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Mozilla employees tell Brendan Eich he needs to “step down”

arstechnica.com

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Re: Mozilla employees tell Brendan Eich he needs to “step down”

#21

Post by mquander »

eigenvector wrote: post #4

The fact that they can come out and say this demonstrates that these employees, the people best able to assess this, don't believe that Eich will retaliate. That Mozilla is and remains a place where any employee can express their views on political issues, even if they know they're contrary to the CEO's. And that destroys any argument for Eich's role as CEO creating a conflict with Mozilla's ability to welcome LGBTQ…

Let me be clear: I believe Brendan Eich is wrong about gay marriage. But I don't think the price of his convictions should be his career at Mozilla, a company he's played a large role in building, when there is no documented instance of him ever disparaging or otherwise harming LGBTQ employees or community members.

I don't know what the price of Eich's convictions should be, but I think that a good way to find out is for people who have been strongly affected by his convictions to say clearly what they think about it.

I don't know whether Eich will (or should) remain CEO, but whether he does or not, having people speak up in this fashion seems unambiguously positive.

Re: Mozilla employees tell Brendan Eich he needs to “step down”

#24

Post by freehunter »

david927 wrote: post #5

It's his personal view. What does freedom mean if it's only about views that everyone likes?

His personal view is that a subset of humans do not deserve equal rights afforded to everyone else. It's not that he votes for a different party, that's not a problem. It's that he actively wants to deny rights to certain people, some of whom are under his employ.

I wouldn't want a member of the KKK running my organization either, and I would imagine most minorities would speak out about that as well. Racist or anti-gay, a bigot is a bigot. This isn't about politics or personal views. It's about denying human beings their deserved civil liberties for no good reason at all. Would you want to work for someone who hates you enough to force a law to break apart your family?

Re: Mozilla employees tell Brendan Eich he needs to “step down”

#25

Post by intortus »

mikestew wrote: post #8

Just the CEO? Who else shall we burn at the stake? Mary, the office manager, goes to church every Sunday. How did she vote? John over in mobile dev is a devout Muslim, I'll bet he doesn't take kindly to such things as gay marriage. Time to start scanning through those campaign contribution records for Prop 8 and seeing if a JOIN on the employee database gives us any results. I've always held to the idea that my job i…

There's a huge difference between holding general religious beliefs and contributing financially to a political movement specifically pursuing institutional discrimination of a large class of Americans.

I'm a little troubled by the chilling effects that career and public opinion can have on political expression, but it's hard to generate sympathy for blatantly unconstitutional, horrendously discriminatory forms of political expression.

Re: Mozilla employees tell Brendan Eich he needs to “step down”

#27

Post by cmhamill »

Some very strange reactions in this thread. The idea that this somehow validates the notion that Eich's politics don't affect Mozilla as a workplace seems particularly bizarre, to me.

My read on this is that there are employees at Mozilla who feel strongly enough about this to speak publicly, and the most likely reason is because they believe that Eich as CEO will affect their workplace.

Re: Mozilla employees tell Brendan Eich he needs to “step down”

#29

Post by freehunter »

phpnode wrote: post #16
simias wrote: post #7

I haven't followed that particular drama, are they asking him to step down solely because of his anti-gay activism? Or are there other reasons as well? Assuming it's the former and as long as he's not pushing his agenda through Mozilla (discriminating against gay employees or whatnot) I'm not sure it's a good reason to "fire" a CEO.

Does making a one time donation to a political organisation really constitute "anti gay activism"?

When the political organization in question exists solely to promote anti-gay laws, then yes. Yes it does.

Re: Mozilla employees tell Brendan Eich he needs to “step down”

#30

Post by hkphooey »

eigenvector wrote: post #4

The fact that they can come out and say this demonstrates that these employees, the people best able to assess this, don't believe that Eich will retaliate. That Mozilla is and remains a place where any employee can express their views on political issues, even if they know they're contrary to the CEO's. And that destroys any argument for Eich's role as CEO creating a conflict with Mozilla's ability to welcome LGBTQ…

People are employed on what they contribute to the company, not on their social or political views.

If these employees are such bigots and fascists, that they can't fathom someone having a different opinion to their own, they should resign and work elsewhere.

Mozilla is a technology company with the mission to promote a free and open web. If these employees believed that Mozilla was some kind of political organisation, they are wrong and have been deluding themselves.

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