Take on Mozilla

I had an issue with the entire Mozilla situation and not for the reasons you may expect.  

I am a huge gay-rights supporter and believe in marriage equality but even I found that forcing somebody out if their job because of their personal beliefs is treading on thin ice.   I didn't agree with Prop 8 and believe the results were misleading especially with all the outside money that poured in.   Although I obviously would not have supported it financially myself but if somebody supports a cause, does that make him or her incapable of running a company?

Now this issue is different because it is a company in the public although not a public company and the CEO is their equivalent of Mr. Met or The doofy Norte Dame Leprechaun.    As the face of the franchise, does this now become a job requirement that you support gay marriage to become the next CEO at Mozilla?   They need consumers to drive traffic through their Firefox browsers and at some point this could hurt the bottom line.  

The question now becomes, who else must pass this test in that company?  The CFO, the COO, a VP of operations, upper management, middle management.... how about a programmer or a janitor?  Are we going to require that all people working for the company have a certain belief and be on record of it??    I am not naive enough to say that a janitor has the same public importance as a CEO but the argument is not made in only the extreme. .   

My question is, how does the left portray this as progressive since by definition limiting somebody's opportunities of advancement because of beliefs is discriminatory.   

I would also bet my life savings that Brendan Eich is not the only C level  executive in this country who is against gay marriage and I am not sure if we should now out every CEO with this as the litmus test.   Because if we do then we might be saying that we are OK with somebody rising to middle management but saying they cannot possibly advance past that because of their religious beliefs, however bias they may be. 

Although I believe Gay Marriage will be rightfully accepted overwhelmingly and supported within our lifetime, let's not suggest that this is an overwhelming long held opinion of this country.   A decade ago it wasn't the majority opinion, two decades ago it was probably not the opinion of 30% of the population.  Most politicians are officially against it,  our own Democratic president has just recently admitted 'evolving' on the issue.  

What other litmus tests will CEO's be given?  Abortion, immigration, contraception etc?   Now those are all controversial issues in the country but ones I am have clear opinions on but I have never felt the need to alter my buying power because of them.   I don't have any idea what the views of the CEO's of Apple, Boars Head, Samsung, Ford, The Gap, Amazon or Delta have and that is fine with me.  

The counter argument is that unlike those hot-button issues this is truly a human rights one where there really is only one right answer similar to a stance on slavery and women's rights to vote.  I appreciate that comparison because a CEO who would financially support the KKK would probably face even greater scorn.    But again this is an issue with deep religious earthquake like fault lines, so the issue is not at all black and white.  I know plenty of people who will tell me that they believe the Bible explicitly condemns it and will read scripture of condemnation of a man laying next to another man as it's proof.   I couldn't in good consciousness (or legally for that matter) deny a potential job applicant employment at my company if they believed that marriage should only be between and man a woman. 

With that all said, do believe that consumers have every right to protest with their wallets but Mozilla may find out that there is just as loud a voice from the other side of the aisle and they also need browsers.   If Steve Jobs had made a donation, should he have been forced to resign??   When we start dismissing capable C level executives for their religious beliefs, I wonder if at some point the left looks 'right' and the right looks right.  

Sent from my iPhone