Another Day, Another Scalp

Brendan Eich resigned as chief executive of Mozilla, best known for its Firefox web browser, “after intense criticism over a six-year-old, $1,000 donation he made in support of a 2008 California ballot initiative to ban gay marriage,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
The company has profusely apologized to the LGBT community for the offense.

Some had called for a boycott, and some then celebrated their victory, but Andrew Sullivan lamented:

“The whole episode disgusts me – as it should disgust anyone interested in a tolerant and diverse society. If this is the gay rights movement today – hounding our opponents with a fanaticism more like the religious right than anyone else – then count me out. If we are about intimidating the free speech of others, we are no better than the anti-gay bullies who came before us.”

The fact is this was a personal donation, and the company has not discriminated against gays, married or otherwise. I can see why some, given a choice, might not want to do business with an individual who doesn’t support their legal equality. But there is something fearsome about the vendetta mentality bubbling up from the LGBT community, manifesting, in this instance, in trying to get a man pushed out of his job for supporting a position that is politically incorrect, rather than leaving him to his personal convictions or engaging with him over the marriage issue.

The now-widespread view that silencing opponents is right and proper, once our side has the power to do so, truly is the liberalism of Robespierre.

More. How many of those cheering Brendan Eich’s forced resignation consider it one of the great national scars that American communists and fellow travelers were blacklisted during the 1950s? Most, I suspect. And hey, all they wanted to do was destroy Western civilization and replace it with Stalinist tyranny.

Furthermore. Many tech companies outscore Mozilla in terms of total contributions by employees in support of California’s anti-gay-marriage Prop. 8, shows William Saletan at Slate. Also, this overview of the controversy by the Washington Post‘s Gail Sullivan.

Plus Jonathan Rauch shares his views in the New York Times, Intolerance in the Name of Tolerance, and writes: “A handful of hotheads forgot what the gay rights movement is fighting for: the embrace of diversity and the freedom for all Americans, gay and straight, to live publicly as who they truly are.”

Jim Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin, Eich Resigned. That’s Not Good: “But at a time when we are demanding passage of the Employment Non-Discrmination Act so that companies can’t just up and fire LGBT employees because they don’t agree with them — as they can now in about two-thirds of our states — we need to think very long and hard about we should demand someone be removed from his job for exercising his constitutional rights as part of the cornerstone of our democracy: a free and fair election.”

Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic, Mozilla’s Gay-Marriage Litmus Test Violates Liberal Values: “The rise of marriage equality is a happy, hopeful story. This is an ugly, illiberal footnote, appended by the winners.”

Frank Bruni at the New York Times sums up in The New Gay Orthodoxy: “Such vilification won’t accelerate the timetable of victory, which is certain. And it doesn’t reflect well on the victors.”

Dale Carpenter at The Volokh Conspiracy, A Strange New Respect for Markets: “The gay-rights movement and its supporters are better than this. And hiding behind fictions about the marketplace won’t fool anybody.”

Ross Douthat in the New York Times, The Case of Brendan Eich: “[A]n elite culture that enforces the new norms on marriage this strictly, and polices its own ranks this rigorously, is likely to find reasons (and, indeed, is already adept at finding them) to become increasingly anti-pluralist whenever it has the chance to enforce those same norms on society as a whole.”

Mark Lee, Have we lost the ability to be magnanimous when winning or gracious in victory? “Are we incapable of shedding a victim’s impulse for retribution? If so, that’s sad.”

But the heresy hunters are jubilant, and they’re keen to light more pyres.

Still more. I’m not unaware that Catholic and evangelical organizations (and the Boy Scouts) can and do fire employees for being openly gay and/or advocating gay equality. I just don’t agree that lowering ourselves to their level of intolerance, when we have the opportunity, is somehow fair play.

After a few days, it seems clear that Eich’s forced resignation not only hasn’t advanced the cause of marriage equality, it’s hurt it. Just the way that a public spotlight on using the judiciary to force religiously conservative florists, bakers or photographers to provide expressive services celebrating gay weddings (or be forced out of business) hurts us. It’s the victims becoming the victimizer when they have the chance. We’ve seen it all through history, from Christians to Communists, and it’s always ugly.

And it’s another day, and so — you got it — another scalp.

59 Comments for “Another Day, Another Scalp”

  1. posted by ctdawg on

    No one is silencing Brendan Eich. He’s free to donate to causes advocating the oppression of minorities. He’s even free to talk about it, which he seems reluctant to do. But I for one, am glad that opposing gay marriage has become an odious position meriting public vilification, at least in some circles. It belongs on the trash heap of history, along with antisemitism and racial bigotry.

  2. posted by Jorge on

    Some people try to attack me, thinking they can damage me, and on this they are correct, but they make a dangerous mistake.

    My hair grows back.

    plllllllt!

  3. posted by Lori Heine on

    This all played out exactly the way conservatives claim it should. The market took care of the situation. Nobody called for government to ban anything, or to pass any new laws.

    Oh, wait — conservatives didn’t like the outcome this time. So their principles only matter when it suits them.

    • posted by Houndentenor on

      Yes, and the people screaming about this all DO this constantly. They love boycotts and demanding that people be fired. They just don’t like when it happens to them. Where was Sullivan when Alec Baldwin was being attacked? Oh right…leading the attack! Where were the anti-gay leaders when there were calls to boycott Starbucks when the company came out for support of marriage equality in Washington State? Oh right! THEY were calling for that boycott. When they do it, it’s perfectly okay. When someone does it to them it’s PERSECUTION.

  4. posted by Jim Michaud on

    So the CEO of Firefox decides to step down. Meh. At the risk of getting screamed at GP-style, I’m more inclined to agree with Stephen on this one. Look, he made a mistake-6 years ago. I consider the whole thing water under the bridge. Prop 8 has been dead for 9 months now. Now if a CEO supports, say, the Mississippi law (a current issue), that will be worth getting frothed up about. Someone donating money years ago to a now dead law; er, not so much. We’re making it easy for the soc cons. Let their side be the pearl clutching, shrieking droolers, not us. We’re better than that.

  5. posted by JohnInCA on

    “[…] or engaging with him over the marriage issue.”
    Um, no. He refused to engage. He made a non-apology and refused to talk about it. You can’t engage someone against their will, despite the fears of certain folks who think same-sex marriage is being forced on them.

    Aside from that, this is an interesting level of hypocrisy. You can’t say that non-discrimination ordinances are too much government interference and that the free market should take care of bigoted assholes and then get upset when exactly that happens.

    Regardless. While I think this was overkill, I also seriously chafe at anyone suggesting that I’m obligated to support any business.

  6. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    The now-widespread view that silencing opponents, once our side has the power to do so, is right and proper truly is the liberalism of Robespierre.

    I recognize that you and other Alphabet-Street members of the Republican aristocracy fear (and for good reason) political retribution for the “let them eat cake” years of recent Republican history and the likely continuation of that ill-conceived strategy over the next two or three election cycles, but I would be cautious about pulling out the knives and exploiting this incident to stir the pot of anti-gay sentiment, for a number of reasons:

    First, outside pressure on Mozilla/Eich was not “widespread” within the LGBT community, as far as I can tell, and was not generated by “the vendetta mentality bubbling up from the LGBT community”, if such a thing even exists. As far as I can piece it together, what outside pressure came into play did not have its genesis within the LGBT community, but instead developed because CREDO, a self-described “social change organization that supports activism and funds progressive nonprofits”, stirred the pot, and OK Cupid, a dating site, picked up the ball and pushed it. The push for a “vendetta” (as you put it) seems to have been largely confined to those two organizations, neither of which is primarily concerned with gay/lesbian issues. The most that can be said about them is that they are “straight allies” (CREDO more so than OK Cupid, which seems to have exploited the issue to get “splash” and gain market share). LGBT organizations don’t seem to have joined in on the fray.

    Second, inside pressures swirling around Eich’s appointment appear to have been intense, from both the bottom up and the top down. Mozilla employees, who were unhappy about the appointment for a lot of reasons, created internal pressure from the ground up, and the top down pressure was also intense. As the WSJ reported, fully half of the members of Mozilla’s Board of Directors resigned after Erin’s appointment, and that was before CREDO exposed Eich’s campaign contribution and started to stir the pot. As the WSJ reported on the internal pressures, the internal battle resulted from concern about Mozilla’s falling market share and inability to make inroads into the tablet/smart phone market. In a word, Eich’s appointment tore the company apart, and the internal battle was primarily over business-related issues rather than gay/lesbian issues.

    Third, the pressure seems to have been closely related to the unique dynamics of the “internet industry”, which, like Mozilla, prides itself on being staunch and vocal advocates of gay/lesbian equality, on marriage and other issues. Within the unique dynamics of that business community, Eich’s appointment and flap surrounding his anti-equality views generated fallout with a high probability that Mozilla’s ability to attract and keep talented employees would be diminished. Whatever the right or wrong of raising a ruckus over the political views of CEO’s, Mozilla, a company that is already in deep trouble, didn’t need the additional problems created by Eich’s appointment.

    We’ll learn more about the story as time goes on, I imagine, but from what I know at this point, I don’t see much justification for panic and comparisons to the French Revolution.

    I agree with other commenters that the market operated according to its own lights in this case, and as far as I can tell, that’s about all that happened.

    • posted by Mike in Houston on

      In a word, Eich’s appointment tore the company apart, and the internal battle was primarily over business-related issues rather than gay/lesbian issues.

      Too right. Just because certain parties wanted to make this about his political giving doesn’t make it so… of course the cognitive disconnect on the part of some folks is head-spinning. (Like the anti-gay groups that called for a boycott of Mozilla and Eich’s head because he issued a non-apology apology and the company gave a full-throated endorsement of LGBT civil equality, who are now spinning this episode – like Stephen — as a tragic injustice caused by the Gaystapo…)

  7. posted by Kosh III on

    Look folks, we should be grateful to Stephen: for once he made a post and didn’t blame leftist-pinko-commie-dirty hippie democrat-socialists……

  8. posted by Jorge on

    This all played out exactly the way conservatives claim it should. The market took care of the situation. Nobody called for government to ban anything, or to pass any new laws.

    Oh, wait — conservatives didn’t like the outcome this time. So their principles only matter when it suits them.

    It’s not so much that their principles matter only when it suits them. It’s more along the lines of they don’t want to be pushed to implement mutually assured destruction. No one said anything about an unwillingness to use it, and it’s still a valid question whether to leave MAD to the free market vs. the law.

    I have made my decision on something. Since this country seems increasingly eager to embrace culture wars on side streets that have little to do with the best interests of this country, I will start showing my distance from them.

  9. posted by Houndentenor on

    It’s laughable to me that the very same people having hissy fits now about Eich were all calling for someone to be fired (Sullivan calling for the firing of Alec Baldwin last year over his use of homophobic slurs) or boycotted (endless calls for boycotts of Starbucks, JC Penney etc etc etc). If they don’t think it’s fair to punish a person or company this way, why are they constantly doing it?

    All I did was switch my browser from Firefox to Chrome. I find it very difficult to believe that a few thousand people doing that led to Eich’s resignation. (Note: he was NOT fired and it seems he just went back to his old job, so it’s not like he’s about to be homeless and in line at the soup kitchen.) I suspect it was more the backlash from employees inside the company.

    One more thing. Would anyone question this if Eich were donating to groups against interracial marriage? Or a group that denied the Holocaust? Why do anti-gay bigots get a special right to their bigotry that is denied racists and sexists in our society?

  10. posted by Houndentenor on

    The hyperbole and hysteria in the addendum is laughable. A few disorganized group of activists boycotting a product is the same as the McCarthy hearings and the Blacklists? Really? And are you implying that because someone went to a Communist meeting a few times in the early 1930s that meant they wanted Stalinism in the US? Really? #facepalm

    • posted by Jorge on

      Surely you’re not suggesting that Mr. Miller is the only person who gets tripped up on double-standards or hypocrisy?

      Nothing wrong with a little hysteria now and then, but it’s important to put the right topspin on hyperbole.

      Alec Baldwin… while I think what happened to him was too harsh, reasonable people can posit that there’s a difference between opposing gay marriage and using an anti-gay slur to call someone a jerk. You seem not to think there is one, since you call the former anti-gay bigotry as well.

      You are wrong.

      But that is meaningless if accountability is not enforced, and as you and Lori point out, we are talking about a free market system. Hence the culture wars.

      People talk about how destructive all this talk of boycott and backlash is, and the need to discuss things civilly. All that civility is good for, however, is for building up your own alliance and side. In the end it is might that makes right, and that means recruitment is key.

      • posted by Houndentenor on

        I wonder what people will think about this 30 years from now. Does anyone remember George Wallace fondly? Or think Gov Faubus who tried to block desegregation in Arkansas was a stand-up guy who just had a difference of opinion? Do we still celebrate the “tolerance” of people who were bigots on race? Do you really think people will think the people who attempted to undo 19,000 legal marriages in California were just misunderstood people trying to do what’s right? Or mean-spirited bigots? I don’t feel bad for Eich or Baldwin. Eich is the real bigot. Baldwin is a hothead who desperately needs better PR people (whose first job should be to filter everything he does on social media!). When you have a highly public position (actor, talk show host or even CEO, you have to be careful what you do and say. You are no longer a private citizen. And moreover how you handle the damage of a situation tells us a lot about you. Both Eich and Baldwin mishandled the aftermath of their bad PR with somewhat similar results. There ought to be a lesson in here somewhere. Perhaps first of all, being seen as a bigot is bad for business. Also, being genuinely sorry actually works as an apology. Playing victim when you are at fault just makes people more angry. Seriously who does PR for these people and why do they still have jobs?

        • posted by Jorge on

          Does anyone remember George Wallace fondly? Or think Gov Faubus who tried to block desegregation in Arkansas was a stand-up guy who just had a difference of opinion?

          I hate to break it to you but the answer that question is most likely yes.

          Do we still celebrate the “tolerance” of people who were bigots on race?

          Yes. Abraham Lincoln.

          When you have a highly public position (actor, talk show host or even CEO, you have to be careful what you do and say. You are no longer a private citizen. And moreover how you handle the damage of a situation tells us a lot about you. Both Eich and Baldwin mishandled the aftermath of their bad PR with somewhat similar results. There ought to be a lesson in here somewhere. Perhaps first of all, being seen as a bigot is bad for business. Also, being genuinely sorry actually works as an apology. Playing victim when you are at fault just makes people more angry. Seriously who does PR for these people and why do they still have jobs?

          I think you’re half right.

          Where I disagree with you is that where these faults are held accountable reveals our double-standards. It reminds me of your (quite valid) complaint that the country only paid attention to the Westboro Baptist Church after it started protesting soldiers’ funerals. Instead of a consistent standard of right and wrong, we end up treating people who should be social pariahs too leniently, while being overly harsh to people who are social gadflies.

          That the destruction of a good person’s reputation might be necessary for the public good is a sacrifice I might be willing to accept, as both Baldwin and Eich appear to have been willing to accept in the end. There are times when evil must prevail.

          However I much prefer the example set by Chick-Fil-A, that epic beard duck guy, and (hmm, what’s a liberal example of this that’s still kicking?) Al Sharpton.

        • posted by Jorge on

          Had my original attempt to post deleted and I missed part of my response.

          Do you really think people will think the people who attempted to undo 19,000 legal marriages in California were just misunderstood people trying to do what’s right?

          I think people will think they tried to stand up for their values and we’ll see the gay equivalent of people putting Confederate flags on their trucks.

          • posted by Houndentenor on

            Yes, just like people trying to block black children from entering schools during desegregation were “standing up for their values.” People do have a right to hold unpopular opinions. They don’t have a right for me not to think they’re assholes for their actions.

  11. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    How many of those cheering Brendan Eich’s forced resignation consider it one of the great national scars that American communists and fellow travelers were blacklisted during the 1950s? Most, I suspect. And hey, all they wanted to do was destroy Western civilization and replace it with Stalinist tyranny.

    Andrew Sullivan may be in high dudgeon and the right-wing nasties may be spinning wildly in all sorts of nonsensical directions, but sensible people — gay/lesbian and straight alike — should keep a clear head about it. At a minimum, wait until the full story is known before going all bonkers on it.

    Stop. Breathe. Think. As Lori so aptly put it: “This all played out exactly the way conservatives claim it should. The market took care of the situation.

    You and I may not agree with the way that the market operated in this instance — Firefox is my browser of choice and I’m keeping it that way — but that’s no reason to start conjuring up the ghosts of Robespierre and Tailgunner Joe.

  12. posted by Houndentenor on

    As for the bizarre “Furthermore”:

    1) Are you arguing that if enough other people do something wrong, that makes it okay?

    2) In terms of employees, this didn’t come up until Eich was promoted to CEO. Were the others mentioned employees or CEOs?

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      The Slate article cited in the “Furthermore” entirely misses the point.

      Opposing marriage equality is different than holding a political view about economic policies, or social security, or taxes or other political issues. Opposing marriage equality requires a belief that gay and lesbian citizens do not deserve the marriage rights the government gives to straights.

      Eich’s views were known and tolerated when he was CTO. The situation changed when he became CEO. There’s a good reason for that change.

      Although technically an employee, a CEO is in a different position than any other employee. The CEO is both the ultimate decision-maker in the company AND the public face of the company. All employees are bound to follow company policy, but the CEO is unique because the CEO also makes company policy.

      In a company like Mozilla, with a record championing “equal means equal” in the workplace and elsewhere, the cognitive dissonance between the company’s value and Eich’s values was glaring, and to a significant number of employees, apparently unacceptable.

      Mozilla has a lot of business problems right now. It is losing market share in the computer browser market, and the company faces a major challenge as the computer browser market loses market share to the tablet/smart phone browser market. The challenges are not insignificant, and the company’s future is uncertain.

      Mozilla is going to have to hire a significant number of good software engineers to succeed, and it will have to do so in an employment market where competition for top software engineers is fierce. With Eich in the CEO chair, where is Mozilla’s edge?

      It is not unreasonable for the Board and the company’s employees to demand that a CEO be committed — personally — to the company’s core values.

      I can understand that. The authors of the Slate article cited by Stephen obviously did not, and probably don’t have enough business experience to understand it.

      What is most bizarre about the Slate article is that a glaring fact — Eich was the only employee of Mozilla who made a reportable contribution to Prop 8 — was noted, but the implications of that fact were entirely missed.

      In the entire company, one employee made a reportable contribution to a cause that stands in opposition to the company’s values on equality.

      The CEO.

      Huh?

      That’s why Eich’s views on marriage equality were irrelevant before he became CEO, but became relevant when he was appointed CEO. His views, although personal, necessarily impacted the company’s competitive edge.

      That’s what the Slate article missed entirely.

  13. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    Plus Jonathan Rauch shares his views in the New York Times, Intolerance in the Name of Tolerance, and writes: “A handful of hotheads forgot what the gay rights movement is fighting for: the embrace of diversity and the freedom for all Americans, gay and straight, to live publicly as who they truly are.”

    Yes, and as Rauch made clear, the “hotheads” were not gays and lesbians engaged in the struggle for equality:

    Lest we forget, the campaign against Eich was not launched by gay rights groups. It was launched by an online dating company called OKCupid. Even OKCupid’s leaders had no plan other than to “raise awareness.” In other words, they were freelance activists engaging in moral grandstanding. Well intentioned? Maybe. Dumb? Assuredly.

    The pressure on Eich came primarily from three sources: (1) Mozilla’s Board of Directors, (2) Mozilla’s employees, and (3) two organizations (CREDO and OKCupid) that are not engaged in the fight for equality, except peripherally.

    Mozilla’s Board and Mozilla’s employees have a legitimate (and given the business challenges facing the company, urgent) interest in ensuring that the company’s CEO will not complicate the company’s future. I have no argument at all with them. Eich was a poor choice for a variety of reasons, and the blowback from Board resignations and employee resistance was intended to correct the decision before too much damage was done.

    I don’t feel the same way with respect to the “hotheads” who stepped into the fray, particularly OKCupid, which appears to have exploited the situation for market share gains.

    But my disdain is reserved, as it usually is, for the right-wing shills who, ignoring the facts of the situation, compare gays and lesbians to Robspierre, Tail Gunner Joe, Fascists and the like. It is these shills for the anti-gay movement are exploiting the situation for their own purposes.

  14. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    But the heresy hunters are jubilant, and they’re keen to light more pyres.

    If any of you are interested in moving beyond the simplistic “progressive gays and lesbians are evil” storyline that Stephen seems determined to spew at all cost, and instead seek to understand the controversy involved in Eich’s appointment and resignation more fully, the internal story is beginning to be reported: Personality and Change Inflamed Mozilla Crisis.

    We’ll learn more over the coming weeks as the business/technology press begins to report the details. I don’t have any expectation that the facts of the situation will deter the shills, but I think that the internal story has a lot of lessons for all of us.

    • posted by Tom Jefferson III on

      BTW, ‘scalping’ was oftentimes done at the insistence of the ‘white man’ (if not done by the white man himself). You needed some reliable way to prove that ‘x’ had killed ‘y’ and well, people did not have more then one scalp.

      So, if the intention of ‘another day another scalp’ was to point out how “evil” the minorities are being to the poor, wealthy member of the majority, would might as well try to get your history correct.

      In this case, the CEO’s “scalp” was not actually a scalp but his CEO job and (again) it looks like other reasons where much more of factor, then a donation that not many people knew about until recently.

      Also, I know quite a few LGBT people who were pretty much indifferent to the entire ‘scandal’ (no matter their politics) because — you know — we got more important things to worry about.

      Heck, I am typing this post using Mozilla/Firefox. I only vaguely heard a small tidbit about the issue (frankly, I got more important things to worry about).

      So, I cannot care too much that he made the donation — now that the law is dead — and I also cannot care too much that he is no longer CEO.

      I suspect he lost his CEO position (mostly) because of non-gay related issues (it is not like the ‘gay-socialist-secular-left’ can magically press a button and produce a successful boycott or career change) and probably has a very generous cushion to fall back on.

      Mostly this is ‘news’ because privileged gay folk — living in blue or purple-state lands — of different party affiliations need a reason to play a bit of tit for tat.

      I get that gay Republicans and gay Democrats disagree. I get that this disagreement (and agreement, hopefully sometimes) needs a place to be expressed and tossed around.

      I just don’t get creating ‘news’ and ‘scandal’ so as to play the partisan tit-for-tat game.

  15. posted by Tom Jefferson III on

    1. The guy was free to donate to a political cause, just as I am free to disagree with his politics or donate to another cause. I am not entirely sure what is ‘anti-liberal’ about that…maybe conservatives would prefer that political liberty only applied to corporations….

    2. I doubt very much that the guys donation in opposition to gay marriage had much to do with his career (or lack their of) within Firefox/Mozilla. Again, that seems to be the reality of the situation — when you go beyond the headlines and spin. People at the top and bottom of the Firefox corporate leader had beefs against him, even before his donation came to light.

    3. I doubt that Mozilla/Firefox the company is anti-gay or a terrible place for gay people to work. But, I can only guess about that sort of thing.

    4. I doubt that ex-CEO is going to face any serious financial problems. Big companies tend to be very….generous…with CEO benefits and the like. Might want to worry more about people in more serious financial difficulties….just saying…..

    • posted by Houndentenor on

      Eich just went back to his old job. He’s not out of a job. Other than some bad publicity he’s not out anything that he had a month ago.

      If you don’t want to be known as an anti-gay bigot, then don’t BE an anti-gay bigot. If you are then own it and don’t be a big crybaby because gay people called you out on your bigotry. Did he really think people he worked with wouldn’t find out about his donation and say something to him about it? Really? He doesn’t seem that stupid or naive.

  16. posted by Lori Heine on

    I just spent a lovely evening with over a dozen gay and lesbian friends, and — surprise! — not once did this topic come up. No high-fiving all around, no celebrating of the “scalping.”

    I believe every one of my friends is quite progressive. Odd nobody mentioned this successful “heresy hunt.”

    Then again, there’s what they really think about, and what gay conservatives seem to believe they think about. Like almost everybody else in the world, my friends have a lot of things they’re more interested in. Their actual lives, for example.

    • posted by Jim Michaud on

      Me too, Lori. The soc cons seem to have a weird image of us. No, I haven’t either hob-nobbed with my fellow Birkenstock and beret wearing, Prius driving, sushi eating, latte drinking fellow gays while chortling over our latest conquest. I’m too busy living my life to merit the whole episode a second glance. I suspect it’s the same for conservative Christians as well. The only people still focused on this are profiteers from the outrage industry. The one part of the stereotype I fit with is the sushi. Yum!

  17. posted by Carl on

    I stopped reading Andrew Sullivan years ago and this just reminds me of why. He’s so busy soapboxing (basically to prove he’s not like those “other” gay people) that he just steamrolls over any point he may have been trying to make. And the segueway into Hillary Clinton hysteria is baffling, since one of the points of this is Eich didn’t go back on his donation or his beliefs. Clinton has. I’m not supporting her for President either but I’m not dragging her name into this as a weapon as he is.

    Can you imagine how much further this community might go if some members weren’t so consistently desperate to show how superior they are to the rest of the gay community?

  18. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    I just don’t agree that lowering ourselves to their level of intolerance, when we have the opportunity, is somehow fair play. … It’s the victims becoming the victimizer when they have the chance.

    To paraphase Tonto, “Who do you mean we Kemosabe?” As Jon Rauch, Frank Bruni and everyone else who gives a damn about facts has pointed out, none of the mainstream LGBT organizations — HCR, Freedom to Marry, the various state organizations — actually engaged in the fight for equality had any part in this fracus.

    Although Eich’s appointment/resignation was primarily driven by internal Mozilla concerns, outside groups with an agenda not necessarily aligned with ours (CREDO, OKCupid) put their oars in to gin up outrage to propel their own boats, followed on by conservative Christians and social conservatives (Todd Starnes, Matt Barber, Tony Perkins) to push the anti-gay agenda, and followed on by chattering class gays (Sullivan and similar) who used the flap to push their “we aren’t like progressives” meme.

    Without the outside groups pushing their various agendas, the Eich affair would have remained an internal Mozilla brawl, which is all it ever was, truth be told. The facts are reality available, to those willing to put aside their agendas long enough to look at them.

    Mozilla has a unique corporate culture (heavily dependent on unpaid volunteers), is in deep trouble because its business model hasn’t kept pace with industry changes, continues to exist largely because it licenses technology to Google, and had a fight (in which half the board resigned) over Eich’s appointment, for reasons unrelated to (if acerbated by) Eich’s longstanding involvement with social conservative causes, including anti-equality. If you are interested in a relatively sane look at the issues from a Mozilla employee, take a look at Matthew Riley MacPherson’s blog post “A Need to Lead“.

    But, as is often the case when it comes to issues involving gays and lesbians, reality took a back seat to outside agendas, and now the herd mentality is pushing the meme “it’s the victims becoming the victimizer when they have the chance”, complete with allusions to the French Revolution, Joe McCarthy and the Facists, tossed in for good measure by the pot stirrers.

    The Frank Bruni article cited as part of Stephen’s every growing (and undocumented) list of “Futhermores”, is a good example of the herd mentality at work. Bruni typically has a few brain cells firing from time to time, but not in “The New Gay Orthodoxy” article.

    Bruni starts out with a dose of reality (“For one thing, prominent gay rights groups weren’t part of the Mozilla fray.“) but then slides effortlessly into the quote cherry-picked to suit Stephen’s agenda (“Such vilification won’t accelerate the timetable of victory, which is certain. And it doesn’t reflect well on the victors.“).

    Huh? If gay rights groups weren’t part of the Mozilla fray, then how does the Mozilla fray reflect badly on “the victors” in the fight for equality, gay rights groups and gays/lesbians in general?

    The Mozzilla flap is a casebook study in outside interests using gays and lesbians as cannon fodder, yet again, to push their own agendas.

    Think about it. What does CREDO care about my marriage (or the criminal liability that goes along with it in Wisconsin)? Or OKCupid. How is marriage equality their victory? What does Matt Barber care about Michael and me or any of us? Or Tony Perkins. Or Bryan Fischer. Or Andrew Sullivan. Or Todd Starnes. Or Stephen, for that matter?

    I don’t think that any of them give a tinker’s about gays and lesbians. I think that all they care about is pushing their own agenda.

    I don’t know about anyone else, but I am tired of being used to gin up outrage and score points for outside interests with agendas unrelated to “equal means equal”. And that goes to the so-called “progressive allies” like CREDO and chattering class outrage mongers, just as much as it does for social conservatives and Republicans.

    As for this thread, I’m watching with morbid fascination to see just how many inept “Mores”, “Furthermores”, “Still Mores” and “More Furthermores” Stephen can pile on top of each other to miss the point.

  19. posted by Jorge on

    I’m not unaware that Catholic and evangelical organizations (and the Boy Scouts) can and do fire employees for being openly gay and/or advocating gay equality. I just don’t agree that lowering ourselves to their level of intolerance, when we have the opportunity, is somehow fair play.

    I’m not sure I had considered this point.

    I was in a cynical mood before, but saying this in this way doesn’t show us a way out of the culture war. It only leads us deeper into it. Better would be to demonstrate tolerance and respect, with an open mind toward acceptance.

    If you cannot do that, then you should seriously reconsider your position on this topic.

    Odd nobody mentioned this successful “heresy hunt.”

    Then again, there’s what they really think about, and what gay conservatives seem to believe they think about.

    Hey, don’t spoil it, Lori. I’m rather enjoying my fix of “No wonder people think we’re nuts, GAY NEWS.” A hungry dog will eat anything you throw at him. Almost.

    Tom: There’s a theory in anti-discrimination law called mixed motive. While I’m not that clear on the nuances, my understanding is that if part of your motivation for taking negative action against someone is legitimate, and part of your motivation is discriminatory, it can be treated as discriminatory conduct.

    Mr. Eich’s donation toward barring same-sex marriage should not have exacerbated the situation. From your link:

    “Brendan Eich stepped down as Mozilla chief on Thursday. Credit Darcy Padilla/Mozilla, via Associated Press Criticism mounted and, combined with Mr. Eich’s refusal to discuss his views, made the situation untenable for Mozilla and Mr. Eich, according to current and former Mozilla board members.

    Instead of addressing the criticism head-on, he insisted that his personal views should not matter to Mozilla.”

    That’s not acceptable to me. A person’s political or religious views should not be a legitimate qualification for employment except in very special circumstances. I think there should be more human rights laws protecting political expression. (Oh, dear, usually I’m against using laws to change social attitudes.) And since you point to workplace culture, instead of resigning, the executive board should have stuck up for him and explained that that is not a legitimate avenue of inquiry, including when he declined to share details of his personal life.

    I think the gay right’s (or center-right’s) disgust over this is legitimate and consistent with their agenda and worldview. You have made clear that this is pushing the envelope into an area that is new and almost revolutionary. I hope that this will become even more clear in the days ahead.

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      And since you point to workplace culture, instead of resigning, the executive board should have stuck up for him and explained that that is not a legitimate avenue of inquiry, including when he declined to share details of his personal life.

      My view, for what it is worth, is that the Board blew it by appointing Eich. When half the Board resigns over an appointment, that tells me that the Board shouldn’t have made the appointment.

      The business/technical press is starting to fill in the details of the appointment and the Board’s resistance. The resistance seems to have been related to a conviction that Eich was not only a poor fit for Mozilla going forward, but a particularly bad fit, for reasons unrelated to his views on social issues.

      Eich is, by all accounts, a technology genius (he invented Java, for all intents and purposes) but he had few of the skills that make a good CEO (there seems to have been a lot of concern about his “leadership style”) and his devoation to the computer platform rather than the tablet/smart phone platform did not fit well with Mozilla’s business needs. Eich’s poor handling of the “Prop 8” issue may have done him in, but he was a poor choice, and internally an extremely controversial choice, before and after his views on social issues became a problem.

      When you blow it, you blow it. When you make a bad business decision, you cut your losses and correct the situation. That goes for non-profits as well as businesses, and amalgsms like Mozilla. Consider two recent examples: Given its funding base, the World Vision board made a bad business decision, but changed course. So did Archbishop Wilton Gregory (who I know personally from his days in Chicago as an Auxiliary) of Atlanta. That’s the way it works, and the way it should work. The Mozilla board blew it, and corrected course. To persist with Eich would have been to put stubborn-headed thinking ahead of Mozilla’s needs.

      I think the gay right’s (or center-right’s) disgust over this is legitimate and consistent with their agenda and worldview.

      With respect to libertarians, I see your point. If, in fact, the libertarians are right rather than flopping around in a self-induced panic, and we are entering a world where CEO’s of business corporations become the target of a witch hunt, I’ll be standing right there with them. I don’t see any sign that a witch hunt will develop (you will have, I hope, noticed that none of the gay rights organizations entered the fray), but if it does, I oppose it.

      But I wouldn’t extend that thought to social conservatives, who have a long record of demanding ideological purity and litmus tests. In fact, the stated fears of Stephen, Sullivan and all the rest of the folks sounding the alarm is that we will become like social conservatives.

      Stephen, Sullivan and a lot of others in the gay right chattering class are ginning the Mozilla situation for all it is worth. The obvious disconnect between the facts (no LGBT organization involvement, an internal business decision, good or bad) and the meme being pushed (progressive gays and lesbians are becoming the new Robspierrians) makes that obvious. Unable to find smoke, let alone a smoking gun, they repeat, repeat, repeat the same-old same-old, as if saying it enough times will make it true.

  20. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    After a few days, it seems clear that Eich’s forced resignation not only hasn’t advanced the cause of marriage equality, it’s hurt it.

    Just out of curiosity, do you have any actual evidence to support this? A poll, for example? Or is it just that the right-wing echo chamber is going nuts, as always?

    • posted by Carl on

      I’d be interested in knowing this too.

      It all seems very chattering class and very much like a group of people who already sneer at gay groups and at gay people in general doing the same thing yet again.

      As always, there’s a whole lot of time spent slinging crap at the LGBT community and no time at all spent acknowledging that this is a very diverse community and that most of this decision has little or nothing to do with most of the community.

      Hell, this time no one can even pull out the old macros about the evil of GLAAD and HRC.

      Yet somehow this is yet again being used by the far right and by gays who love to do the superiority dance, all to badmouth and shame the entire gay community.

  21. posted by Lori Heine on

    Our strings are being jerked again, so now we’re supposed to jump. This is why I’ve distanced myself, in great disgust, from the Gay Right. Its tactics are far more devious and disgusting than anything I’ve seen from the supposedly-sinister Gay Left.

    Here’s what you’re supposed to do if you’re a gay conservative: (A) attack other gay people, (B) attack liberals, (C) especially attack gay liberals and (D) by all means, stay the hell out of church.

    You can be a gay conservative, but you will be promptly and firmly shown to your place and told you’re only welcome so long as you stay there. If you are a person of faith your faith will be ridiculed, the denomination that welcomes you will be slandered, and if you defend the good people with whom you share your spiritual life, you’ll be made fun of.

    Now a meme is being deliberately (I would say almost desperately) crafted. That meme is that any LGBT person who is not politically conservative must be anti-Christian, and that Christians must all march in lockstep in their disapproval of “homosexuality.” Before, many people may have believed these things, but now they are being pushed in a full-throttle campaign.

    The Mozilla thing is only the latest. We’ll see another push after this, and then another, and another, and another. Just as we did with Duck Dynasty and Arizona SB1062. Because it is a meme, and because it is being consciously and deliberately promoted, we are going to be seeing it a lot.

    We need to be aware of what is happening. It has important implications even for those of us who are not Christians. We are being told what we’re allowed to believe, what we’re not allowed to believe, where we are welcome and where we aren’t. It is being dictated to us how we’re supposed to behave.

    The really pathetic part of all this is that even those LGBT folks who break their backs doing exactly what they’re supposed to do to be good gay conservatives are going to end up with very little. The social conservatives and “good Christians” will never give them anything but contempt.

    • posted by Carl on

      “The Mozilla thing is only the latest. We’ll see another push after this, and then another, and another, and another. Just as we did with Duck Dynasty and Arizona SB1062. Because it is a meme, and because it is being consciously and deliberately promoted, we are going to be seeing it a lot. ”

      Great post, especially this part. This really doesn’t seem like a coincidence, does it? I remember how hard the far right worked to try to spin the Arizona law this way.

      Isn’t it funny how “independent” gay voices are working so hard to push this too?

      • posted by Carl on

        I’m not saying this site of Andrew Sullivan’s hysteria has anything to do with what the far right wants, but I do think that “independent” gays are working so hard to “prove” that they aren’t like those “other” gays that they are ignoring that the people dictating these talking points see ALL gay people, not just a select, “liberal” group, as being damned.

        • posted by Lori Heine on

          I wonder if any of the bloggers would care to explain why people who — a mere blink of an eye ago — were determined to lock us in the closet, throw away the key, criminalize our lives and relegate us to second-class citizenship can now be trusted to determine when we step out of line and become bullies. Is the theory that those who have honed bullying into an art form must be experts on recognizing it in others?

          Really, how much is too much? Can the breast-beaters at IGF, Gay Patriot and the other conservative websites kindly offer some guidance on this? Do they seriously believe our adversaries’ intention is not to reverse the gains we’ve made?

          I offer this bold prediction. From now on, EVERYTHING WE DO to advance our cause, or even to defend ourselves, will be labeled as bullying, thuggery, tyranny or some combination thereof. Anything short of lying down and acting like doormats will arouse outrage. And IGF, Gay Patriot and the other useful tools will enthusiastically further the meme.

          And at the end of it all, they will be rewarded with…what? I make the further bold prediction that the reward will be nothing.

          • posted by Tom Scharbach on

            I offer this bold prediction. From now on, EVERYTHING WE DO to advance our cause, or even to defend ourselves, will be labeled as bullying, thuggery, tyranny or some combination thereof. Anything short of lying down and acting like doormats will arouse outrage.

            I think, as I’ve said before, that we are entering into a phase similar to the “massive resistance” phase of the civil rights movement, in which anti-equality forces will seek to block/reverse/diminish the gains we have made in a wide variety of ways. The proposed “religious freedom” and “don’t say gay” laws are glaring examples, and we can expect laws to be tossed at us from any number of directions as we move forward.

            I suspect that you are right about the nature of the war of words, because the themes of bullying, thuggery, tyranny are a perfect fit with social conservative victimization memes, feeding and amplifying the social conservative outrage machine.

            We’ve heard those words for several years now, since we began to make any gains, and the only good thing to say about them is that at least accusations the we are sexual predators, child abusers and child recruiters are no longer acceptable in the mainstream. That’s progress of a sort.

            And IGF, Gay Patriot and the other useful tools will enthusiastically further the meme.

            I think that the future themes on IGF will be a continuation of the themes of the last decade:

            (1) Progressive gays and lesbians demanding too much, too soon. We should wait for the political process to bring conservatives around before demanding full equality.

            (2) Progressive gays and lesbians should be using the political process, not the courts. Using the courts to force equality invites backlash by conservatives and will cost us the good will of the American people as a whole, setting us back in our quest for equality.

            (3) Progressive gays and lesbians should, in some unspecified way, make individual gays and lesbians behave themselves so as not to offend conservative sensibilities.

            (4) Progressive gays and lesbians, by taking up the fight for equality and pushing hard, effectively blocked any chance of positive change among conservatives. Each future step toward equality will repeat and reinforce resistance toward change among conservatives.

            (5) Progressive gays and lesbians do not want conservatives to come around, because that would diminish the power of the One True Party.

            (6) Progressive gays and lesbians are pawns in the hands of the One True Party, which orchestrates and manipulates the LGBT movement through front organizations like the HRC, GLAAD and so on.

            (7) Progressive gays and lesbians are bullies and thugs, in the spirit of Robspierre, Joe McCarthy and worse, determined to extract payback, enforce conformity of thought, and destroy the civil liberties of conservatives.

            And so on.

            Stephen has been sounding these themes, one way and another, for the last decade.

            I think that he sincerely believes what he writes. I do not think that he understands how closely his memes mimic the memes of the anti-gay movement.

            I don’t expect to see him change his views.

  22. posted by Jim Michaud on

    Stephen, you STILL haven’t provided any proof to your claim that this recent fracas has hurt the Marriage Equality movement. Links please. Polls please. I saw on Sullivan’s site that one (count ’em, ONE) person has changed their mind. You usually are great at providing links, but not this time.

    • posted by Carl on

      Who was the one person?

      I went to his site (my mistake) and saw the “hero” stuff about Eich and that was enough for me.

    • posted by Thom Watson on

      Does Stephen ever engage via the comments section, or in response to questions/pushback? I ask not out of snark, but because I sincerely can’t recall a time that he has; for quite a while it has seemed to me that there is neither desire nor intent, at least on the part of the blogger-in-chief, for dialogue.

    • posted by Thom Watson on

      Just to be sure that it wasn’t my own selective memory in asserting that Stephen doesn’t engage in dialogue with his readers, I went back and looked at the comments thread in every post in 2014. Stephen made 33 posts since January 1, and not a single time in any of those posts did he respond to anyone in the comment thread (he did at times update his posts with additional information, which conceivably could have been in response to things people brought up in the comments, but there was never any direct address or dialogue).

  23. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    SCOTUS denied certiorari in the appeal of the New Mexico Supreme Court’s ruling in Elane Photography v. Willock.

  24. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    And it’s another day, and so — you got it — another scalp.

    And just who are you to tell others who they must patronize?

    • posted by Carl on

      Exactly. This has nothing to do the situation at Mozilla. This is basically shaming people for not wanting to support a store.

  25. posted by Carl on

    What is the “scalp” in the American Conservative article? Am I missing something? Some people are boycotting the store. Is she closing down? She says she is still opening the store. So where is the “scalp” again?

    Are we just going to start linking to any article about people who object to anti-gay views, and shaming those people?

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      Are we just going to start linking to any article about people who object to anti-gay views, and shaming those people?

      Apparently that is what Stephen is going to do. So much for market economics.

    • posted by Jorge on

      She ducked.

      Attempted scalping is still a capital offense which deserves damnation.

  26. posted by Tom Jefferson III on

    Again….

    It seems that some people are suggesting that it is perfectly OK, not to patronize an anti-gay business, as long no one else knows what you are doing.

    If you are vocal about your boycott, then you are trampling on someone’s rights. Although, these same people also seem to suggest that if you oppose gay rights — say by giving money to an anti-gay cause — it is OK if other people find out about it, because you should never have to face any social consequences and the fact that other people know about your anti-gay position, apparently, protects your rights more then, someone knowing about your objection to someone’s anti-gay position……

    Again, maybe I am misreading what some people here seem to be suggesting or advocating…..

    • posted by Jorge on

      While others suggest it’s okay to be against gay marriage, as long as no one ever finds out. The imperfect analogy is, “your right to swing your fist ends where my face begins.” Each side attempts to apply it toward the other, claiming they have been bloodied.

      It is okay to be against legal recognition of gay marriage. The consequence of that is political. For every dollar you give, money will be spent on the opposite cause. For your vote, the vote will go against you. You will lose politically. (I will not go into the religious position, as it is both irrelevant and mostly redundant.)

      While we have a winner take all political system, to apply the same rules to society is an abomination. There is no cause for there to be a social consequence to taking a mainstream political position. There is a time and place for everything. Practicing acceptance toward people with different political opinions is necessary for a stable and functioning society. One thing has nothing to do with another.

      • posted by Lori Heine on

        You’re basically using pious rhetoric to justify the notion that the free market should only work when it works in favor of social conservatives. This is also what the bloggers on this site are saying. You might as well drop the pretense and admit it.

        Not believing that the government should censor people isn’t good enough for you. We should be forced to patronize certain businesses. Or, at the very least, the reasons for our decision to patronize some but not others should not be expressed.

        “Free enterprise and freedom of expression for me, and not for thee…”

        • posted by Mike in Houston on

          Too right, Lori.

          Boycotts and calls for firing people who are LGBT or LGBT-equal rights supportive are righteous exercises of Christendom or conservatism – but anyone who LGBT tweets something negative or calls for a market response is a homofascist thug and bully (and if Stephen is writing, a statist authoritarian bent on Stalinist domination and crushing freedom from the Constitution).

        • posted by Jorge on

          You can do whatever you like. And so can I. I will stop you.

          You like that, huh? I just thought of it now.

          I admit to no pretense of endorsing free market morality as anything other than a rhetorical construction favored by small government fanatics.

          I am a strong believer in legislating morality, but in order to do that, we must first decide what morality is. That is what the culture war is about.

          Why do you believe that a winner take all system is the right way to make sociocultural decisions? I believe it is the wrong way because in an increasingly diverse world it threatens this country’s ability to allow people with social and political differences to co-exist peacably. I believe that the United States has over the past few decades since the Civil Right Movement been a model for how to make decisions on very divisive issues without balkanization or violence.

          • posted by Lori Heine on

            “You like that, huh? I just thought of it now.”

            Jorge, bless your heart, I wouldn’t brag about that if I were you.

            You say you believe in legislating morality. If that’s true, then you’re a very dangerous person. I hope you never get your hands on any real power.

            Just who is this “we” who must decide what morality is? Unless you’re speaking of angels descended from Heaven, I assume you mean certain specially-appointed human beings. More very special people who know better. God help us.

            I often suspect you’re not totally sure what you mean, and that you’re simply free-associating. Perhaps hoping you’ll make more sense to us than you do to yourself. I can’t speak for anybody else who comments here, but it isn’t working for me.

          • posted by Tom Scharbach on

            I am a strong believer in legislating morality, but in order to do that, we must first decide what morality is.

            Changing laws to require moralistic Christians to practice what they preach would empty the churches faster than Satan with forty times forty pitchforks.

          • posted by Jorge on

            You say you believe in legislating morality. If that’s true, then you’re a very dangerous person.

            Don’t worry, the sentiment is mutual. What is that expression? Something like evil triumphs when good people do nothing?

  27. posted by Lori Heine on

    Perhaps this wonderful new, godly America — that infallibly determines morality for the world (something no pope has ever been able to do) — and enforces it on everybody — will do a few really wonderful things.

    For starters, perhaps it will stop murdering innocent civilians in the Middle East just so we can control the world’s oil. Thereby no longer bankrupting the U.S. economy just to fill billionaires’ pockets. Thereby ending the necessity for married heterosexual families to survive financially by rigging the tax code to steal from every other citizen.

    The number of things that happen because no one does seem to be able to figure out what morality ought to be is truly staggering. We would indeed all benefit from the wonderfulfulness of right morality.

    • posted by Lori Heine on

      I suspect that Tom is right. If the conservative evangelical churches ever stopped telling the murderers and thieves who attend them what Christian morality really is, the pews would empty out faster than a whorehouse during a raid.

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