Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich has been playing defense for the last several days over his stance on gay marriage, but this brings up the issue if a CEO who outwardly is not hostile toward any one group can still voice their opinion like any other American.
The immediate answer would be yes they can, but the fallout will be intense and may well cost them their job. Eich is the latest high-profile individual to find out that sometimes it's best to keep their true thoughts on a potentially controversial topic private when Mozilla staffers and the dating site OkCupid both called for his ouster over his pro-Prop 8, or anti-gay marriage, stance.
But for some these actions are akin to the pot calling the kettle black.
"Employees at Mozilla, the organization that created the Firefox web browser, have shown their warped sense of commitment to "tolerance" by demanding the termination of Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich because he dared to oppose gay marriage," said Todd Cefaratti
Cefaratti went on to point out Eich has also said on the company blog that he is committed to fostering equality and welcomes LGBT individuals at Mozilla and that he asks for them to watch how he operates the company. In addition, he apologized for causing anyone any pain.
The uproar is centered on a $1,000 donation Eich gave to pro-proposition 8 group in California in 2008. Proposition 8 was on the ballot in 2008 and was designed to eliminate the right of same sex couples to marry. It was passed by Californians making same-sex marriage illegal, but in 2010 a federal judge ruled that Prop 8 was unconstitutional and barred enforcement.
Eich has since come out asking his workers to give him a chance to prove he is not what they believe.
"Many Mozillians and others know me as a colleague or a friend. They know that I take people as they come and work with anyone willing to contribute. At the same time, I don't ask for trust free of context, or without a solid structure to support accountability," Brendan Eich said on his blog. "No leader or person who has a privileged position should. I want to be held accountable for what I do as CEO. I fully expect you all to do so.
OkCupid did not take this as sufficient penance and placed a note to users who enter its site through Firefox stating its disgust with Eich's stance on gay marriage and asking them to use another browser, and then giving links to Google Chrome, IE and Opera.
"Mozilla's new CEO, Brendan Eich, is an opponent of equal rights for gay couples. We would therefore prefer that our users not use Mozilla software to access OkCupid," the site states.
A quick check of several other dating sites, including Match.com, eHarmony and Zoosk did not find any similar statement.
