Intolerant of Intolerance: Mozilla CEO Pressured to Resign

Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich has resigned after news broke he donated to the California Prop 8 effort that banned same-sex marriage in the state. Public pressure from groups like OKCupid, who led a boycott on use of the Mozilla owned Firefox browser, motivated his decision.

"Mozilla believes both in equality and freedom of speech," said Mitchell Baker, Mozilla's executive chairwoman in a blog post announcing the resignation. "Equality is necessary for meaningful speech. And you need free speech to fight for equality. Figuring out how to stand for both at the same time can be hard." (CNN)

And here in lies the problem. While Mozilla has every right to employ based on their vision of equality, limiting speech under the guise of protecting speech is laughable. Mr. Eich was expressing himself as a private citizen. Yes, he is a public figure and did resign on his own, be it under pressure, this is an example of where LGBT advocates go too far. Instead of searching for equal treatment under the law, they are demanding forced acceptance in private individual thought.

As LGBT rights advocates ourselves, we believe this is the wrong path. One cannot support liberty for all by trampling of the ideals of others. And this is why the civil rights push must come from people who respect both sides of the discussion. It must come from people who value individual rights as well as the religious right to oppose that expression. It cannot be led by ideological puritans and hard line advocacy groups alone. This is why Republicans must own this issue. Otherwise we will see the advocacy tyrants tamp down the expression of any opposition voice.