Mozilla CEO resigns after gay marriage outrage

Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich stepped down on Thursday - just two weeks after his appointment - amid a flurry of controversy over his personal opposition of gay marriage.

Soon after Mozilla named Eich to succeed interim CEO Jay Sullivan, controversy erupted over the fact that Eich had donated US$1000 in 2008 to support a campaign for a proposition that would ban gay marriage in California. The news of the donation first surfaced in 2012, but controversy had died down until Eich was selected for the top job.

A number of Mozilla employees, including Open Badges project lead Chris McAvoy, took to Twitter to call for Eich to step down. They argued that opposing gay marriage runs contrary to Mozilla’s ideals of openness and empowerment.

Mozilla’s own community participation guidelines state that the organisation “welcome[s] contributions from everyone as long as they interact constructively with our community, including, but not limited to people of varied age, culture, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, language, race, sexual orientation, geographical location and religious views.”

Non-employees also took up the cause. Most famously, online dating site OK Cupid displayed a message to the site’s Firefox users urging them to use a different browser in protest at the appointment.

Seeking to quell the controversy, Eich made public statements insisting that Mozilla employees leave their personal and political views at the door. At the time, he said that he planned to stay on as CEO unless the board dismissed him. In a post on his web page, he committed to “working with LGBT communities and allies, to listen and learn what does and doesn’t make Mozilla supportive and welcoming.”

But days later, Eich announced he had resigned as CEO. Despite Eich’s earlier comments, Mozilla has insisted that Eich was not asked to resign by the board, and that the board in fact attempted to convince him to stay on in a different role. The organisation also denies that Eich was “forced out by employee pressure”, noting that the much-circulated tweets calling for his resignation “came from only a tiny number of people: less than 10 of Mozilla’s employee pool of 1000”.

Eich's departure has kicked off another storm of controversy over whether the initial outrage was justified and whether the backlash amounts to intolerance of differing political opinions.

US religious figures and even some gay rights advocates have complained that coercing Eich into resigning runs counter to the principle of inclusiveness that gay rights supporters stand for. But GLAAD spokesperson David Parkman told Bloomberg he believes that “this idea of those who are for gay rights are intolerant of those who don’t favour gay rights is a total ruse.”

VentureBeat editor-in-chief Dylan Tweney commented that the outrage does not mesh with Silicon Valley’s culture of embracing difference and forgiving failure. “If we want to remain a place where outstanding technologists continue to create immense value, we have to think twice about hounding technologists out of jobs where they’re doing just that, just because we find their personal values objectionable,” he said.

Other commenters have highlighted the distinction that Eich wasn’t just any Mozilla employee, but the organisation’s new CEO.

Los Angeles Times’ columnist Michael Hilzik rejected arguments that the controversy that prompted Eich’s resignation was a “witch hunt,” and noted that Eich’s position as CEO made his support for the gay marriage ban more relevant. “As CEO, Eich had the power to heavily influence corporate policy at Mozilla, and although he publicly stated that he would uphold Mozilla’s existing standards of inclusiveness and equal treatment in human relations, plainly these were at odds with his personal views.”

The New Yorker’s James Suroweicki said the backlash was inevitable considering Silicon Valley’s emphasis on social liberalism.

“A tech company having a CEO who opposes gay marriage is not all that different from a company in 1973 having a CEO who donated money to fight interracial marriage: even if there were plenty of Americans who felt the same way at the time, the CEO would still have been on the wrong side of history,” he wrote. “And since the role of a CEO as a public face of an organisation is more important than ever these days, Eich’s personal views were inevitably going to shape his ability to run the company.”

As with any hot-button issue, there have been volumes of more commentary from all sides of the debate. The arguments can largely be encapsulated by the following questions: Does a CEO’s personal or political opinions matter? Do they matter when they conflict with a company’s mission statement? Did calling for Eich to resign represent intolerance of his personal opinions, or simply intolerance of inequality? Did the furore amount to a suppression of free speech? The debate is likely to rage on for some time.

Image courtesy of Susana Fernandez under CC