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He had the right to free speech. He exercised his right to free speech. He had to deal with the consequences. There is no right to free speech without consequen

He had the right to free speech. He exercised his right to free speech. He had to deal with the consequences. There is no right to free speech without consequences. Each and every person who has the right to free speech (because remember, many don't) can say whatever they like, but cannot possibly expect it to never affect them further down the road. Particularly when you're in the position of CEO where you're expected to represent the company's ideals in your every public action.

speeder 12y ago
Or basically: You have free speech, but shut up, who knows if something you said in the past will ruin your career in the future. (does not even matter if you still believe in what you said in the past or not... I did not saw anyone asking Eich)
- codeoclock 12y ago
  No no no, not "shut up" at all. That's not what I said. But, bear in mind that everything you say can affect your future. Which is totally fair enough. Judging a persons character by what they have said and done in the past is standard, and fair, practice. Expecting immunity from everything you've ever said or done is unrealistic. If Eich no longer believes what he believed, it's on him to make sure he makes that point. However, Eich never said anything to that effect, nor did he apologize, so we have no reason to assume that his opinion has changed.
  - rnnr 12y ago
    I don't think Eich would deny job to someone just because (s)he was gay. He didn't tried or even thought to split any gay couple apart. He just couldn't accept a definition of marriage which includes same sex couples. But those are subtle details for the liberal fascists.
    - joshstrange 12y ago
      > He just couldn't accept a definition of marriage which includes same sex couples. Then he took it a step further and donated to group that was working to destroy human rights for homosexuals. > He didn't tried or even thought to split any gay couple apart. You're right, he didn't try to split a gay couple apart, he just sought to dissolve their marriage...
  - nailer 12y ago
    So, as Pacabel just asked, would you support someone being forced to leave their job because they supported gay marriage?
    - joshstrange 12y ago
      This is a ridiculous question, of course not. Please don't try to act like pro/anti gay marriage are equally ethical positions, they aren't.
      - Amezarak 12y ago
        You see same-sex marriage as a human right. (You would surely agree that same-sex marriage was a right even were it not a legal one.) To those of us who believe in human rights, which undoubtedly includes Eich, that would make anyone who took action to deny anyone that right unethical. The problem is Eich doesn't see it as a human right. Indeed, to him, it may be the case he sees same-sex marriage as unethical. (We don't know what his objections are.) At any rate, he has no reason to find the support of gay marriage ethical or the opposition of it unethical. There is no objective morality that tells us who is right or wrong here. There's no divine tablets we can all interpret listing out all our rights. You can't stop at "same-sex marriage is a human right" and "opposing gay marriage is (ergo) unethical." That just leaves you talking right past people like Eich. It doesn't advance the argument or the cause - it just labels people as stupid or bad.
    - ghfdaghkj 12y ago
      Sure, it's a free country. If someone doesn't want to exchange dollars for work hours anymore, for any reason, that should be totally fine. I'd also stop giving that company money.
  - karterk 12y ago
    Judging a persons character by what they have said and done in the past is standard, and fair, practice. You judge a CEO by the actions/decisions made in professional context. You don't use a personal decision to extrapolate what-if scenarios.
  - betterunix 12y ago
    "If Eich no longer believes what he believed," So the issue is not speech but rather thought. George Orwell had a term for punishing people for their thoughts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughtcrime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughtcrime
    - rdc12 12y ago
      And he acted on his thought about marriage equality, so it was not a piece of thoughtcrime
    - skj 12y ago
      No, the action of donating money to helping the suppression.
- joshstrange 12y ago
  > (does not even matter if you still believe in what you said in the past or not... I did not saw anyone asking Eich) Full stop. He had ample opportunity to speak out but he didn't. When someone says "I believe X" I assume that that person believes X until they either say "I don't believe X" or "I believe in Y" where Y is the opposite/different viewpoint on the same issue. Eich has made no such statement therefore I can only assume he is still anti-marriage equality, a homophobe, and not the right choice as the CEO of Mozilla. Yes, you have free speech but just as codeoclock (and countless other HN'ers) said, you have to deal with the consequences. What you are proposing is a world where we can say whatever we want but never be held to what we say. I, for one, do not want to live in a world like that. I have said things in the past that I later changed my stance on and I have made every effort to make my change of view just as public as the original statement was. Sometimes this means talking to an individual or a small group and sometimes it means posting it to twitter. I believe that if Eich had come out and said that his previous stance on marriage equality was wrong and he has since changed his view that this would not have ended the same way. Instead in both his blog posts [0][1] after this whole thing broke he drones on about how he will treat everyone fairly and how his personal beliefs will not affect his performance as CEO but he cleverly dances around the fact that he feels that homosexuals do not deserve the same rights as heterosexuals. [0] https://brendaneich.com/2014/03/inclusiveness-at-mozilla/ https://brendaneich.com/2014/03/inclusiveness-at-mozilla/ [1] https://brendaneich.com/2014/04/the-next-mission/ https://brendaneich.com/2014/04/the-next-mission/
  - betterunix 12y ago
    "he cleverly dances around the fact that he feels that homosexuals do not deserve the same rights as heterosexuals." Yes, and obviously that is completely orthogonal to the kind of treatment he has received over his beliefs about gay marriage. It is easy to criticize people who are afraid to speak their minds when you have an army of thought police standing with you ready to punish anyone who dares to disagree.
    - joshstrange 12y ago
      I for one am extremely happy that we have an "army" of people ready to defend an oppressed group of people. Also this is not the "though police" he donated to a group working to destroy human rights for homosexuals. If we were talking about a CEO that was racist and had donated to the KKK would you still rush to call foul when they were forced to step down by popular opinion?
PavlovsCat 12y ago
> the position of CEO where you're expected to represent the company's ideals in your every public action. I find that over the top. Also, everybody has to deal with the consequences. The open web is not a toy to be taken for granted. I dare say many of the recent successes of LGBT were in part enabled by something like an open web existing. The practical effects of leaving someone who in the past donated money to an agenda which lost: zero. Sure, if you think about it and get angry about it, it has an effect on you -- that's why it's called taking offense I guess -- and in turn the "revenge" can feel good. The practical effects of Eich leaving Mozilla: incalculable, assuming he would have done great things.. on the other hand, the practical effects of, say, OKCupid disappearing from the face of the Earth: zero, dating sites are a dime a dozen. BTW, since HN doesn't seem to like this topic, the discussion on slashdot is quite good: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/04/03/1924250/brendan-eich-steps-down-as-mozilla-ceo http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/04/03/1924250/brendan-eich...
Pacabel 12y ago
From what I can tell, you're suggesting that it's perfectly acceptable for somebody to lose his or her job merely for expressing a stance against gay marriage. Does that mean that it's also perfectly acceptable for somebody to lose his or her job merely for expressing a stance in favor of gay marriage?
- tomelders 12y ago
  This is madness. Is it ok for someone to lose their job for being racist? Is it ok for someone to lose their job for not being racist? Is it ok for someone to lose their job for being sexist? Is it ok for someone to lose their job for not being sexist? Is it ok for someone to lose their job for being homophobic? Yes. Is it ok for someone to lose their job for not being homophobic? No. Do people lose their jobs for being LGB or T? Yes. Do people lose their jobs for supporting LGBT rights. Yes. If you think some people have less rights than other people just because of the way they were born, then you're a bad person. He wasn't born a homophobe, he became one, and it's just and right to make assessments of people for the things they chose to do.
  - nailer 12y ago
    You assume not supporting gay marriage makes someone a homophobe. Fine, but others would disagree.
    - tomelders 12y ago
      It does. You do not get to chose the parameters of what makes a homophobe. The people who suffer at the whim of homophobes make that distinction. Opposition to same sex marriage is 100% homophobic. Same sex marriage doesn't hurt anyone. It's prejudice, plain and simple.
      - yummyfajitas 12y ago
        You do not get to chose the parameters of what makes a homophobe. The people who suffer at the whim of homophobes make that distinction. Your logic is flawed. Group A defines group B, and group B defines group A. As a result, there is no way to define membership in group A or B. Opposition to same sex marriage is 100% homophobic. Same sex marriage doesn't hurt anyone. It's prejudice, plain and simple. Does this apply to all acts that don't hurt anyone, yet are not subsidized/supported by the government? Paying below minimum wage? Failing to buy health insurance? Cutting hair without a license? Failing to purchase a home? Somehow I don't think you actually believe your own argument.

speeder 12y ago

Or basically: You have free speech, but shut up, who knows if something you said in the past will ruin your career in the future. (does not even matter if you still believe in what you said in the past or not... I did not saw anyone asking Eich)

codeoclock 12y ago
No no no, not "shut up" at all. That's not what I said. But, bear in mind that everything you say can affect your future. Which is totally fair enough. Judging a persons character by what they have said and done in the past is standard, and fair, practice. Expecting immunity from everything you've ever said or done is unrealistic. If Eich no longer believes what he believed, it's on him to make sure he makes that point. However, Eich never said anything to that effect, nor did he apologize, so we have no reason to assume that his opinion has changed.
- rnnr 12y ago
  I don't think Eich would deny job to someone just because (s)he was gay. He didn't tried or even thought to split any gay couple apart. He just couldn't accept a definition of marriage which includes same sex couples. But those are subtle details for the liberal fascists.
  - joshstrange 12y ago
    > He just couldn't accept a definition of marriage which includes same sex couples. Then he took it a step further and donated to group that was working to destroy human rights for homosexuals. > He didn't tried or even thought to split any gay couple apart. You're right, he didn't try to split a gay couple apart, he just sought to dissolve their marriage...
- nailer 12y ago
  So, as Pacabel just asked, would you support someone being forced to leave their job because they supported gay marriage?
  - joshstrange 12y ago
    This is a ridiculous question, of course not. Please don't try to act like pro/anti gay marriage are equally ethical positions, they aren't.
    - Amezarak 12y ago
      You see same-sex marriage as a human right. (You would surely agree that same-sex marriage was a right even were it not a legal one.) To those of us who believe in human rights, which undoubtedly includes Eich, that would make anyone who took action to deny anyone that right unethical. The problem is Eich doesn't see it as a human right. Indeed, to him, it may be the case he sees same-sex marriage as unethical. (We don't know what his objections are.) At any rate, he has no reason to find the support of gay marriage ethical or the opposition of it unethical. There is no objective morality that tells us who is right or wrong here. There's no divine tablets we can all interpret listing out all our rights. You can't stop at "same-sex marriage is a human right" and "opposing gay marriage is (ergo) unethical." That just leaves you talking right past people like Eich. It doesn't advance the argument or the cause - it just labels people as stupid or bad.
  - ghfdaghkj 12y ago
    Sure, it's a free country. If someone doesn't want to exchange dollars for work hours anymore, for any reason, that should be totally fine. I'd also stop giving that company money.
- karterk 12y ago
  Judging a persons character by what they have said and done in the past is standard, and fair, practice. You judge a CEO by the actions/decisions made in professional context. You don't use a personal decision to extrapolate what-if scenarios.
- betterunix 12y ago
  "If Eich no longer believes what he believed," So the issue is not speech but rather thought. George Orwell had a term for punishing people for their thoughts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughtcrime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughtcrime
  - rdc12 12y ago
    And he acted on his thought about marriage equality, so it was not a piece of thoughtcrime
  - skj 12y ago
    No, the action of donating money to helping the suppression.
joshstrange 12y ago
> (does not even matter if you still believe in what you said in the past or not... I did not saw anyone asking Eich) Full stop. He had ample opportunity to speak out but he didn't. When someone says "I believe X" I assume that that person believes X until they either say "I don't believe X" or "I believe in Y" where Y is the opposite/different viewpoint on the same issue. Eich has made no such statement therefore I can only assume he is still anti-marriage equality, a homophobe, and not the right choice as the CEO of Mozilla. Yes, you have free speech but just as codeoclock (and countless other HN'ers) said, you have to deal with the consequences. What you are proposing is a world where we can say whatever we want but never be held to what we say. I, for one, do not want to live in a world like that. I have said things in the past that I later changed my stance on and I have made every effort to make my change of view just as public as the original statement was. Sometimes this means talking to an individual or a small group and sometimes it means posting it to twitter. I believe that if Eich had come out and said that his previous stance on marriage equality was wrong and he has since changed his view that this would not have ended the same way. Instead in both his blog posts [0][1] after this whole thing broke he drones on about how he will treat everyone fairly and how his personal beliefs will not affect his performance as CEO but he cleverly dances around the fact that he feels that homosexuals do not deserve the same rights as heterosexuals. [0] https://brendaneich.com/2014/03/inclusiveness-at-mozilla/ https://brendaneich.com/2014/03/inclusiveness-at-mozilla/ [1] https://brendaneich.com/2014/04/the-next-mission/ https://brendaneich.com/2014/04/the-next-mission/
- betterunix 12y ago
  "he cleverly dances around the fact that he feels that homosexuals do not deserve the same rights as heterosexuals." Yes, and obviously that is completely orthogonal to the kind of treatment he has received over his beliefs about gay marriage. It is easy to criticize people who are afraid to speak their minds when you have an army of thought police standing with you ready to punish anyone who dares to disagree.
  - joshstrange 12y ago
    I for one am extremely happy that we have an "army" of people ready to defend an oppressed group of people. Also this is not the "though police" he donated to a group working to destroy human rights for homosexuals. If we were talking about a CEO that was racist and had donated to the KKK would you still rush to call foul when they were forced to step down by popular opinion?

PavlovsCat 12y ago

> the position of CEO where you're expected to represent the company's ideals in your every public action. I find that over the top. Also, everybody has to deal with the consequences. The open web is not a toy to be taken for granted. I dare say many of the recent successes of LGBT were in part enabled by something like an open web existing. The practical effects of leaving someone who in the past donated money to an agenda which lost: zero. Sure, if you think about it and get angry about it, it has an effect on you -- that's why it's called taking offense I guess -- and in turn the "revenge" can feel good. The practical effects of Eich leaving Mozilla: incalculable, assuming he would have done great things.. on the other hand, the practical effects of, say, OKCupid disappearing from the face of the Earth: zero, dating sites are a dime a dozen. BTW, since HN doesn't seem to like this topic, the discussion on slashdot is quite good: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/04/03/1924250/brendan-eich-steps-down-as-mozilla-ceo http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/04/03/1924250/brendan-eich...

Pacabel 12y ago

From what I can tell, you're suggesting that it's perfectly acceptable for somebody to lose his or her job merely for expressing a stance against gay marriage. Does that mean that it's also perfectly acceptable for somebody to lose his or her job merely for expressing a stance in favor of gay marriage?

tomelders 12y ago
This is madness. Is it ok for someone to lose their job for being racist? Is it ok for someone to lose their job for not being racist? Is it ok for someone to lose their job for being sexist? Is it ok for someone to lose their job for not being sexist? Is it ok for someone to lose their job for being homophobic? Yes. Is it ok for someone to lose their job for not being homophobic? No. Do people lose their jobs for being LGB or T? Yes. Do people lose their jobs for supporting LGBT rights. Yes. If you think some people have less rights than other people just because of the way they were born, then you're a bad person. He wasn't born a homophobe, he became one, and it's just and right to make assessments of people for the things they chose to do.
- nailer 12y ago
  You assume not supporting gay marriage makes someone a homophobe. Fine, but others would disagree.
  - tomelders 12y ago
    It does. You do not get to chose the parameters of what makes a homophobe. The people who suffer at the whim of homophobes make that distinction. Opposition to same sex marriage is 100% homophobic. Same sex marriage doesn't hurt anyone. It's prejudice, plain and simple.
    - yummyfajitas 12y ago
      You do not get to chose the parameters of what makes a homophobe. The people who suffer at the whim of homophobes make that distinction. Your logic is flawed. Group A defines group B, and group B defines group A. As a result, there is no way to define membership in group A or B. Opposition to same sex marriage is 100% homophobic. Same sex marriage doesn't hurt anyone. It's prejudice, plain and simple. Does this apply to all acts that don't hurt anyone, yet are not subsidized/supported by the government? Paying below minimum wage? Failing to buy health insurance? Cutting hair without a license? Failing to purchase a home? Somehow I don't think you actually believe your own argument.