Mozilla Mounts Major Social Media Defense: CEO Brendan Eich Wasn’t Fired, He Quit

Mozilla, the embattled maker of the Firefox browser, has been under increasing attack since they promoted Brendan Eich, their cofounder, to become the CEO.

Without rehashing every step along the way, yesterday afternoon Eich resigned as CEO, after LGBT equality supporters and opponents both took issue with Eich’s positions, and Mozilla’s.

Of course, many are stating Eich didn’t resign as CEO, he was fired.

For their part, Mozilla handled this incredibly poorly from the very start. And now they’re forced to mount a social media defense on Facebook and Twitter to correct the record and stress that Eich quit on his own, he wasn’t fired.

Take a look at the image at the top. Mozilla had to respond to First Things, a conservative, anti-gay, religious website. How right-wing religiously extreme are they? Yesterday they published an op-ed by the co-founder of the National Organization For Marriage, Robert P. George, on Brendan Eich and Mozilla.

It begins:

Mozilla has now made its employment policy clear.

No Catholics need apply.

Or Evangelical Christians.

Or Eastern Orthodox.

Or Orthodox Jews.

Or Mormons.

Or Muslims.

Unless, that is, you are the “right kind” of Catholic, Evangelical, Eastern Orthodox Christian, observant Jew, Mormon, or Muslim, namely, the kind who believes your religious or philosophical tradition is wrong about the nature of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife, and the view now dominant among secular elites is correct. In that case, Mozilla will consider you morally worthy to work for them. Or maybe you can work for them even if you do happen to believe (or should I say “believe”) your faith’s teaching—so long as you keep your mouth shut about it: “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

If you look at most of the people Mozilla and Firefox are responding to, it’s conservatives angry that Eich was “fired” and that Mozilla “caved” — of course, both are false.

By the way, if you want to thank Mozilla for staying true to equality by making pro-equality statements and acknowledging Eich’s promotion was a bad idea that hurt a lot of people, tell them on their feedback site, or on Twitter or Facebook.

Look: