In most cases it would dependent on the circumstances and whether the donation could be seen as compromising the figurehead's ability to lead. For example, the CEO of Chik-Fil-A will, most likely, be perfectly able to contribute to campaign against pornography, against religious freedom for non-Christians and against abortion without compromising his ability to lead, however, social conservatives would likely force him out for taking a stand on the opposite side of those issues (if they could, of course, I'm not sure how much ownership the CEO has). In this case, Eich donated money to a campaign whose sole purpose was to strip some people (including a number of the people working for him) of their rights, and it temporarily succeeded. That has to create some bad blood between him and the affected employees and that type of antagonism is not something to be taken lightly. Having done so and then having refused to recant his position, Eich had compromised his ability to lead and either they were going to go or he was going to go.

As I said, if he had been able to apologise and admit he had done something wrong, he likely would have been able to maintain the position, but if you can't publicly acknowledge that treating some of your co-workers as people deserving of fewer rights than yourself was a mistake, you aren't going to be able to lead them.

It wasn't just his political activism from 5 years ago that was the problem. If he had disavowed that behaviour, apologized to his employees and make an act on contrition (such as donating a significant amount of money to a pro-gay marriage organization or campaign) they could have buried the hatchet. However, apparently he still does not believe that his gay employees should be fully equal to the heterosexual ones. Effectively, he chose to step down rather than admit he was wrong.

You have it backwards, it's a religious ceremony around the secular activity of signing your marriage certificate. The religious ceremony has no legal standing if you don't sign the government's paper. Next you'll be telling us that only proper Christians should be allowed be married and that athiests, agnostics and those who worship the wrong god should also be excluded from marraige.

This is very simple, the amendment conflicted with a part of the constitution that wasn't amended, thus the amendment was determined to be improper and tossed out. It's actually the job of the courts to do that type of thing, though it would happen less often if politicans wrote fewer stupid laws.

Actually, I thought he was referring to the right-wingers who use the threat of a liberal bogeymen bringing back the "fairness doctrine" to cudgel you into voting for them.

As CTO he was in charge of making technology decisions, as CEO he's in charge of making decisions that affect the gay employees he considers to be less worthy than himself.

See the difference?

I thought that was why we allowed them to wear the shirts in the first place without kicking up a huge fuss... It's a convenient self-applied warning label.

Actually, he donated money to a campaign to strip some of his employees of the rights they had been granted by the state of California. That campaign temporarily succeed, those employees have a really good reason to oppose him. Additionally, he was put in a position where his personal views would likely be material to his performance of the office because he would be making the decision on whether his gay and lesbian employees would be treated the same as his straight employees and he is on record as opposing that equality. He has claimed he would not act on that belief in his position, instead of renouncing the view entirely so many people are (rightfully) skeptical that he would keep his personal prejudices separate from his professional decisions.

It is important to note that we did not hear any complaints about his prejudice until he was put in a position where his prejudice could materially affect the lives of his fellow Mozilla empoyees. It seems like many of the Mozilla employees were concerned not that he was a bigot but that we has a bigot who was put in a position to act on his bigotry (by design or by inconsideration).

Morally right? No, but that's because Eich's bigotry is morally wrong and the claim that OKCupid is anti-free speech would be a lie. He does, however, have the right to make such statements.

I keep seeing people say that the government should get out of the marriage business, but it seems like Religions should get out of the marriage business. Religions should be in the ceremony business, not the marriage business. Which is good because that's how things generally are. Too many people don't seem to understand that the religious ceremony is intended to make the signing of a piece of paper in front of two witnesses feel special. However, the marriage licence is provided by the state and is the same no matter what religion (if any) you subscribe to. That's not a bad thing, but too many people are making the mistake of confusing the ceremony with the actual marriage. For simplicity's sake being married in front of god conveys no legal status at all until you sign the government provided piece of paper.

The reason the government is involved and should remain so, is because there are significant and important legal implications to marriage. Beyond tax implications, there are legal issues such as inheretance (particularly important if the home is not in name of both partners), end-of-life care, hospital visitations, prison access, health benefit access, and the list goes on and on. Adn that's before we get to any provisions that are supposed to provide assitance to those raising children.

Actually, people who are unmarried and living together may be treated the same as someone who is married and living together (it's called common-law), though I doubt you could claim a common law status with your brother or sister, but that's because you are assumed to not be in stable long term exclusive relationship.

In which case the board made a decision that his views were counter-productive to the organization and they did what they had to. I'd prefer to think that he had the wisdom to see that his political history was damaging to the foundation, that he was foolish enough to require the board to force him out. Of course, there were other options he could have engaged in, he could have apologized, recanted his views and made a gesture of reconciliation (like publicly donating money to a pro-gay-marriage campaign). However, while I haven't been following the story too closely, it appears he tried to take the "I won't let my prejudices influence how I deal with my should-be-less-than-equal underlings" approach, which he couldn't pull off.

I am always amused at the self-righteousness of those who believe the tolerant should tolerate their intolerance.

They're almost amusing as those who believe that their free speech rights should be used to stiffle the criticism of others.

No apparent reason? Are you daft? Your primary evidence that blacklisting is happening is a handful of people complaining that it is not.

It seems you have some sort of problem with actually reading and understanding what other people write.

First some real actual evidence of what you claim to be true, would be nice. Posting a let me Google that for you which doesn't even point to what you claim is simply foolish.

If this is the quality of the "evidence" that you normally present, it's no wonder you are routinely dismissed.

Here's a hint: you're wating my time, kid. Come back when you have something definitive.

How about some actual evidence of a systematic blacklisting process? Leaks that show the censorship is going on, perhaps? Like the one from Fox News that says doubt must always be cast on climate change?

How about a credible list of people who have blacklisted from the media, science conferences, and journals? I'm only aware of the rules actually being bent or broken to publish matierial critical of climate change and no actual verified instances where the reverse happened. Every time I've seen that claim leveled by "climate skeptics" after a little digging it seems to turn out that either a) nothing was ever submitted in the first place apparently because the submitter determined it wouldn't be accepted anyway and decided not to submit at all (thus a self-fulfilling prophecy) or b) it was rejected because it failed peer review because of significant methodological errors and the author refused to make revisions.

Additionally, if there are scientific papers or authors who are being blacklisted, you'd think it would be easy enough to gather and post the papers online for all to see. We have this thing called the internet where anyone can host their own web site. However, we never see the blacklisted papers merely the claim from the advocats for the supposedly oppressed claiming that it's happening and it's big.

You cannot have a rational discussion on this topic without any actual evidence. What evidence could you produce?

You wrote:

The evidence is Apple CEO Tim Cook telling a libertarian to pull his head out his ass? Or Neil Degrasse Tyson saying anti-science loons shouldn't be given equal weight with scientists? Or are the comments of an unnamed CNN correspondent evidence of this conspiracy to shut out climate change deniers? Maybe it's the letter to the editor? Is Elizabeth Black from Boulder, Colerado the secret illumanity leader who's perpetuating this pro-climate change blackball campaign?

Right back at you.

I'm glad we agree on something.

You should read Tuff Voyaging by George R. R. Martin. It's a collection of short stories, but if I remember correctly, one of the stories does feature a planet with something like 200 billion people on it.