Mozilla’s newly appointed CEO Brendan Eich has landed himself in hot water over his donation to a campaign to ban gay marriage in California in 2008. Some see his support of a move to restrict the rights of the LGBT community as being at variance with Mozilla’s commitment to openness and equality and its stated intent “to help people take control and explore the full potential of their lives online”.
Over the past week CEO of app developer Rarebit Hampton Catlin announced a boycott of Firefox; dating site OKCupid has urged Firefox users to switch to a different browser; and over 70,000 people have signed a petition headlined “Tell Mozilla: Your new CEO must reverse his anti-gay stance, resign or be replaced”.
The petition states: “As the representative of a global brand that represents openness and is committed to equality and inclusiveness, Eich should make an unequivocal statement of support for marriage equality. If he cannot, he should resign. And if he will not, the board should fire Eich immediately.”
Mitchell Baker, chair of the Mozilla Foundation, issued a statement in the wake of the controversy, which reaffirmed that “Mozilla’s commitment to inclusiveness for our LGBT community, and for all underrepresented groups, will not change. Acting for or on behalf of Mozilla, it is unacceptable to limit opportunity for anyone based on the nature of sexual orientation and/or gender identity. This is not only a commitment, it is our identity.”
Eich has also responded to the criticism with his own statement stressing that he is “committed to ensuring that Mozilla is, and will remain, a place that includes and supports everyone, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, age, race, ethnicity, economic status, or religion”.
He also conducted an interview with CNET where he argued that “everyone in our community can have different beliefs about all sorts of things that may be in conflict. They leave them at the door when they come to work on the Mozilla mission”.
Perspective
Eich also suggested that “if Mozilla cannot continue to operate according to its principles of inclusiveness, where you can work on the mission no matter what your background or other beliefs, I think we’ll probably fail”.
He pointed out that Mozilla’s Indonesian community had “people on the other side of this issue” but they “don’t bring it into Mozilla when they work in the Mozilla community”.
Whether this is enough to mollify his critics is a moot point. Eich is right to suggest people should leave their beliefs or prejudices at the door when they come to work, otherwise employees might turn up with swastika armbands or pointed white hoods. The difficulty for him is that his belief (or prejudice) has become a matter of public record because of his financial support for a campaign that reinforced it. Whether that should be a problem is open to debate.
Some have argued Eich’s position is merely the flip side of Apple CEO Tim Cook’s public support for LGBT issues but there is a subtle distinction. Support for LGBT issues is about widening rights for a group of people, not restricting them. Some people will argue it infringes on their religious beliefs for society to allow gay marriage which would be fair enough except that the campaign for gay marriage is for civil marriages rather than religious marriages.
Irrespective of where people stand on Eich’s appointment, the story illustrates the difficulties that can occur where business intersects with personal beliefs. I have no doubt that many people in Ireland, including those who head companies, have deeply held beliefs (political, cultural and religious). There’s no reason why they shouldn’t be able to have those beliefs or to articulate them but the touchstone is that those beliefs should not the be cause of prejudicial behaviour against people within their workforce or in society at large.
You can trace the beginning of every company to the day when it first becomes ‘open for business’, That’s not a one day thing. Being ‘open’ for business should be the cornerstone of every operation.
Ltd
