Conservative Hypocrisy Over Mozilla and the First Amendment

As often noted on this blog, conservatives - especially conservative Christians - are off the charts nowadays when it comes to hypocrisy and down right dishonesty.  They have victimized and demonized gays, blacks, unwed mothers and many others for decades but the moment their ability to persecute others is challenged, they go off the deep end and claim they they are the ones being persecuted.  They can dish out mistreatment but expect everyone else to worry about their own misplaced sensibilities - assuming one can call hatred and abuse of others to be sensibilities.  A piece in Slate looks at this amazing hypocrisy.  Here are highlights:

A repeated cry in conservative and libertarian circles over anti-gay Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich’s resignation is that the company is somehow trampling Eich’s free speech rights. Eich, as you’ve surely heard, donated $1,000 in 2008 to California’s Proposition 8 campaign, which successfully outlawed gay marriage in that state before getting shot down by the courts. It’s true that, because of this donation, Mozilla’s leaders and board members pressured Eich to resign. But it’s absurd and hypocritical to claim that this pressure constituted an infringement of Eich’s legal rights.

Let’s start with the obvious: It is literally impossible for Mozilla to violate Eich’s constitutional freedom of speech. At the risk of sounding pedantic, the First Amendment applies exclusively to state actors, like Congress or state legislatures, so a private corporation like Mozilla simply cannot infringe upon an employee’s free speech rights, even if it wanted to. There is no wiggle room around this point. It is a basic constitutional fact.

Mozilla’s decision to seek Eich’s resignation implicates the same First Amendment principles that famously allow the Boy Scouts to exclude gay troop leaders.

Oddly, however, I don’t see defenders of Eich also criticizing the Boy Scouts for excluding gay men because the organization disagrees with their conduct and beliefs. Nor do I even see conservatives taking Mozilla’s rights as a private corporation seriously—a predictable hypocrisy made especially obnoxious in light of last week’s widespread right-wing praise of the corporate plaintiff’s claim in Hobby Lobby. This is the conservative double standard in the realm of corporate rights: When the corporation supports a right-wing pet project—say, denying women reproductive care—conservatives pen encomia to the First Amendment’s corporate protections. But when a corporation dares to support a progressive cause like gay rights, conservatives cry foul at its alleged censorship of individual views.

The right wing’s backlash over Mozilla’s move only further proves that opportunism, rather than principled dissent, drives its frantic charge for full corporate personhood. Keep that in mind as the conservative outrage machine takes aim at Mozilla for daring to exclude a man whose values and conduct it finds unacceptable.

The New Gay Orthodoxy

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The professional Christian set and those in the Republican Party who pander to them in a manner little better than that of tawdry whores continue to bloviate about "protecting marriage" - which is really all about keeping gays inferior and stigmatized - yet the country is moving on and leaving them in the dust of history to share a space ultimately akin to the segregationists of old.  Some are disingenuously shrieking that this sea change is impeding their "religious liberty" and/or their freedom of speech.   It's not because voicing one's views and beliefs and trying to force those views and beliefs on others are two very different things.  While different in many ways, those speaking against gay rights and same sex marriage in particular are not so different from the segregationist who sought to use the nations laws to punish blacks who they saw as inferior.  A column in the New York Times looks at the sea change although it gives too much credence to claims of victim-hood by Christofascists whose real complaint - like 1960's era segregationists - is that they can no longer victimize others.  Here are excerpts:

TO appreciate how rapidly the ground has shifted, go back just two short years, to April 2012. President Obama didn’t support marriage equality, not formally. Neither did Hillary Clinton. And few people were denouncing them as bigots whose positions rendered them too divisive, offensive and regressive to lead.

But that’s precisely the condemnation that tainted and toppled Brendan Eich after his appointment two weeks ago as the new chief executive of the technology company Mozilla. On Thursday he resigned, clearly under duress and solely because his opposition to gay marriage diverged from the views of too many employees and customers.

Something remarkable has happened — something that’s mostly exciting but also a little disturbing (I’ll get to the disturbing part later), and that’s reflected not just in Eich’s ouster at Mozilla, the maker of the web browser Firefox, but in a string of marriage-equality victories in federal courts over recent months, including a statement Friday by a judge who said that he would rule that Ohio must recognize same-sex marriages performed outside the state.

And the development I’m referring to isn’t the broadening support for same-sex marriage, which a clear majority of Americans now favor. No, I’m referring to the fact that in a great many circles, endorsement of same-sex marriage has rather suddenly become nonnegotiable. Expected. Assumed. Proof of a baseline level of enlightenment and humanity. Akin to the understanding that all people, regardless of race or color, warrant the same rights and respect.

Even beyond these circles, the debate is essentially over, in the sense that the trajectory is immutable and the conclusion foregone. Everybody knows it, even the people who still try to stand in the way. The legalization of same-sex marriage from north to south and coast to coast is merely a matter of time, probably not much of it at that.

At least beyond the offices of Chick-fil-A, it’s widely believed — no, understood — that being pro-gay is better for business than being antigay. Hence the inclusion of a same-sex couple in the famous faces-of-America commercial that Coca-Cola unveiled during the Super Bowl. Hence a more recent television spot, part of the Honey Maid food company’s “This is Wholesome” ad campaign. It showed two dads cuddling their newborn.

Increasingly, opposition to gay marriage is being equated with racism — as indefensible, un-American. “What was once a wedge issue became wrapped in the American flag,” said Jo Becker, a Times writer whose sweeping history of the marriage-equality movement, “Forcing the Spring,” will be published this month.

I can’t get quite as worked up as he [Andrew Sullivan] did. For one thing, prominent gay rights groups weren’t part of the Mozilla fray. For another, Mozilla isn’t the first company to make leadership decisions (or reconsiderations) with an eye toward the boss’s cultural mind-meld with the people below him or her. And if you believe that to deny a class of people the right to marry is to deem them less worthy, it’s indeed difficult to chalk up opposition to marriage equality as just another difference of opinion.

But it’s vital to remember how very recently so many of equality’s promoters, like Obama and Clinton, have come around and how relatively new this conversation remains. It’s crucial not to lose sight of how well the movement has been served by the less judgmental posture that Becker pointed out.

Sullivan is right to raise concerns about the public flogging of someone like Eich. Such vilification won’t accelerate the timetable of victory, which is certain. And it doesn’t reflect well on the victors.

I personally cannot feel any sympathy whatsoever for Eich and the Tony Perkins and Brian Brown types of the world.  Perhaps it's because I lost my job for being gay, was brutalized by a bigoted judge in my divorce and forced into bankruptcy all because of individuals' "sincere religious belief" and/or fear of standing up to bigots.   Those opposing same sex marriage and their predecessors through the past decades and centuries have inflicted so much pain, so much unhappiness and so much inequality, that, in my view, they deserve no sympathy whatsoever.

Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich Resigns

I noted recently that Mozilla - the creator of Firefox and other Internet and computer platforms - had found itself after Brendan Eich (pictured at left) was promoted to CEO.  Why?  Because Eich had contributed to the Proposition 8 campaign in California through which far right Christians and the Mormon Church sought to impose their religious beliefs on marriage on all citizens.  In the wake of blistering condemnations and boycott efforts, Eich resigned as CEO of Mozilla today.   Some like Andrew Sullivan - who I read daily, but do not always agree with are acting as if Eich is a free speech martyr.  I strongly disagree.   If Eich had stated his beliefs and been happy to practice his religious beliefs, I would have no issue with him.  But the entire goal of Proposition 8 was to inflict one set of religious beliefs on all and to trample on the religious freedom of others.  That is something far different than merely exercising one's right of free speech.  Unlike Sullivan, Mozilla got it right in a press release:

Mozilla prides itself on being held to a different standard and, this past week, we didn’t live up to it. We know why people are hurt and angry, and they are right: it’s because we haven’t stayed true to ourselves.

We didn’t act like you’d expect Mozilla to act. We didn’t move fast enough to engage with people once the controversy started. We’re sorry. We must do better.

Brendan Eich has chosen to step down from his role as CEO. He’s made this decision for Mozilla and our community.

Mozilla believes both in equality and freedom of speech. 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.

Our organizational culture reflects diversity and inclusiveness. We welcome contributions from everyone regardless of age, culture, ethnicity, gender, gender-identity, language, race, sexual orientation, geographical location and religious views. Mozilla supports equality for all.

We have employees with a wide diversity of views. Our culture of openness extends to encouraging staff and community to share their beliefs and opinions in public. This is meant to distinguish Mozilla from most organizations and hold us to a higher standard. But this time we failed to listen, to engage, and to be guided by our community.

While painful, the events of the last week show exactly why we need the web. So all of us can engage freely in the tough conversations we need to make the world better.

The Christofascists believe "religious liberty" consists of being able to inflict their beliefs on all.  The irony is that they are endeavoring to do exactly what the Founding Fathers sought to avoid: one set of religious beliefs forced on all regardless of individuals' personal beliefs.   Eich and his supporters need to be honest with themselves and admit that their supposed "free speech" was aimed at depriving others of their constitutional rights.  Other businesses - and states - would be wise to learn from Mozilla's self-inflicted injury.

Mozilla Struggles in Wake of CEO's Support of Gay Marriage Ban

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I have argued many times that anti-gay bigotry can be bad for business.  The folks at Mozilla - the company behind Firefox - are finding this out first hand after the promotion of Brendan Eich to the position of CEO.  Eich has opposed marriage equality and contributed to the Proposition 8 campaign.  Now, the blow back has been strong and a number of programs and companies are striking back at Mozilla which is trying to convince the world that it isn't anti-gay and that it does support diversity.  A piece in the New York Times looks at the company's ongoing efforts at damage control.  Here are excerpts:

People who once debated the benefits of different web browsers are now embroiled in a heated discussion about gay marriage, and Mozilla, the maker of Firefox, is at the center of that debate.

The troubles began when Brendan Eich, a programmer and creator of the JavaScript programming language, was appointed as the new chief executive of Mozilla last week. Since then, three board members have quit the company, current employees have publicly denounced Mr. Eich, and now Firefox is being publicly criticized on another website.

On Monday, OKCupid, an online dating site, made it difficult for people using Mozilla Firefox to access its service, stating unequivocally that this decision was a result of Mr. Eich being an ”opponent of equal rights for gay couples.”

Mr. Eich first came under fire when it was revealed that he donated $1,000 in 2008 to support a ban on gay marriage called Proposition 8.

Justin O’Kelly, a media relations manager at Mozilla, did not respond to a request for comment but pointed to a blog post writen by Mr. Eich.

“I am 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,” Mr. Eich wrote in the post.
The promise of openness with employees did little to appease board members who left the company last week. Gary Kovacs and John Lilly, both former Mozilla chief executives, and Ellen Siminoff, chief executive of the education start-up Shmoop, left the Mozilla board last week.

Last week, a number of current Mozilla employees aired their frustrations in public, taking to Twitter to voice concerns about the appointment of Mr. Eich as chief executive and saying that he should step down.

The outcry stems in part from the ideals of Mozilla, a company that has prided itself on openness on the web.

It is unclear if this outcry will affect the status of Mozilla. According to Net Market Share, which tracks the use of Internet technologies, Firefox is currently used by 18 percent of the web.

 I guess Mozilla will have to hope that lots of Bible Belt Christians switch to Firefox as their preferred vehicle for viewing their Internet porn sites.