Do you want to live in a world where people are not allowed opinions?

Question

Do you remember when Americans were free to have an opinion, and we would accept those with different opinions than our own? I'm in my mid-20s, but I remember that time. It seems to be gone now.
You have forced your CEO to "resign" from his position because of a witch hunt that was launched against him because of a donation he made 6 years ago. Really?
Is this really the kind of world you want to live in? Where everyone needs to think exactly the same, and anyone on the other side of the fence is labeled a bigot and gets fired from their job? In this case, Brendan Eich didn't even do anything or say anything stupid. He was just hired onto a position and the militant left jumped on it because of a donation he made in 2008. A time, I'm sure you realize, when people were much less accepting of the gay lifestyle than they are today. The big lunges that they have made come in the past couple years with people like George Takei winning over their acceptance.
My views on gay marriage and other related issues are not the problem here, and therefore I will not get into them. The problem is that a man who reached the top of your company was kicked off because of an opinion he held 6 years ago when it was not even controversial. If he were making the contributions today instead it would hold more merit, but it still should not dictate his job performance. As long as he's not going around holding a "God hates fags" sign, his political views do not have anything to do with his job performance and it does not affect your company.
However, that takes us into the real underlying problem here: you were attacked by these groups like GLAAD who make you fear for your own business because of your association with this man, and you gave in. You aren't the first company to do it, and you surely won't be the last. Yet, are you satisfied in doing this? By giving in to a group of people who attacked you because of who you hired, you have bowed to a bully. You were bullied into this decision and now you are reeling in hoping it doesn't hurt you too bad. Will the people who jumped on you suddenly become customers again? Will this decision alienate other customers?
America became the greatest country in the world because it was built by people who believed in themselves. I won't even get into anything political here. It was just about hard work, believing you can achieve things, and not letting anyone tell you otherwise. It was the belief that we could build a country where anyone could become anything if they put their mind to it and they didn't let anyone bully them into thinking otherwise. It was that determination that led us to invent the lightbulb, the automobile, and the airplane. It was that kind of ingenuity that allowed us to take charge of the internet and for companies like Mozilla to innovate the web as much as it has in 10 short years.
Tell me, how do you think any of that will be able to happen if everyone is watching their backs? How will we make more progress if people are afraid to say an opinion just in case they might be bullied because of it and lose their jobs?

Answer 1

I've closed this thread.
Discussion about Brendan Eich, who recently resigned as Mozilla CEO, is off-topic for the Mozilla support forum. See [[Forum rules and guidelines]]:
* Posts in the Mozilla support forum must be either questions about the use of Firefox, Firefox for Android, Firefox OS, Thunderbird, Webmaker or answers to those questions. Users who post about things other than Mozilla support will be directed to an alternative discussion place (ex: mozillaZine) if appropriate.
The [https://www.mozilla.org/about/forums/#governance mozilla.governance] forum would be a better place for any further discussion about this topic. The Google Groups link is https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/mozilla.governance