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
