That is very commonly a shibboleth for "asked to leave" in executive level jobs.
 

Now you are equivocating. Mozilla taking action against him because of his donation is potentially a violation of California's labor laws. It is quite possibly illegal. It certainly would violate the letter of the law.

Private citizens boycotting Mozilla because they refuse to violate California labor laws is not an illegal act in itself the same as boycotting McDonalds because they will not fire all their Hispanic employees is legal.

And your position is a position of equivocation, not ethics or morality. If I were to believe it was my moral duty to oppose same sex marriage and homosexual behavior (because of my religious beliefs), then by your position, I should attempt to shame every practicing homosexual I ever see, maybe call gay people at work and attempt to preach the "good word", and whatnot.

My position is a little different. It respects that people have a right to their beliefs and that a response to bad morals or ethics should be PROPORTIONAL. If someone speaks out against same sex marriage, speak in favor of it. If someone makes a political donation against it, make a political donation for it. Trying to ruin someone's professional life because of a $1000 donation they made to a cause you disagree with is completely out of proportion with their behavior.

That is a non sequitur. It was never an issue of rights. It was an issue of responsibilities and ethics.

If I see a baby abandoned in a dumpster, I have a right to just keep on walking. If I see someone leave their wallet on a bench or an ATM card in a machine, I have a right to say nothing. If I see a stranger walking down the street, I have a right to accost them and start using all sorts of ethnic, racial, or sexist slurs.

The discussion was never about what people have the right to do. It was about their responsibilities as ethical people.

You cannot "boycott" behavior, and these activists certainly are not.

What they are doing is trying to get him fired.

Do you think it would be ethical for thousands of Christians to get together and try to get a same sex marriage proponent fired for his "immoral" behavior?

If I had made a donation to oppose Proposition 8 and thousands of Christians were calling up my boss every few minutes and trying to enter my workplace every day to tell my employers what an "immoral" person I was, I would be quite upset at their behavior, and rightfully so.

Trying to make your opinion become law is what is known as. . . democracy.

The way to oppose bad speech is with good speech.

I am saying that by firing him based on legal activities that occurred outside the workplace (in this case, making a small donation to proposition 8), they would be violating the letter of the California Labor Code and he could sue for tens of millions of dollars of damages.

As for how the lawsuit would actually turn out, that would be up to the courts. No doubt, it would be a long and costly battle. However, what is clear is that forcing him to resign would be a clear violation of the text of California's Labor Codes, since his donation occurred outside the workplace, outside of work hours, and was legal.

The protestors are essentially asking the board of directors to violate California Labor Law.

Under California law, the board quite possibly has no legal right to use his support of proposition 8 in any decision to hire or fire him.

But the protestors do not believe that he should have been appointed CEO and they do not believe he should remain CEO due to legal actions outside of work in his private life. Essentially, the protestors are claiming that the board should have violated California labor law by refusing to appoint him CEO because of his private donation and they are claiming that the board should fire him because of his private donation.

It would be akin to a group of protestors asking a CEO to be fired because he was black or Jewish. Being black or Jewish is protected by California labor laws and employers are not allowed to use someone's ethnicity or race to determine whether they are hired, fired, or disciplined. Similarly, California employers are not allowed to use someone's legal private activities.

Let's say I walk up to you with a gun in my hand and say, "I think you should give me your watch, your phone, and all of your money." You might decide it was in your own best interest to comply. It would be a "voluntary" action. I did not directly threaten you or fire at you.

But it would still be an act of intimidation, and in this case, an unethical act and almost certainly an illegal one.

To say that him stepping down would be "voluntary" would be a prevarication. He would be stepping down due to threats of economic and reputation damage to his company.

So, if a Christian found the blog post of a anti Proposition 8 activist and got 1000 of his friends to bombard his place of work for a month with dozens of calls to his boss per hour and daily attempts to gain access to the premises to explain to the poor blogger's boss that his employee was a person of "immoral" character and behavior, that would not constitute harassment?

In the legal sense, perhaps not, just like legally Fred Phelps and his ilk were entitled to harass soldier's families at funerals. But in the larger sense, yes it would be harassing, and no it would not be ethical behavior.

I strongly suspect that someone who would publicly acknowledge themselves as a KKK leader is likely to be a bigot to the core, someone who would be ultimately incapable of obtaining or maintaining such a position. The CEO is still answerable to EEO law, not just the board of directors. All it would take is one major lawsuit . . .

If someone really could be a Grand Wizard Dragon, take his robes off, and come to work and treat all his subordinates with respect and dignity, then it does not bother me. I am sure many of my coworkers do all kinds of things that churn my stomach between 1700 and 0900. But realistically, we would not talking about some guy who donated a few dollars to oppose same sex marriage, immigration reform, or affirmative action. We would be talking about someone who has become a major public leader in a hate group. I just do not realistically see him getting anywhere near the CEO level or being able to maintain the position if he was there.

You are making a false dichotomy logical fallacy. Tolerance and Justice are not mutually exclusive concepts

Treating people as equals under the law is an issue of justice.

Not persecuting people for exercising their right under the law to engage in same sex marriage is an issue of tolerance.

Supporting the legality of same sex marriages is an issue of acceptance.

The issue of whether employers can discriminate against someone because of their race, religion, ethnicity, et cetera, is an issue of justice that was decided by the Civil Rights Act.

The government can and does force employers to mandate their employees tolerate the rights of people with different religious beliefs (including the belief that same sex marriage is wrong), ethnicities, genders, and in some States, gender identity and sexual orientation. In some cases, there are no doubt racists at work who do not accept the idea that people of different races or religions should be working alongside them. That is their right, and so long as a KKK member who believes blacks are 3/5ths of a person is tolerating the rights of his black coworkers and not harassing them, he is entitled to his private beliefs. In States like California, those private beliefs are protected by law.

And therein lies the problem with this sort of harassment. You are going beyond mandating that an employee tolerate the rights of his subordinates to be black, gay, Jewish, et cetera and mandating that he accept, in his personal life, your personal beliefs. In California, it would potentially be illegal for an employer to refuse to promote an employee because they donated $1000 to the KKK, the New Black Panthers, or any other lawful group advocating for a cause. These activists are essentially trying to force Mozilla to violate California labor laws, the same labor laws which protect their own right to not be fired for their personal activism.

The difference between what McCarthy did and what these activists amounts to nothing more than the degree of power they had at their disposal. In both cases, they tried to ruin people's ability to work within an industry because they held beliefs that were in opposition to their own. In both cases, their attempt at persecution was lawful. The only significant difference is that one group is using the power of their position as CEO of a corporation to threaten people's livelihoods while the other used their position as a US Senator to threaten people's livelihoods.

Yes, speech has consequences, and as a consequence of this, Fox News will probably be generating a lot of outrage and donations to causes opposing same sex marriage.

Yes, it would be wrong, because he is entitled to his opinion, and trying to encourage an employer to violate California labor law (which prohibits disciplining employees for their legal activities outside of work) is unethical.

There are two good ways to deal with bigotry. The first, and sometimes the best, is simply to ignore it. The most extreme bigots tend to comprise such a small percentage of the population that their bigotry amounts to little more than a cry for attention. The world would have been a much better place if everyone ignored Fred Phelps.

Fifty years ago, the KKK was a powerful terrorist organization to be feared, taken seriously, and opposed. Today it is a joke. If the KKK wants to march somewhere, the best way people could respond is to simply go about their business as if they were insignificant flotsam from a destroyed empire, which they are.

When people pushing bigotry have real power, they cannot be ignored. However, bad ideas should be fought with good ideas, not with trying to ruin someone's ability to feed their family, not by harassing them at work. Proposition 8 was a bad idea. There are ethical ways to fight it, such as going through the normal political process: educate voters, challenge it in the courts, argue in public forums how the law constitutes a violation of people's civil rights. Harassing someone at their workplace is not ethical and it ultimately does nothing but debase your own cause.

People are not going to be convinced to accept same-sex marriage by being threatened with harassment. Acceptance is something that flows naturally out of tolerance, not out of the barrel of a gun or neo-McCarthyism, where you try to blackball someone from their industry. All that does is breed resentment and intolerance.

California is a State that recognizes that people have a legal right to participate in lawful activities outside of work without consequence to their job. I voted against Proposition 8 and I am disappointed in everyone who supported it, but people have a right to their private lives and their religious freedom.

If the company, Mozilla, were discriminating in any way against employees or customers because of their sexual orientation, then taking them to task would be appropriate and ethical. However, hounding a private citizen at work is not ethical. Imagine if someone read the blog post of a pro same-sex marriage activist and got 1000 of their Christian friends to bombard the activist's place of employment with thousands of phone calls and dozens of angry citizens trying to gain access to the premises and talk to the employer about their employee's "immoral" behavior.

It is not McCarthyism, but it is the same sort of attitude, ruin the professional lives of all your perceived political opponents. While only a tiny sliver of proposition 8 opponents engaged in this sort of behavior, it does nothing but a disservice to their cause. When conservative Christians talk about being persecuted by homosexuals for their beliefs, most people rightfully laugh in their face, but actions like this do lead an iota of credibility to their claims, and we all know that anecdotes of someone claiming to have been forced to quit their job because of harassment from "homosexual activists" speak a lot more convincingly to many people than the millions of proposition 8 supporters who were not harassed.

The bottom line is understanding the difference between tolerance and acceptance. I tolerate a lot of bad behavior and stupid ideas because I am a tolerant person. When you go to work or school, you are required by law (at least here in California) to tolerate the beliefs of your coworkers, those who believe that same-sex couples should wed and those who are religiously opposed to the idea. You do not have to accept their beliefs, just tolerate them and their rights to them.

Acceptance of same-sex marriages is something that should flow naturally out of tolerance, not something that activists should try to force on people. As it becomes legal in more States and acquires more popular support, those who do not accept it will tend to die off or change their mind. You are never going to get 100% acceptance and harassing people in their workplace for what they believe in their personal life is not doing the same sex marriage cause any justice or service.

Actually, I think there were a lot of adequate episodes in the first season. Overall, the average episode might even be better than the second season. But, there were no positive outliers like "The Measure of a Man" in the first season.