 8...." are completely not analogous, at all.
Again: What if Fred Phelps was made CEO of Mozilla. Would it be "fascist thought police tactics" to call for his ouster?
What if YOU were made CEO of Mozilla? And something you wrote, some donation you made, something you said, years ago, were brought up, was made hugely public, and people started boycotting the company you worked for, all to make sure you lost your employment, and were no longer employable? I'm sure you have a belief or an opinion that isn't shared by the world. We all do.
I'm still waiting for the fascists to dump their Intel processor iPhones and Macs.
Mozilla - one person donated $1,000 to Prop 8
Intel - 61 people donated over $80,000 to Prop 8
Of course, we all know the fascists have no conviction, so they'll hang on to their Intel processor electronics. Hypocrites.
As you keep posting this idiocy over and over again, you clearly need to be reminded yet again that 99.03% of Intel's employees did NOT contribute to Prop 8 and that Intel is a company that supports same-sex marriage.
You guys do know that to be fascist, by definition, one must be part of government.
And while we're at it, the first amendment only applies to the government censorship of speech, not private parties.
From reading all the post here, it seems like there was some confusion on those points.
Clearly some people on this thread are incapable of thinking rationally when they have worked themselves up into hysteria about some imaginary 'gay army' living under their beds trying to control their every thought.
It’s not about Eich as a person but his position as an officer of an organization. As the CEO he was the public face of the company. His personal views were held to a higher standard. Just ask Larry Summers (former president of Harvard) or Trent Lott (former Senate Minority Leader) who resigned for saying stupid things that offended people. Eich’s position as leader became untenable and he had no choice but to go.
Had he worked for a different company they outcome would have been very different, but Mozilla attracts a lot of progressives and libertarians (both as customers and employees).
Eich's donation pre-dated by years his appointment as CEO.
And his personal views shouldn't be held to a higher standard. Summers and Lott had positions that involved forging public policy. Eich did not.
As for Mozilla attracting progressives, that's because Eich is a figurehead for the progessive ideal of open source software. Eich founded Mozilla to protect and foster that ideal.
Eich's position became untenable, because the mob tends to become tyrannical. He became the target of a mob. He was effectively lynched by the mob. And the over-the-top character assassination of a man who made, for him, a small donation to a legitimate political movement, as THE man who destroyed the happiness of thousands of gay couples, is rationalization to defend what people know, in their hearts, was wrong.
In a country that celebrates a diversity of thought and opinion, we stabbed ourselves in the persecution of Mr Eich.
Oh yeah? Well too bad he didn't see fit to keep his personal BELIEFS out of and separate from other people's PERSONAL LIVES.... maybe then he wouldn't be in this situation.
He didn't write Proposition 8, he didn't campaign for Proposition 8, none of his colleagues or friends even knew he opposed same-sex marriage. He's not evil because he doesn't believe in same-sex marriage. Millions of Americans don't believe in same-sex marriage. That doesn't make them evil.
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