[KuraFire]

It's not really a litmus test.

Mozilla is an organization that prides itself on openness and equality, on being inclusive as an organization and a culture. This is reflected in its products, in many different ways—all of them good, generally speaking.

The CEO is the figurehead of a company or organization; they have to represent the company, establish its culture, define its vision, and so forth and so forth.

Having a CEO who has a history of donating to an anti-equality campaign, an act that very strongly suggests having an unequal view of certain groups of people (LGBTQ folks in this case), does not mesh with an organization that prides itself on equality (among other things). They are pretty mutually exclusive.

It was already a conflict with Eich as CTO, but at least in that position he had no say over the company culture or its policies when it comes to people, just technology. As CEO, all that changed.

Additionally, by making a donation to (what is essentially) a campaign of hatred (and FUD), he took it WAY beyond a personal belief or view. Expressing your views in public or making a donation that way is an act, not merely "holding an opinion", and actions matter. His action in the form of the donation harmed the lives of thousands of people, with no justifiable cause for it.

Now, there's tons of people who hold such bigoted views and even express them in the form of acts through public statements or donations, but most of the time we don't award those people with the CEO position of a major corporation.

(to clarify how this is not a litmus test: while it sure can be applied that way, plenty of organizations have bigots as CEOs — see e.g. Chick-fil-A — but what’s mainly happening here is that it is simply a matter of bad judgement and people objecting to the appointment because he's unfit to lead an org like Mozilla)

[AnimalMuppet]

> but what’s mainly happening here is that it is simply a matter of bad judgement ...

Only if you assume either that his position is so wrong that it could not be held by a reasonable person, or that he shouldn't speak or act on his position in any public way. I consider both of those assumptions to be highly suspect.

> ... and people objecting to the appointment because he's unfit to lead an org like Mozilla

That is exactly using this as a litmus test.

[KuraFire]

You can be reasonable in many aspects and behaviors of your life, and be unreasonable in some that happen to matter more to the situation at hand.

I think it's pretty safe to say that thinking some of your employees are lesser human beings because they happen to not conform to your outdated view of sexuality, romance, and gender identity, is a pretty demonstrably unreasonable position.

[defen]

The jump from "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California" to "thinks gay people are lesser human beings" is absurd. This is why it's not possible to have a reasonable discussion.

[davidgerard]

>The CEO is the figurehead of a company or organization; they have to represent the company, establish its culture, define its vision, and so forth and so forth.

To emphasise this point - the importance of the choice in relating to the outside world - this is just in:

http://gaynewsnetwork.com.au/news/victoria/vac-gmhc-to-boyco...

The Victorian AIDS Council and Gay Men's Health Centre, one of the most important gay charities in the state of Victoria in Australia, is boycotting Mozilla and removing Firefox from their machines.

More than that, they issued a PRESS RELEASE to this effect.

So the Firefox brand is becoming toxic well outside the world of disgruntled techies.

[jhonovich]

Your evidence that the firefox brand is 'becoming toxic' consists of a gay charity in the state of Victoria in Australia....

[mjn]

> They are pretty mutually exclusive.

I don't disagree per se, but do you apply this generally, disqualifying people with any expressed anti-egalitarian politics from leading a pro-egalitarian organization such as Mozilla? Would you apply a "no Randians" or "no libertarians" litmus test as much as a "no Christian fundamentalists" or "no social conservatives" test? In my opinion, the economic and social equality angles are of fairly equal relevance to Mozilla's stated goals.

[KuraFire]

I agree that it can quickly become murky with certain things. As I said though, actions matter. Being a libertarian is a very different thing from donating $1000 to an anti-equal rights campaign.

If economic and social equality angles are of fairly equal relevance, then Eich shouldn't be CEO, because him being CEO puts the economic angle as significantly more important than the social equality one.

[mjn]

> Being a libertarian is a very different thing from donating $1000 to an anti-equal rights campaign.

If you mean that people should be able to think whatever thoughts they want without me conducting paparazzi-style investigations to find out what they think, sure: I'm not advocating a campaign to find everyone who owns a copy of F.A. Hayek's Road to Serfdom and ostracize them (in fact, I own one!). But how about donating $1000 to Rand Paul's campaign? I would consider that equally odious, and yet it is (unfortunately) not that uncommon in the tech community, even among fairly high-profile people with board positions. In my opinion, the right of people with congenital heart diseases to receive medical treatment is of a similar level of importance as the right of gay people to have their marriages recognized by the state—if anything, actually somewhat more urgent in its importance—but a certain sort of "yuppie liberalism", which I think exists more or less only in Silicon Valley, takes the opposite view.

[KuraFire]

Like I said in my original comment: there is a crucial difference between thinking harmful things, and acting on them.

Actions matter. Thoughts that you keep to yourself? I don't care. Go nuts with that.

(also I'm not a fan of the libertarianism in tech/SV, but that's a whole different discussion)

[jswinghammer]

I think the piece you are missing is that someone could reasonably apply the same logic you are to your politics. If I feel that taxation is theft or that bombing Pakistan with drones is grossly immoral I could ostracize anyone who holds those beliefs under this logic. Maybe even target supporters of those arranging such activities like say anyone who gave money to Obama. You can either deal with opinions you don't like or you can freak out try to target those who hold them. It's your life.

[slantyyz]

>> Actions matter. Thoughts that you keep to yourself? I don't care. Go nuts with that.

If only life were so simple.

Bigots who keep their thoughts to themselves (and there are plenty of them in C-level positions) often get away with discriminatory actions with weasely excuses like "they're not a fit for that position" and "they're not quite ready for that position".

[foolinaround]

> Being a libertarian is a very different thing from donating $1000 to an anti-equal rights campaign.

Why?

Are we talking about degrees here? About the skin in the game? -- If so, I agree.

If it is about free speech, I disagree.

For example, what if he had given $10? Same amount of vitriol, or a little less?

[crassus]

As a conservative-ish person in tech, I'm glad I made the decision to hide my politics beginning a few years ago. You people are vicious. I'd love to have an open debate or conversation, but that doesn't seem to be your game.

Our culture is in middle of making unprecedented changes to a core social institution that goes back into prehistory. It's going to be a messy process and some people are going to disagree. That's reasonable and shouldn't be grounds for disbarment from polite society. Let's dial back the vitriol

Lastly, equality isn't an unmitigated good. We treat different people differently depending on the circumstances, and for good reason. For example, you probably don't believe that children should be able to marry, or more than two people. "Equality" isn't a magic word that wins all arguments.

Personally, I raise an eyebrow when a six year old boy raised by adoptive lesbians decides he is transexual, and I feel like society may be failing that boy. But we are so drunk on the doctrine of equality that there is no stepping on the brake...

[reitzensteinm]

> Personally, I raise an eyebrow when a six year old boy raised by adoptive lesbians decides he is transexual, and I feel like society may be failing that boy.

This is a near perfect instance of xkcd's girls suck at math[1]. Shitty parents are tragically common, and we are failing children who are victims. But when a heterosexual couple destroys a child's life, we don't start talking about taking kids away from heterosexuals.

Also, I don't think polyamorous marriage is a good argument point against gay marriage. In time, as a society we'll see those opposed to the former as bigoted as well.

Anything that violates live and let live between consenting adults is on thin ice.

[1] https://xkcd.com/385/

[hkphooey]

Polyamorous marriage is a good argument that the campaign for marriage equality is a sham.

We should call the campaign for gay marriage exactly what it is, a single-issue campaign for gay marriage, and not a campaign for marriage equality.

It is clearly wrong to talk about civil rights and human rights when the campaign clearly excludes minority groups who don't fit into the two person heterosexual/homosexual category.

[vacri]

Bringing in "children can't marry" is quite the misdirection on your part, since they're universally seen as not having enough maturity for a host of things, not just marriage.

Edit responding to your new last paragragh: Regarding the parents of the child identifying as transsexual, why specify that they're adoptive lesbians? You're already stacking the deck. Lesbians can have natural children, and straight people can (and do) encourage transexualism in their child. And I don't mean 'can' in terms of finding an outlier and pointing to it as representative.

I am the natural child of a lesbian (born in wedlock to a man), I have helped adult transexuals come out at their own pace, and only two months ago I was arguing against a friend who was glorifying a straight couple in the news who were encouraging transexualism in their six-year-old daughter. I am straight myself, as was my friend I was arguing against, just like the parents we were arguing about.

So it drives me nuts when folks make an argument like you have: oh, it's not enough to decry the action on its own merits, I also have to demonise the people around the action in a way that reinforces inaccurate negative stereotypes. "The people who are fucking our kids up are these 'really weird' couples". Bullshit.

[KuraFire]

> You people are vicious.

We're not the ones treating other people as lesser human beings who should be treated as second-class citizens in our society.

> Lastly, equality isn't an unmitigated good.

"Equality" in the sense of civil rights and social liberties doesn't mean "give every person exactly the same set of everything under any and all circumstances imaginable" — that's a very programmer (dare I say, robot-like) way of looking at the term. Equality, in this context, is about ensuring that certain groups are not discriminated against in systems, in cultures, and in society at large. Ensuring equal rights often does, in fact, demand unequal laws to counteract an unequal status quo, etc. I'll spare you the crash course of legislation 101.

> For example, you probably don't believe that children should be able to marry, or more than two people.

Yes I do, but I also believe that marriage should not be a government institution in the first place, because too many people think of it as having a religious aspect (for understandable and legitimate reasons), but as such it does not belong in government. Separation of Church and State and all that. So I'm in favor of civil unions for all legal adults, and that includes poly unions. Children can then marry all they want, but they are not legal adults yet, so doing so has no impact whatsoever on their legal status in any way.

> Personally, I raise an eyebrow when a six year old boy raised by adoptive lesbians decides he is transexual, and I feel like society may be failing that boy.

I feel you're failing society by having that viewpoint. Who the fuck are you to judge like that, seriously?! Society is doing great if a young girl who was assigned male sex organs feels comfortable and safe enough to state this wish to her parents — and here you go thinking it would be better if she would feel trapped and unhappy in her body the entire rest of her life?! That's not just judgmental, but severely lacking in empathy.

[gus_massa]

> Our culture is in middle of making unprecedented changes to a core social institution that goes back into prehistory.

The history of human’s relations is much more complicated, and it changed a lot even in the historic time. There is nothing new under the sun.

Monogamy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monogamy

Poligyny: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygyny

Polyandry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyandry

...

Homosexuality in Greece: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_ancient_Greece

Homosexuality in Rome: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_ancient_Rome

...

There are much more articles, but I don’t want to link to the whole Wikipedia.

[rayiner]

As a conservativeish person on HN, I have to say that pushing to deny a legal arrangement to gay couples is different than being skeptical about their impact on society.

Rant: Also, I'm irritated that this is the "conservative" position. Our culture is doing away with the institution of marriage, and its to the detriment of our children and our families. In the face of that, conservatives should not be in the business of discouraging people who want to build families.

[xj9]

I'm probably the furthest thing from conservative (Anarchist), but I appreciate your view on families. I was raised in a very conservative christian home and I really believe in the importance of family; it doesn't really matter to me how a family is organised, but having one (in whatever form) is a good and beautiful thing.

[nooron]

Crassus,

I accept your challenge to an open debate about how the government should endorse relations between consenting adults.

My view as of a couple years ago, which has changed somewhat, is freely available online under my legal name, Jordan Birnholtz. I hope this provides you an adequate starting point. I will even include it here so you do not have to search: http://www.michigandaily.com/content/viewpoint-divorce-marri...

How would you like to structure it and over what media?

[CamperBob2]

Our culture is in middle of making unprecedented changes to a core social institution that goes back into prehistory.

Did you trade some goats for your wife? If not, then gee, I guess we've already made unprecedented changes to a core social institution.

[wpietri]

Yeah. A friend who has a PhD in a relevant topic did a great presentation on the phrase "biblical marriage". I forget all the permutations, but aside from the traditional man+wife, there was man+slave, man+wife+slave, man+dead brother's wife, and a few others. Basically, the people talking about biblical marriage were immensely selective in their interpretation of the bible, finding in it the exact prejudices they brought to it.

And the whole argument about tradition, although undoubtedly interesting to some, is irrelevant as far as civil marriage goes. In the recent decision on gay marriage in Michigan, the judge made it clear that "that's how we've always done it" isn't sufficient justification for a law. The state has to have some rational purpose. And multiple courts, including the one that overturned Prop 8, have concluded that the straights-only marriage laws have no rational purpose.

[webmaven]

I've come across this, which bears some resemblance to what you've described: http://www.religioustolerance.org/mar_bibl0.htm

[lotsofmangos]

Yes. And I miss them.

[PhasmaFelis]

> You people are vicious.

We respond to systematic oppression with angry words, and we're the vicious ones?

Look, I'm sorry you feel hard done by. The folks down in Birmingham felt hard done by, too, when they were told they had to put up with black people dirtying up their lunch counters. These next few decades are going to stress you out just as much as the last few did them. I truly, honestly hope that you'll eventually be able to find another way of looking at things.

[DanBC]

> Lastly, equality isn't an unmitigated good. We treat different people differently depending on the circumstances, and for good reason. For example, you probably don't believe that children should be able to marry, or more than two people. "Equality" isn't a magic word that wins all arguments.

I wouldn't let children drink alcohol. Should we ban gays from pubs? Children can't vote. Should we etc etc etc.

[camus2]

    > Our culture is in middle of making unprecedented 
    > changes to a core social institution that goes back
    > into prehistory. 

Homosexuality was not a big deal during Ancient History. Then came Christianity and its obscurantism, shaming everything that was not in the good book for the sake of control. Our culture is going back to its roots paganism and greek heritage it's a long way since the Renaissance.

[crassus]

Some caution about throwing out the moral foundations of our culture that have served for 1,800 years is not unreasonable. The assumption that Christianity, monogamy, or even the nuclear family can be removed with no negative consequences is full of reckless hubris

[jswinghammer]

Citation needed.

[tzs]

> Personally, I raise an eyebrow when a six year old boy raised by adoptive lesbians decides he is transexual, and I feel like society may be failing that boy.

How do you feel when a 3 year old boy raised by non-adoptive heterosexual parents acts transgendered, regardless of what his parents do to try to get him to be like what people like you think boys are supposed to be like?

[DenisM]

The logic of your post can just as well be used to justify support of slavery (except the last paragraph).

That's some suspect logic right there.

[adamc]

No crowd's expression of political views (for any side) is to be trusted. Group-think leads to weird decision-making.

[chillingeffect]

The vitriol is lame and so is the ratio of reaction to sustained belief, such as in the case of Oculus.

Who bought them again? oh yeah, facebook. Three days ago, it was a web-wide disaster. Now, they hired some famous tech guy (unknown to me, casual gamer here) and people can't be riled anymore.