In disappointingly predictable fashion, the contrived controversy regarding Mozilla’s CEO (read it here) has succumb to the intolerance of the Left. Brendon Eich, the newly appointed CEO of Mozilla, has stepped down amid outrage from the Left over his support of traditional marriage. Ironically, the Left called for his public beating and corporate crucifixion because he’s “not tolerant” enough. (Don’t think too hard about that… It makes about as much sense as Alice’s tea party with the March Hare.)
In short, leftists flocked to the blogosphere to condemn Eich’s past support of California’s Proposition 8, which defended traditional marriage. Apparently, such a personal conviction is a mortal sin among progressives. It is unforgiveable and public floggings (or something equally outrageous) must ensue… Eich was asked to step down. The board was asked to fire him. And Mozilla quickly found itself in the midst of an imaginary scandal because a few gay-activists don’t understand that tolerance is a two way street.
And, now, Brendon has stepped down from his post as CEO of Mozilla. Congratulation’s Eich… You are now a casualty of progressive style censorship. That’ll teach you to think for yourself!
Of course, Mozilla likely nudged Brandon into his decision. Based off of their public comments, they seem pretty happy to leave their “bigoted” CEO in the wake of feigned outrage. According to Mozilla’s blog:
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.
So… What exactly is Mozilla apologizing for? Are they apologizing because they had the audacity to tolerate intellectual diversity in their corporate setting? It gets better:
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.
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Um… So Mozilla enjoys intellectual diversity. In fact, they seem to applaud it. And yet, they are apologizing for having the chutzpa to hire a CEO that gay activists found offensive. Wow… You would think, as a web browser, Mozilla might be able to Google the definition of “openness” and “diversity”.
I mean, heck, they’re basically apologizing for not initially discriminating against Eich because of his views on an important (and controversial) social issue of the 21st century. Do you think they would be quick to kick a gay activist to the curb if Christian groups started a petition? (Oh… By the way: Here’s a link to uninstall Firefox.)
The unfortunate fact is that leftist bigotry tends to be pretty effective… The irony that a company dedicated to diversity and tolerance was compelled to toss its newly appointed CEO to the curb because of his personal views, is undoubtedly lost on the self-righteous leftists who appoint themselves as the arbiters of “fairness”. After all… “tolerance” is not the same as “acceptance.” Eich doesn’t have to accept the notion of gay marriage in order to be tolerant of people who have opposing views on the issue.
Mozilla has betrayed their commitment to openness. Apparently they don’t understand that being offended is a part of being committed to openness. And the censorship of personal convictions is not a natural consequence of true diversity. The unintended irony, however, was taken to another level when Mozilla’s executive chairwoman, Mitchell Baker, concluded her public statement with a hat tip to the very tolerance she had proved to be incapable of exercising:
Our mission will always be to make the Web more open so that humanity is stronger, more inclusive and more just: that’s what it means to protect the open Web.
Right… Protect inclusivity. (So long as California progressives don’t start shouting at you.)
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