Eich wasn't fired/resigned/whatever because he expressed a political opinion He resigned because the reaction both inside and outside of Mozilla to that action was having serious, negative repercussions for the organization. If Steve Jobs had showed up at One Infinite Loop in full Nazi regalia one day, one might also argue that he was just expressing his political opinion. The fact that half the business world suddenly stopped buying Macintoshes in protest is key here. Would the CEO's right to express his admiration of Nazis (or at least Nazi fashion) be more important than the fact that he was tanking the company? Should the Board simply sit back and watch the entire company die because they don't want to "break the law"? This is quite idiotic. I'll speculate that if Eich had expressed regret or a change of heart, the whole thing would be done by now and he'd be working. But he chose not to, and this has led a lot of people (including three board members) to signal their great displeasure. For those looking to blame the "gay lobby," I would suggest they think this through more carefully. Gay people don't want to be treated badly, so when they see someone in a prominent position acting like that's ok, they react sharply. If Mr Eich had given money to an anti-Hispanic organization and people protested, would they want to say, "Oh, that's just appeasing the Latino Lobby"?