Nearly 65K Demand Mozilla CEO Come Out for Marriage Equality

Although Mozilla's newly appointed CEO promised the company's inclusive policies and benefits are here to stay, some LGBT activists are demanding that Brendan Eich formally renounce his past support for Proposition 8 and explicitly state his support for marriage equality.

When Eich, a cofounder of Mozilla and the inventor of JavaScript, was named CEO of Mozilla earlier this month, some LGBT coders and allies took issue with his $1,000 donation in 2008 to the campaign to pass Prop. 8, and they called for a boycott of Mozilla products, including its popular Web browser, Firefox.

Responding to the growing chorus of criticism, both Mozilla and Eich issued statements guaranteeing that the company's inclusive policies -- including trans-inclusive health insurance and domestic-partner benefits -- would remain in place under Eich's tenure. Mozilla issued a separate, more explicit statement Saturday, expressing the company's full support for marriage equality.

"Mozilla's mission is to make the Web more open so that humanity is stronger, more inclusive and more just," reads a statement issued Saturday on the official Mozilla blog. "This is why Mozilla supports equality for all, including marriage equality for LGBT couples. No matter who you are or who you love, everyone deserves the same rights and to be treated equally."

But such an explicit endorsement was absent from Eich's comments, leaving many to wonder whether the new CEO still holds the same opposition to marriage equality that his 2008 donation indicated.

That's why nearly 70,000 people have signed onto a petition demanding that Eich clarify his position on marriage equality -- and if he refuses or still opposes the freedom to marry, that Eich be removed from the tech company's top spot.

"It's not enough for Eich to pledge that he will enforce Mozilla's strong internal policies that ensure all employees are treated equal when he continues to refuse to renounce his advocacy for legislating hateful discrimination against gays and lesbians with constitutional amendments such as Proposition 8," reads the petition at CredoAction. "The people at Mozilla and their massive community of users deserve better than a leader that advocates for inequality and hate. CEO Brendan Eich should make an unequivocal statement of support for marriage equality. If he cannot, he should resign. And if he will not, the board should fire him immediately."