It was a really weird and messy situation, and unpleasant to live through.
I agree that Brendan's Prop 8 donation was bad. But he did it privately, and never (AFAIK) made anti-LGBT comments in public. People who had worked with him for many years were surprised to find he had these views. It was only found out because of political donation public disclosure laws.
Some Mozilla employees publicly criticized Brendan for the Prop 8 donation, but some defended him, because of the aforementioned privateness of it. A number of the defenses came from LGBT employees.
The pile-on at the time was intense. It lasted more than a week. It reached the front page of my local paper. Crazy stuff.
Brendan chose to stand down as CEO and also quit Mozilla. He wasn't fired, and Mozilla leadership asked him to stay.
All this nuance was lost. Lots of left-leaning people concluded that Mozilla had knowingly promoted a proudly anti-LGBT guy to CEO. Lots of right-leaning people concluded that Mozilla had fired their CEO for his political views. Both conclusions were greatly over-simplified. Almost everyone found a reason to hate Mozilla. Bad times!
I agree that Brendan's Prop 8 donation was bad. But he did it privately, and never (AFAIK) made anti-LGBT comments in public. People who had worked with him for many years were surprised to find he had these views. It was only found out because of political donation public disclosure laws.
Some Mozilla employees publicly criticized Brendan for the Prop 8 donation, but some defended him, because of the aforementioned privateness of it. A number of the defenses came from LGBT employees.
The pile-on at the time was intense. It lasted more than a week. It reached the front page of my local paper. Crazy stuff.
Brendan chose to stand down as CEO and also quit Mozilla. He wasn't fired, and Mozilla leadership asked him to stay.
All this nuance was lost. Lots of left-leaning people concluded that Mozilla had knowingly promoted a proudly anti-LGBT guy to CEO. Lots of right-leaning people concluded that Mozilla had fired their CEO for his political views. Both conclusions were greatly over-simplified. Almost everyone found a reason to hate Mozilla. Bad times!