SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — The resignation of Mozilla’s CEO
amid outrage that he supported an anti-gay marriage campaign is
prompting concerns about how Silicon Valley’s strongly liberal culture
might quash the very openness that is at the region’s foundation.
Mozilla
co-founder Brendan Eich stepped down Thursday as CEO, just days after
his appointment. He left the nonprofit maker of the Firefox browser
after furious attacks, largely on Twitter, over his $1,000 contribution
to support of a now-overturned 2008 gay-marriage ban in California.
"There
was no interest in creating an Internet lynch mob," OkCupid co-founder
Sam Yagun, whose dating service site was among those engaged in online
protest, said Friday. "I am opposed to that with every bone in my body."
But
Eich’s abrupt departure has stirred the debate over the fairness of
forcing out a highly qualified technology executive over his personal
views and a single campaign contribution six years ago. And it raises
questions about how far corporate leaders are allowed to go in
expressing their political views.
Some are also questioning
whether the episode undercuts the well-groomed image of Silicon Valley
as a marketplace of ideas and diversity of thought, and whether, in this
case, the tech world surrendered to political correctness enforced
through a public shaming on social media.
OkCupid never demanded
Eich resign, and after discussing the issue with Mozilla, Yagun ended
the call for a Firefox boycott Wednesday afternoon.
In retrospect, however, Yagun said he wished he had framed the Firefox boycott in a slightly different
light.
"I
would have loved to have engaged in a debate over what happens when
freedoms collide," Yagun said. "We have freedom of speech, which I would
defend to the end. And we have what I believe is a fundamental liberty
of people to marry and love whoever they want. We took a stand that
matters to us personally and as a business — and I think the world will
be a better place because of it."
Eich’s departure didn’t end the controversy, it just changed it.
The
National Organization for Marriage, which backed California’s same-sex
marriage ban, called on consumers to boycott the Firefox browser.
Organization
President Brian Brown said Eich had been the "target of a vicious
character attack by gay activists who have forced him out of the company
he has helped lead for years."
While a handful of workers at top
tech firms including Apple, Yahoo and Google supported the gay-marriage
ban, the vast majority gave money to oppose it.
Mozilla Chairwoman Mitchell Baker touched on the delicate balancing act in her Thursday blog post
announcing Eich’s resignation.
"Mozilla
believes both in equality and freedom of speech," Baker said. "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."
Eich’ s technical reputation is strong. He created
JavaScript and helped write the code to run Netscape’s Navigator web
browser before co-founding Mozilla.
Mozilla, which is based in
Mountain View, Calif., declined to make any further comment Friday. Eich
did not respond to requests for comment.
Harmeet Dhillon, vice
chairman of the California Republican Party, said Silicon Valley can be
intolerant, and noted 52 percent of California voters supported the
anti-gay marriage measure.
"Many people have told me they’re
afraid to identify themselves as conservatives," she said. "We face
issues of political correctness all the time."
Eich’s resignation
should serve as a chilling reminder to workers at all levels that their
off-duty behavior or personal opinions could still cost them their jobs
if their employers are worried about a backlash hurting their business,
said Lewis Maltby, president of the National Workrights Institute.
New
York and a few other states prohibit employers from firing workers for
political activity, but even those protections are limited.
Some
firings of lower-level employees have raised even more troubling
questions about worker rights than Eich’s resignation, Maltby said. Some
women have gotten fired for Facebook pictures showing them wearing a
bikini on the beach, and a teacher lost her job for another Facebook
photo that showed her holding a beer.
Most employers are vague about their restrictions on what workers are allowed to share online.
"There is no clear line," Maltby said. "The line is whatever offends your boss or the
CEO."
Chick-fil-A
Inc. President Dan Cathy’s opposition to gay marriage has created
controversy for the Atlanta-based company best known for its fried
chicken sandwiches and closing on Sundays. But he has maintained his
position.
While many gay-rights activists and commentators welcomed Eich’s departure, there were dissenters.
Andrew Sullivan, a prominent gay blogger, railed against the pressure that led to the resignation.
"You
want to squander the real gains we have made by argument and engagement
by becoming just as intolerant of others’ views as the Christians?," he
asked. "You’ve just found a great way to do this. It’s a bad,
self-inflicted blow. And all of us will come to regret it."
Fred Sainz of the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay-rights group, took issue with Sullivan.
"I don’t believe this is a question of suppressing free speech," he said. "It’s a question
of the market regulating itself."
Had
Eich stayed in his job, "a tsunami of negativity was going to
eventually overwhelm him and the company," Sainz said. "It’s entirely a
measure of our success as a movement that we are now part of that long
list of issues that CEOs have to consider."
Robert P. George, the
Princeton University professor and conservative intellectual, said
Eich’s case was another example of how religious conservatives who only
support heterosexual marriage are being victimized for their views.
George has dubbed the incident "Brendan Eich’s defenstration."
"Now
that the bullies have Eich’s head as a trophy on their wall, they will
put the heat on every other corporation and major employer," George
wrote, in a post on First Things, a conservative journal on religion and
public policy. "They will pressure them to refuse employment to those
who decline to conform their views to the new orthodoxy."
Russell
Moore, head of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention,
said the Mozilla case signaled "very hostile times" for anyone who
believes marriage should only be between a man and a woman. Eich was
"hounded out of office," he said.
Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson,
who was the first openly gay bishop elected in the Anglican Communion,
said in a phone interview that a corporate board has a right to take
stock of how executives’ views shape a companies’ reputation.
But Robinson noted that Eich said his personal beliefs would not affect his performance as CEO.
Still,
Robinson said he disagreed with the idea that Eich served as an example
of bullying by liberals, as some conservatives claim.
"It seems
to me when a society makes a determination that something is wrong, for
example racial hatred, then somehow it’s not intolerant to insist upon
that understanding," Robinson said.
Justin Lee, founder of the Gay
Christian Network, which works to build bridges with evangelical
opponents of same-sex relationships, described himself as "a passionate
supporter of marriage equality." But Lee said he didn’t think Eich
should have left or been pressured to leave because he donated to
Proposition 8.
"As much as I disagree with the donation, this is
America, and I believe he has a right to support the political causes he
believes in," Lee said.
___
Associated Press writers David Crary and Rachel Zoll in New York and Michael Liedtke in San Francisco
contributed to this story.
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