The other context that's important here is that it's a political topic where popular shifted massively in the same timeframe--circa 20 percentage points IIRC.

You're basically faulting him for taking a position which was reasonable and well within the center of public opinion at the time, which had subsequently become unpopular. And completely discounting the statement he made in the meantime showing that his opinions had, in fact, evolved over time, just as it had for a large fraction of the population.

(Another thing to point out is that the board was aware of the political contribution when he was appointed CEO, and did not feel it was any obstacle.)

Sorry, but no, it being a common opinion does not necessarily a reasonable one.

And one board member did resign over this prior to his appointment.

For us here in NL (where 90%+ of the population supports gay marriage) the whole idea that this is even worth arguing over seems strange, about as strange as coming out pro-slavery would be.

No board member resigned over any contribution I made. Stop making stuff up.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10654651 has more on the story you are misrepresenting even on its own terms.

You didn't answer his question. It seems clear that you did not know the timing, from the wording of your prior comment; you could acknowledge that.

I do realize the exact timing, Eich was CTO when he made the donations, was proposed to the CEO role when this was already known, accepted the nomination, one board member resigned in protest and then it all blew up and Eich resigned from Mozilla entirely 11 days later. Clearly, he did not make the donations in those 11 days.

I could have worded that comment a lot better but the intention seems pretty clear to me: Your actions as a CEO (even past actions) are going to be viewed in a different light than your actions as just another employee, even a co-founder, and what wasn't a problem before the CEO nomination quickly became a real problem, both for Mozilla the progressive entity as well as for Eich himself. Whether the donations were made several years, months or weeks before his tenure as CEO are not important.

The one thing I did get completely wrong - and which I will also acknowledge - is that I thought Eich could have legally made those donations anonymously (it was argued quite strongly during that time that this should be a possibility). I did not realize that this was illegal.

Your original comment is right there for everyone to read. In effect, what you've managed to argue here is first that the sequence of events is very important (your whole argument being that Eich "as the CEO" should have made his donation anonymously), and then, when called on that, that the sequence of events matters not at all.

Sometimes the best response to a rebuttal is just "TIL".

We're supposed to assume good faith, right? What he said he meant sounds plausible if I do.

This is a case of a commenter not knowing the sequence of events, realizing their mistake, and then pretending they were right all along.

Good faith doesn't mean "be very afraid to criticize others when they lie".