Would you feel the same way if he'd donated $1000 to a campaign to outlaw interracial marriage?
Mozilla's mission has nothing to do with gay rights, it's all about what the web should look like. Eich's opinion on gay marriage is immaterial to his work as CEO.
Now, it just so happen that there's a far few queer and ally Mozillians. If Eich's personal opinion were to extend into company policy about those people (or, in general, if his governance were to massively disagree with the company culture in any way), I'd question his fitness to lead. But coming from a company built on inclusiveness and tolerance, the shitstorm they're making about a member's personal opinions seems quite hypocritical, to be completely honest.
i'm pretty sure i have the right to protest what ever i want, regardless of how irrelevant my life problems may seem to you, and regardless of how easy it is for you to ascribe them all to matters of difference of opinion.
I think you're missing the bigger point here. There is one topic I definitely care about more than I do about gay marriage: The capacity to even discuss it, and the right to talk about and support that cause if I see fit. And this is very much a case of what's good for the goose is also good for the gander. If you're OK with blocking Eich's ascension to CEO due to his position, it's hard to justify how you'd then be against other people being blocked like this for holding unpopular opinions.
In my experience, stifling debate usually hurts minorities and makes it easier to maintain the status quo, so if you want to further a minority cause, you need to be able to have open discussion, so all in all I'd rather allow people to voice unpopular opinions — in some circles, I'll be the one doing it!
i was really not that upset about all this, until i read the interview today. he really turned out sleazy, equating himself with the future of Mozilla, hiding behind Indonesian people, proclaiming protests against Mozilla keeping him on as being anti-freedom... he truly came off bad.
edit: but it still kinda lingers, the question - does his behavior fit with Mozilla ideals?
"Either you are with us or against us" is a harmful doctrine.
i would not say that it is already won, though. only a minority of US states recognizes gay marriage, and over 70 countries (if i remember correctly) worldwide criminalize homosexuality. and even when it is won, it will still take time for the people affected by the discrimination to simply relax and transcend it all. i would certainly not expect, not even today, that a black person be all reconciliatory with someone supporting an interracial marriage ban... it just doesn't work that way.
and, no offense, but try to consider what it would like to be to walk in my shoes. it is very easy to give advice to other people about how they should handle such problems, but it can easily come across as condescending. all of us in the LGBT community think about and discuss these things A LOT. and what we won so far, we fought for it our way, in a way that we found to work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_excep...