NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Monday, April 7, 2014, 4:05 AM
Man donates to political cause. Cause wins majority support in the most populous state in the union. Six years later, man is hounded out of his job.
That’s what happened to Brendan Eich after he was named CEO of Mozilla, the maker of the Firefox Internet browser.
Eich’s qualifications were beyond dispute. He co-founded Mozilla and served as chief technology officer; he is also the brains behind the JavaScript programming language.
But soon after he got the job on March 24, word spread that Eich had donated $ 1,000 to a campaign supporting Prop. 8, the 2008 California referendum defining marriage as between a man and a woman.
At the time, Bill Clinton — who had signed a similar federal law as President in 1996 — shared that opinion. So did Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. So did the Californians who passed the initiative.
Never mind. A group of Mozilla staffers were revolted that a heretic was in their midst. The dating site OKCupid asked users to shun Mozilla. Despite promising to uphold gay rights in the workplace, Eich was forced to resign.
Attitudes about same-sex unions have rapidly shifted. Increasingly, Americans have adjusted their views about the makeup of society’s fundamental unit, the family. The principled arguments of gay-marriage supporters and the visibility of couples have largely driven the change.
Many who base opposition in religious belief remain to be persuaded. Attempting to bludgeon them into submission can only be counterproductive. A vindictive campaign that makes pariahs of those who disagree distorts the First Amendment into a weapon of intolerance.
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