Just to answer your question explicitly: yes. If somebody had a political opinion that was popular with 40% of the population and had not brought it into the workplace, I would not support firing the person for holding that opinion, even if the opinion were, for example, that schools should be segregated by race. While I personally don't support segregation by race, I don't find firing people for political views kept outside of work to be in the long term interest of liberal societies. I find the notion of segregated but equal schools unworkable (because those with power will always ensure their schools are better) but not inherently evil. And, in some situations (e.g. gender), I do not oppose "separate but equal" schooling. While I personally attended a public school, I have several friends who attended single-sex private schools, and they turned out OK.
With all this in mind, your language around "denying a human right" makes it clear that you aren't giving Eich's views a fair hearing. California had domestic partnerships for same sex couples that ensured comparable protections around spousal visitation, etc. While I also disagree with the notion of "separate but equal" for partnerships and support granting gay couples the right to marriage, international organizations (like the United Nations) do not generally consider "separate but equal" to be human rights violations. To be a human rights violation, the separation must be coupled with a disparity in treatment (as in segregated schooling in the United States), which Eich is explicitly opposed to.
But we are talking about Mozilla specifically, which states in their manifesto: "We are committed to an internet that includes all the peoples of the earth — where a person’s demographic characteristics do not determine their online access, opportunities, or quality of experience." If we put aside any value judgement on that statement, I can see how a CEO publicly supporting exclusion can raise concerns about their performance with respect to the company's mission.
Even so, Eich wasn't fired, he resigned and moved on.
Far more interesting to me is that 6 years later, you and others on this forums go to such effort to justify why any problem with the company is a consequence of that resignation. Eich doesn't need your support. I'm curious as to what drives the justifications and the splitting hairs as to what is the approved meaning of human rights as defined by international organizations. The language about denying human rights should have been the least controversial part of what I wrote.
I think you may be observing something about yourself and attributing to others. Mozilla's problems aren't a consequence of Eich's resignation. Mozilla has several problems - I described three of them that are particularly prominent to me - 1) Debian / power users 2) wikimedia executives 3) and social justice amok. Eich resignation was one of two symptoms I gave as examples of the third problem. I could also have given this blog post as an example, as it bizarrely tries to describe a layoff in the context of fighting racism (were the laid off employees racist?).
I find it interesting that you ignored all the other problems I mentioned and the other symptoms of the same problem and focused in on attacking Eich to such an extent.
The history of civil rights didn't end with Brown v. Board of Education. The Civil Rights Act and Loving v. Virginia also repudiated separate but equal. Voluntary single sex education and certain environments where women might feel vulnerable are specific exceptions. The California Supreme Court gave separate but equal for same sex unions a fair hearing in 2008 and found it was discriminatory and unconstitutional. The US Supreme Court agreed in 2015.
Eich didn't apologize or even say he wouldn't do it again. He actually pointedly refused to explain his views except to say he supported civil unions.
At companies like Google, Microsoft, and Apple, you can work on a browser regardless of your political views. At Mozilla, you need to think a certain way first. A smaller pool of technical talent to choose from leads to worse technical leadership. Recall that Eich only became the CEO (over the opposition of a portion of the board) after months where Mozilla was searching and couldn't find anybody better. It's not that the people who have particular political views are particularly talented, it's just that some of them are talented, just like the people who disagree with them. If you can include talented people of all stripes, you can do better than if you restrict yourself to talented people from a single ideological group.
Unless by "everything" you mean the government of the United State of America (the country where Mozilla has its headquarters), in which case, it's OK again (Obama opposed same sex marriage at the time when Eich made his donation). You can dress it up like Eich's views were some big sin that demands banishment from society, but of America's 45 presidents, 44 of them agreed with Eich, and the one who disagreed initially agreed with Eich before disagreeing with him. So, I'm pretty sure you can be in charge of everything with those views.
Yes.
Marriage is certainly part of UDHR ("according to national laws governing the exercise of this right" which allows said human right to not apply to certain groups of people. UDHR also considers it a human right for someone to be kidnapped and forcefully re-educated so I do not understand why anyone takes it seriously) but that does not make it a human right. Marriage is nothing more than the government acknowledging that two people love each other, I personally fail to see why this should be a human right (or why the government is meddling in it at all).
its the right of inheriting when your spouse dies
its the right to be covered by your spouse's insurance
its the right to share joint custody of children
its the right of spousal privilege in court
its that you can file taxes jointly
its the rights to benefits as a spouse of a veteran
and dozens more of trivial and important legal rights most couples take for granted. These are trivially denied in many social interactions and used to make others feel like second class citizens, and deny them their pursuit of happiness. This was all debated and settled by the Supreme Court in 2015.
If the government would stop meddling in all the other legal affairs then I would see the reason for your confusion why they are meddling in marriage.
> its the right of inheriting when your spouse dies
You can designate your own heir.
> its the right to be covered by your spouse's insurance
> its the right to share joint custody of children
> its the right of spousal privilege in court
> its that you can file taxes jointly
> its the rights to benefits as a spouse of a veteran
> and dozens more of trivial and important legal rights most couples take for granted
And I am arguing that these are not things that should come with marriage - people who decide to not get married and people who are not legally allowed to get married (such as people in polyamorous relationships) should have the ability to enjoy the same rights as married people. Regardless though, not all of these are part of the universal definition of marriage (nor are a necessary part of it), the UDHR says that marriage as an abstract concept is a human right (and only for certain people at certain times as the law allows) - it does not designate any specific privilege between married people as a human right.
> If the government would stop meddling in all the other legal affairs ...
There is a difference between the government attempting to catch someone who violated the rights of someone else and the government recognizing (or not) the love between people.
It is notable that in your summary you refer to this as political fashion swings, and "unpopular" political views, and an overreaction. Would you characterize the civil right movement in the same fashion?
You also seem to correlate competent technical leadership with someone who sympathizes with Eich's views. That in my experience doesn't follow at all. If anything competent leadership means you have worked with many people of all different backgrounds and have excelled at leading and empowering them. Mozilla likely has many LGBTQ employees, and if your personal prejudices stifle their contributions, then you are not competent by definition of leadership.