Strong words. Are they justified? I think he’s overegging the pudding a little but the pressuring of Eich to step down does bother me. This is the guy who came up with JavaScript, technically what better CEO could you ask for a browser? And I’m not sure his stance on gay marriage has a hell of a lot to do with anything, it’s a matter between him and his conscience.
This is a tough one. I hate to see someone punished in the workplace for his political views, but when you’re the head of a company, your private actions can affect the image of that company.
Assuming that the guy was actually fired (even though he supposedly stepped down), I’m sure most of us would be opposed to an employer firing an employee for holding certain political views (as long as doing so did not interfere with his work). But I think on balance, I’m OK with the CEO being forced out since, like I said, he can influence the perception folks have of the company in ways that a low level worker cannot. We would not be opposed to a CEO being “let go” for contributing to a White Supremicist cause, and this is not significantly different.
Not that this has anything to do with SSM, but that simply isn’t true. In fact, it’s more often not true than true that the techie guy is the best CEO. Usually the techie guy is the best techie guy, and someone else is better at running and growing the business.
What if all he did was speak against same-sex marriage rather than fund a campaign against it? Would that have been OK? Where do we draw the line between ‘actively trying to help’ a cause and ‘expressing an opinion’?
It’s a genuine question. I can understand both sides of the debate here, so I don’t have a strong opinion on it yet.
I’d have no problem with that. I’ve argued this on a very far right conservative site where the preferred phrasing is that he’s being punished for ‘supporting man/woman marriage’. It’s a poor way to say what really happened. He didn’t support opposite sex marriage, he wasn’t merely not in favor of same sex marriage. He put money into a campaign to make one of the two illegal.
Although I’d say that “Footnote 4” is rapidly losing one of its prongs – ‘politically powerless.’
But you’re exactly right: the person is free to donate to whomever he pleases; the company is free to react accordingly by firing him.
I have to say that I sense the reaction here would be different if this guy had contributed to support same-sex marriage and a strongly Christian company had fired him… or am I wrong?
But I’d say the same thing to that event as I say to this one: company is free to do as they please,just as the individual is.
At the time, the only other options for their positions were significantly more prejudiced on the subject than Obama or Biden. I suspect, however, that had Mozilla wanted, they could have found any number of candidates for CEO that weren’t bigots.
Also, of course, Obama and Biden have both reversed their earlier opposition. (Making it, in Obama’s case, the second time he’s flipped on the issue.) Eich has had more than one opportunity to reverse his earlier stance, and has refused to take it.
As for the blogger mentioned in the OP, no surprise that it’s Andrew Sullivan.
Note that he quit not just due to the prop 8 contributions but due to the revelation that he had also contributed lots of money to Pat Buchanan and others.