I just came across this story that really pissed me off.  Here's an excerpt...

"A newly promoted tech CEO who contributed money to an effort to ban gay marriage in California resigned Thursday, days after dating site OkCupid.com outed him as “an opponent of equal rights.”

Brendan Eich, a co-founder of Mozilla, was named CEO of the company last month, sparking outrage among board members of the nonprofit, which created the Firefox Internet browser, as well as users of the free service.

OkCupid prevented web surfers from logging onto the site through the Firefox portal, claiming 8% of its users are gay or lesbian.

Eich gave $1,000 to support California’s Proposition 8 in 2008, a bill banning gay marriage in the country’s most populous state.

Prop 8 passed, but was later overturned."

Now, let me start by telling you my opinion of gay marraige.  I don't give a shit, one way or the other.  Good, now that we got that over with...

My problem is when those who support gay marriage decide to cross the line of support and voicing their opinions into the realm of all out attack on the other side.  Keep in mind, this wasn't because of something recent he had said or done.  Oh, no.  This is because 7 years ago he expressed his support for a cause he believed in by donating money.  So, instead of being open minded and excepting that other's have differing opinions, and just being okay with voicing their disagreement with his views (unless of course it became evident down the line that he was using his position to harrass or punish those who disagreed with him, when action would be necessary), they staged an all out attack.  Board members quit.  Employees and members of pro gay marriage groups took to the social networks, demanding action.  OkCupid went so far as to block those using Firefox from their site.

What sickens me even more is the fact that Mozilla Chairwoman Baker issued this statement, "Mozilla believes both in equality and freedom of speech.  Equality is necessary for meaningful speech. And you need free speech to fight for equality. Figuring out how to stand for both at the same time can be hard."  I suppose this means that equality and freedom of speech only counts if someone agrees with your cause, otherwise just hassle the company til they fire the man they originally thought was best for the job.  A job that has nothing to do gay marriage.

I'm going to, once again, stress something I feel I can't stress enough.  This has NOTHING to do with something he had done, recently.  No one discovered he had been abusing his role as CEO to punish those who were either gay or disagreed with him.  If that were the case, then yes, I would agree actions should be taken.  Instead, this has to do with those who claim to be opened minded, and preach equality, yet can't stand even being in the same room as someone who has differing opinions.  And furthermore, believe that those who do should be punished, in this case by costing the man his job. 

If this is what open-mindedness is, I'll just stick to being closed-minded.  Where I can stand to have debates with others who have differing opinions as mine.  And if the debate leads nowhere, then I can agree to disagree, while wishing no ill will to the other party.  I'm just going to end this with a few qoutes from former CEO Eich.

"So I don't want to talk about my personal beliefs because I kept them out of Mozilla all these 15 years we've been going. I don't believe they're relevant."

"I am committed to ensuring that Mozilla is, and will remain, a place that includes and supports everyone, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, age, race, ethnicity, economic status or religion."

"So far we've been able to bring people together of diverse beliefs including on things like marriage equality.  We couldn't have done this, we couldn't have done Firefox One. I would've been excluded, someone else would've been excluded because of me – I wouldn't have done that personally, they'd have just left. So imagine a world without Firefox: not good."

"I think I'm the best person for the job and I'm doing the job." - Source for above quotes

Dude, so you think it pisses you off when people boycot a guy for trying to pass legislation to abridge their rights?

How is it hypocritical at all. You try to pass a law to mess with somebody's life, they won't like you. He tried to take rights away from a huge group of people. Those people decided to use a different browser. He left the company because he wasn't worth the trouble. It's pretty fair. 

I am going to step in now and say that this debate is welcome, but keep your posts related to the content at hand and do NOT attack other posters.

No one in this world can accept everything, its just some people can tolerate somethings more than others which makes them "open minded" but eventually even they can't take it anymore and decides to do stupid stuff like that!

So no, no one can ever be truely open minded regardless of what they claim... For example I don't have an issue with gays as long as they don't poke around (if you know what I mean) and I love lesbians as well as many other things but I cannot tolerate furries so even though I have an "open mind" when it comes to many forms of sex/love, furries is something that scares me, so yea... (Also, I don't mean that in an offensive way)

You realize you don't have to qoute the OP, right?  We'll know what you're commenting on.  Especially, if you're the first comment.

And I'm sorry, did he want those who supported gay marriage to lose their jobs, and then have them have to hunt down new ones.  Which they may not be able to do, since he would follow them to whatever new job they tried to get, ready to make sure people knew they were pariahs?  Nope, don't think so.  He expressed his beliefs, while those who opposed him were able to express theirs.  That's the way it should work. 

And I would have no problem if switching browsers was all they did, as that wouldn't have caused the man his job, since it would have been a minority that did.  Instead they attacked the company, with the sole purpost to have him fired.  Even though there was no proof that he was abusing his powers to influence or hurt those who disagreed with him.  Instead, it was just a differing of views.

Having conflicting opinions is one thing. Taking those opinions and using them as a reason to limit the rights of others, essentially making them second-class citizens, is detestable. You're pissed off that these people lashed out at someone who was paying to see their rights limited?

Well, I figured, considering your sig.  Then again, that could be one of those weird animes where one is really a boy.  Or a cat.    On a somewhat serious note, though, how is that not considered NSFW?

Really, though, this wasn't like he continued to do things they disliked, and it just all finally blew up.  The man wasn't promoted that long ago, but instead of letting him prove himself, they just wanted him fired cause I suppose they couldn't handle someone who thought differently from them in such a high position.  Hell, why not do the civilized thing and have an actual conversation with the man?  Find out why he thinks the way he does and let him know why you feel the way you do.  If you can't sway him, or he you, then let it be.  Wait...what am I saying?  Fuck that!  LET'S GET HIM FIRED!! 

'm pro-gay marriage. I think the boycotting of him was terrible. Boycotting of different opinions is effectively silencing other opinions using money. You should not be able to purchase silence.

Just because someone believes in something doesn't mean everyone else has to respect that belief, it works both ways. Fact is being publicly anti-gay has become socially unacceptable and Eich has chosen to do things which upset pro-gay communities so they decide they do not want to have anything to do with him. Simple freedom of speech.

Being "tolerant or open minded" of things like gay rights for example doesn't mean you can't be intolerant towards people against that position. You could say that someone can be tolerant of everything but not only is that rather unrealistic but it's not OKCupid's position to begin with.

EDIT: However, Mozilla claimed to be open of all beliefs and they should have stood their ground instead of flip flopping. Like I said before it's a radical position to keep in the first place but they should have expected it and should have been prepared to deal with the consquences, instead of firing the guy.

Lol, I'll be honest, I thought you were closing the thread when I first started to read that.  I was like, "WTF!"