In 2008, Brendan Eich made a $1,000 donation in support of Proposition 8, which when passed that year, made gay marriage illegal in California. It was a weirdly proposed law in terms of its name, anyway. A “yes” vote meant that you were supporting the idea of blocking gay marriage, but a no vote meant the opposite. Many people were confused by that at the time, and while I thought Brendan Eich may have been one of them, initially (you like to give folks the benefit of the doubt), after reading his blog post from 2012, I don’t think so anymore.
This is what he wrote, in part:
A donation that I made in support of California Proposition 8 four years ago became public knowledge and sparked a firestorm of comments in the last few days, mostly on Twitter.
People in other countries or other U.S. states do not know why “Mozilla” was listed in the donation data. Donors above a certain amount are required by the State of California to disclose their employer. Mozilla had nothing to do with the donation.
I’m not going to discuss Prop 8 here or on Twitter. There is no point in talking with the people who are baiting, ranting, and hurling four-letter abuse. Personal hatred conveyed through curse words is neither rational nor charitable, and strong feelings on any side of an issue do not justify it.
In contrast, people expressing non-abusive anger, sadness, or disagreement, I understand, grieve, and humbly accept.
But then, after a paragraph called “No hate,” Brendan Eich writes this:
There’s a larger point here, the one Mitchell made: people in any group or project of significant size and diversity will not agree on many crucial issues unrelated to the group or project.
I know people doing a startup who testify that even at fewer than 20 employees, they have to face this fact. It’s obviously true for much larger communities such as JS and Mozilla. Not only is insisting on ideological uniformity impractical, it is counter-productive.
So I do not insist that anyone agree with me on a great many things, including political issues, and I refrain from putting my personal beliefs in others’ way in all matters Mozilla, JS, and Web. I hope for the same in return.
In other words, he did not change in mind in 2012, and it’s clear he’s not going to in 2014. But the fact remains, even with his personal view, and his donation (which was known by Mozilla in 2012), the man was still made CEO of the company.
That fact has caused gay Firefox Developers to go Ape and boycott Mozilla. Rarebit started it, as they posted this:
The overturning of Prop 8, literally was the foundation that allowed us to start this venture.
That’s why it’s personal for us. Brendan Eich was an active supporter of denying our right to be married and even to start this business. He actively took steps to ensure that rarebit couldn’t exist!
Further, he won’t comment on the issue and has not acknowledged any change of opinion. Two years ago, he had an opportunity to change his mind and help change society for better. He has not in two years, and said he will not… so it’s hard to think that any public change of opinion at this time would only be to ensure his new powerful position at Mozilla.
By the very bones in our body, we cannot dare use our creativity, experience, knowledge, and passion to further the career of a man who has to this day not apologized for his support. I can’t spend hours and days and years polishing, building, and upgrading applications that make him richer than he is.
Building great apps is what we love to do, it’s our passion. We want to make great things for people to use. Whether its a fun little puzzle game, or a useful dictionary, or our work on Sass.
Let me do a quick FAQ here to handle a couple responses I know we’ll get immediately:
Brendan Eich is just one person at Mozilla. There are lots of supportive, friendly people at Mozilla who do great work and want to make sure that Mozilla is a supportive place for LGBT people. Why punish all of them?I certainly recognize that there are great people at Mozilla. And that lots of people there want the org to be open and supportive. However, the board could have chosen ANY of those other, awesome people at Mozilla to be CEO. Out of all the possible candidates they could have chosen, they chose Brendan Eich. CEO’s are extremely important to an organization. Their ideas, beliefs, philosophies, and personalities drive organizations. And, when it’s an organization that I’m personally investing in, it’s even more important.
Brendan Eich could just say he has changed his mind, but the fact that he remains resolute is driving this anger. That’s not a good decision for a CEO to make. He has to act for the good of the firm. If Brendan Eich can’t do that, then he should step down, or Mozilla should fire him.
What others do in their personal life is their business, and always should be. That’s also true for Brendan Eich, but in this case, he expressed a view, and has taken actions, that have blocked the freedoms of a number of the people his firm’s associated with, and relies on.
Stay tuned.
Zennie Abraham | Zennie Abraham or “Zennie62” is the founder of Zennie62Media which consists of zennie62blog.com and a multimedia blog news aggregator and video network, and 78-blog network, with social media and content development services and consulting. Zennie is a pioneer video blogger, YouTube Partner, social media practitioner, game developer, and pundit. Note: news aggregator content does not reflect the personal views of Mr. Abraham.