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Brendan Eich, CEO of Mozilla, resigned after it became widely known and disliked that he had given money to California's anti-gay marriage Proposition 8. Since then, there have been many wouuld-be even-handed "if this goes on" and "but what about the other side's point of view" and "what does this mean as a general rule" essays.
These essays obscure the point that before a decision becomes a general rule, it is a response to a particular circumstance. If you remove enough of the characteristics of that particular circumstance, the decision ceases to be itself.
"What if they fired the head of GM because she'd given money to Planned Parenthood?"
That is not what happened.
1. Mozilla.org is not GM. Mozilla.org is the for-profit arm of a nonprofit organization, the Mozilla Foundation. Mozilla.org's job is to raise funds for that nonprofit organization, an organization much of whose work is done by volunteers. Some of those volunteers, including entire software projects, withdrew their support after Eich was appointed CEO.
2. Brendan Eich didn't make an arbitrary political statement. He donated money to a campaign whose (successful) goal was to take away an existing civil right. Let's emphasize this. Same-sex couples in California had the legal right to get married thanks to a court decision. Prop. 8's goal was to take away those people's legal rights. Donating money to a campaign to deny civil rights is qualitatively different than "taking a public position". Not all forms of speech are equivalent.
3. Mozilla has made a public statement supporting (among other things) marriage equality.
The decision that it was not appropriate for a senior official in a volunteer-dependent organization to have helped deny rights to an entire class of those volunteers is not an unreasonable one. In order to make it a dangerous general precedent, you have to strip away the inherent properties that identify the decision.
tl;dr: Ignore pundits who want to appear even-handed and dispassionate.
These essays obscure the point that before a decision becomes a general rule, it is a response to a particular circumstance. If you remove enough of the characteristics of that particular circumstance, the decision ceases to be itself.
"What if they fired the head of GM because she'd given money to Planned Parenthood?"
That is not what happened.
1. Mozilla.org is not GM. Mozilla.org is the for-profit arm of a nonprofit organization, the Mozilla Foundation. Mozilla.org's job is to raise funds for that nonprofit organization, an organization much of whose work is done by volunteers. Some of those volunteers, including entire software projects, withdrew their support after Eich was appointed CEO.
2. Brendan Eich didn't make an arbitrary political statement. He donated money to a campaign whose (successful) goal was to take away an existing civil right. Let's emphasize this. Same-sex couples in California had the legal right to get married thanks to a court decision. Prop. 8's goal was to take away those people's legal rights. Donating money to a campaign to deny civil rights is qualitatively different than "taking a public position". Not all forms of speech are equivalent.
3. Mozilla has made a public statement supporting (among other things) marriage equality.
The decision that it was not appropriate for a senior official in a volunteer-dependent organization to have helped deny rights to an entire class of those volunteers is not an unreasonable one. In order to make it a dangerous general precedent, you have to strip away the inherent properties that identify the decision.
tl;dr: Ignore pundits who want to appear even-handed and dispassionate.
