I would not vote for Brendan if he were running for president. However I fully support him as CEO of Mozilla.

Why the difference? Simply because as Mozilla's CEO, his personal views on LGBT (at least what one can infer from monetary support to Prop 8) do not have any measurable chance of making any difference in what Mozilla does or Mozilla's mission. It's not like we're going to ship Firefox OS phones to everybody... except LGBT individuals. There's a zero chance of that happening.

From what I've read so far (and I would love to be corrected) it seems like people who are asking Brendan to step down are doing so as a matter of principle rather than a matter of possible consequence. They feel very strongly about LGBT equality, and rightly so. And therefore they do not want to see any person who is at all opposed to that cause take any position of power, as a general principle. This totally makes sense, and given two CEO candidates who are identical except for their views on LGBT issues, I too would pick the pro-LGBT one.

But that's not the situation we have. I don't know who the other CEO candidates are or were, but I can say with confidence that there's nobody else in the world who can match Brendan in some areas that are very relevant to Mozilla's mission. I don't know exactly what qualities we need in a CEO right now but I'm pretty sure that dedication and commitment to Mozilla's mission, as well as technical expertise, are going to be pretty high on that list. That's why I support Brendan as CEO despite his views.

If you're reading this, you are probably a strong supporter of Mozilla's mission. If you don't want Brendan as CEO because of his views, it's because you are being forced into making a tough choice - you have to choose between the "open web" affiliation on your personal identity and the "LGBT" affiliation on your personal identity. That's a hard choice for anybody, and I don't think anybody can fault you regardless of what you choose.

If you choose to go further and boycott Mozilla and Mozilla's products because of the CEO's views, you have a right to do that too. However I would like to understand how you think this will help with either the open web or LGBT rights. I believe that switching from Firefox to Chrome will not change Brendan or anybody else's views on LGBT rights, and will actively harm the open web. The only winner there is Google's revenue stream. If you disagree with this I would love to know why. You may wish to boycott Mozilla products as a matter of principle, and I can't argue with that. But please make sure that the benefit you gain from doing so outweighs the cost.

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