You lay up some facts [I've not checked but don't doubt especially] but don't look at his actions in his employment - were there objections from staff that he discriminated against them. Did he force modification of Mozilla's codes to deny rights based on specific sexual behaviours of the employees in an unreasonable way?
Mozilla's values are, according to their blog:
>We welcome contributions from everyone regardless of age, culture, ethnicity, gender, gender-identity, language, race, sexual orientation, geographical location and religious views. Mozilla supports equality for all.
Except that's no longer true is it. "Mozilla welcome contribution from anyone who believes that homosexual behaviour is right and that homosexual's should be granted civil unions by the state those unions to be called marriage". Not so pithy I guess.
Unless they tried to refuse his resignation then this move strikes out the "culture" and "religious views" parts of that quoted statement.
He was fine as a CTO because of his brilliant technical mind. His actions, however, make him unfit to lead an organization as diverse as Mozilla.
you just cannot compare those to gay rights. Neither of those perpetuate inequality or hate. In fact they are in support of individuals rights.
being against gay marriage is wanting to strip people of their rights and promote inequality. It is like saying only white people can get married, and if that was the case how would you feel about it then?
It's his helping to strip a civil right from gay people. It is reasonable for Mozilla's gay employees and partners to fear that he hasn't entirely stopped trying to treat gay people as second-class citizens.
- He donated to Prop 8.
- He donated to Pat Buchanan, who has largely made his bones on hating anybody who isn't WASPy[1].
- He donated $750 to Thomas McClintock[2], another politician who makes a show of being anti-gay. Eich was living in Santa Clara--not in McClintock's district.
- He donated $500 to Linda Smith[2], she of the "morally unfit inclination" opinion of gay people. She was running in Washington, while he lived in California.
The reason I list these is to dispel the notion that it's "one event". He has a pattern of going out of his way (out-of-district donations) to give money to causes and politicians who are particularly strident in their anti-gay stances (and even Ron Paul, who he also gave money to, is notably anti-gay-marriage and remains static in that despite having vacillated on marriage privatization).
This is, by my lights, who he wants to be known to be. Should that not be considered in the light of Mozilla's self-described values? (I do not believe there exists a coherent, moral worldview where it's not important to prioritize the inclusion of the less privileged ahead of the comfort of the privileged. I say this while thinking of multiple communities of which I am a part that sometimes make me uncomfortable in the effort to make those less privileged feel respected and safe. The actions that result in this piss me off sometimes, but I am an adult and I recognize that it's for the net benefit of everybody.)
[1] - http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/02/controvers...
[2] - OpenSecrets donor query - it requires a captcha, though, so I've omitted the link.