
Three Mozilla Board Members Resign over Choice of New CEO - tweakz
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/03/28/three-mozilla-board-members-resign-over-choice-of-new-ceo/
======
jwise0
This seems unusual. Isn't the board responsible for appointing the CEO, to
begin with? How can it be that half the board resigns after their own CEO
appointment?

Even if the appointment were simply a majority of the board, that in and of
itself raises bizarre questions. Why is a CEO appointed only on a 3-3 (or 4-2)
vote? Usually you would want unanimity in important things like this.

This certainly opens up a lot of questions.

~~~
petercooper
_the people familiar with the situation said. They did not want to be
identified because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the
matter._

I'm going to be simultaneously cynical and optimistic here, but the story so
far appears to be based on anonymous hearsay. Eich's appointment could perhaps
be a smaller part of a big shakeup at Mozilla, board and all, that isn't
predicated entirely on Eich.

Alternatively, and perhaps most realistically, the board members who voted for
Eich may not have considered it a problem until they saw the backlash, both
internally and externally. Both people and organizations alike can backtrack
and develop new ideals based upon the reactions to their actions.

While we're doing hearsay though, I've heard no new CTO is on the cards which
strikes me as odd.

Edit: I don't know how legit this is, but I just saw this on Twitter:
[https://twitter.com/TruthTellerMoz1/status/44967336620801228...](https://twitter.com/TruthTellerMoz1/status/449673366208012288)

~~~
voidlogic
The bylaws say the board can remove officers, if they were having buyers
regret, why not go that route?

~~~
petercooper
Then the question is, is it more harmful to Mozilla to do that versus crossing
fingers and hoping the issue blows over? It did last time, and it could do so
again with a couple of weeks of radio silence. (Not that I'm suggesting it
_should_ , but tech controversies have a way of running their course quickly.)

------
sinak
Hmm, something's amiss. Archive.org's record of Mozilla's website says that
Mozilla Corp only ever had 5 board members. The WSJ seems to imply they had 6.
Assuming Moz's own website is accurate, Katharina Borchert only joined around
the time Eich was appointed.

Either way, the numbers don't quite add up. If there were only 5 board
members, and only 2 of them wanted Eich, how did he get chosen? And even if
Katherina was already on the board, that's still 3 vs 3.

Mozilla is an incredible force for good. Hope they get through this quickly
and get back making the web better.

Archive.org:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20140322233528/http://www.mozill...](https://web.archive.org/web/20140322233528/http://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/foundation/moco/)

Present: [https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/foundation/moco/](https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/moco/)

~~~
redler
I don't know anything about Mozilla's structure, but in some corporations it's
possible for a single board seat to have more than one vote (e.g., for board
seats appointed by a holder of "Class F" (founder) or "original shares" versus
other classes of stock).

Edit: clarity.

~~~
ics
The last major example we saw around here was the systemd vote for Debian. One
member of the committee (bdale) was to have two votes in the event of a tie
(though it was not simply a yes/no vote). If an even number of board members
are presented with a scenario where a decision A or B must be made and _do
nothing_ is not an option, a tie-breaking vote is pretty important.

------
rdl
I agree that mobile is critical to remaining relevant (along with security),
two areas where Mozilla/Firefox have been pretty subpar. I don't think Eich
has specific security or mobile expertise, but he is quite technical, which is
a big improvement over a lot of potential CEOs, and I think a technical CEO is
likely to prioritize security and mobile.

(The whole "donate to prop 8" thing is a red herring; Mozilla needs someone
who is excellent at the things Mozilla most needs (hire for strength) vs. the
absence of any weaknesses (politically incorrect donations); it's possible
Eich doesn't have the right strengths.)

Is Mozilla not capable of attracting really top-tier people for senior
leadership due to lack of an equity upside, or culture, or something else? I
realize the pool is pretty small, but there are people with either mobile or
security leadership experience who would probably take the job.

~~~
fidotron
I think support for Rust and Servo shows there is recognition on the security
front, and also that attempting to brute force it through people power won't
work for them.

On mobile, I think there's a relative handful of candidates, and they're
either gainfully employed or burned out. I've been in the mobile world for a
decade and the people I know are jumping into "miscellaneous devices with a
cellular connection" at quite a rate. My contention is Mozilla are too
conservative, and can't accept the smartphone war is lost already. There are
related markets for which their system could work very well though, such as
e-readers.

------
dewitt
Off-topic, but that's a weird statement from the WSJ:

 _" Firefox is the world’s second-most-popular Web browser on personal
computers, with 18% market share, according to Net Applications, a web-
analytics consulting firm. That trails Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, with 58%
share, and just ahead of Google’s Chrome, with 17% share."_

Here's what I found at
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers):

    
    
                    Chrome  IE      Firefox Safari
      StatCounter	46.60%	24.64%	20.37%	5.06%
      W3Counter	34.1%	20.3%	18.3%	17.8%
      Wikimedia	42.69%	18.02%	15.28%	6.06%
    

Of all the places you could pull browser share numbers, I didn't think any
were still reporting IE with a usage lead anymore.

And the interesting browser growth today, of course, is all mobile. (So those
outgoing board members were right in several ways.)

~~~
arrrg
Net Applications is. It’s right there in the Wikipedia article you are linking
to. Net Applications measure unique visits and do country level weighing of
data. The article is also quoting Net Application’s desktop numbers. That
might explain the difference, at least partly.

Overall I would argue that the statement in the article, while accurate, can
be misleading. It should probably include mobile usage numbers (though the
sentence you quoted makes clear that they don’t – and on mobile phones Firefox
isn’t much of a player anyway) and maybe note that market share measurement of
browsers can be unreliable.

~~~
dewitt
Thanks, I didn't see that on the Wikipedia page.

Still, while I know it's not good to say "data" and "gut feel" in the same
sentence, I just have a _very_ hard time believing that IE usage is trending
upward while Chrome is trending down. It just doesn't add up.

~~~
HelloMcFly
If we're only talking desktop numbers, I could believe those trends. One could
make an argument that at this point in their market maturity, those users who
navigate away from IE are a more-or-less static population in terms of
proportion of desktop users, so Firefox and Chrome fight for similar users.
The growing market share of Windows 8, sluggish or not, could explain an
upward trend for IE.

Total suppositions with no data. Not an argument, just thinking aloud.

------
blisterpeanuts
This article links to an earlier WSJ piece that gives more information about
Eich's background ([http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/03/24/mozilla-picks-
insider...](http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/03/24/mozilla-picks-insider-eich-
as-new-ceo/)).

He invented Javascript in 1995, co-founded Mozilla, and helped start Firefox.
It seems to me he's very well qualified from a historical as well as technical
perspective.

Questions about his mobile expertise seem misplaced, considering that his
technical contributions helped pave the way for mobile web apps.

The article suggests that the unhappiness about Eich's appointment stems from
his support in 2008 for California's Proposition 8, which was an anti-gay
marriage law that passed but ultimately was overturned by the Supreme Court.

I don't wish to incite a flame war over this or start a debate over gay/same
sex marriage; I merely question why his views on this particular issue make
the man unfit for the job. Would it be better if he had contributed money to
_fight_ Prop 8? I find this kind of litmus test highly disturbing.

~~~
KuraFire
It's not really a litmus test.

Mozilla is an organization that prides itself on openness and equality, on
being inclusive as an organization and a culture. This is reflected in its
products, in many different ways—all of them good, generally speaking.

The CEO is the figurehead of a company or organization; they have to represent
the company, establish its culture, define its vision, and so forth and so
forth.

Having a CEO who has a history of donating to an anti-equality campaign, an
act that very strongly suggests having an unequal view of certain groups of
people (LGBTQ folks in this case), does not mesh with an organization that
prides itself on equality (among other things). They are pretty mutually
exclusive.

It was already a conflict with Eich as CTO, but at least in that position he
had no say over the company culture or its policies when it comes to _people_
, just technology. As CEO, all that changed.

Additionally, by making a donation to (what is essentially) a campaign of
hatred (and FUD), he took it WAY beyond a personal belief or view. Expressing
your views in public or making a donation that way is an act, not merely
"holding an opinion", and actions matter. His action in the form of the
donation harmed the lives of thousands of people, with no justifiable cause
for it.

Now, there's tons of people who hold such bigoted views and even express them
in the form of acts through public statements or donations, but _most_ of the
time we don't award those people with the CEO position of a major corporation.

(to clarify how this is not a litmus test: while it sure can be applied that
way, plenty of organizations have bigots as CEOs — see e.g. Chick-fil-A — but
what’s mainly happening here is that it is simply a matter of bad judgement
and people objecting to the appointment because he's unfit to lead an org like
Mozilla)

~~~
crassus
As a conservative-ish person in tech, I'm glad I made the decision to hide my
politics beginning a few years ago. You people are vicious. I'd love to have
an open debate or conversation, but that doesn't seem to be your game.

Our culture is in middle of making unprecedented changes to a core social
institution that goes back into prehistory. It's going to be a messy process
and some people are going to disagree. That's reasonable and shouldn't be
grounds for disbarment from polite society. Let's dial back the vitriol

Lastly, equality isn't an unmitigated good. We treat different people
differently depending on the circumstances, and for good reason. For example,
you probably don't believe that children should be able to marry, or more than
two people. "Equality" isn't a magic word that wins all arguments.

Personally, I raise an eyebrow when a six year old boy raised by adoptive
lesbians decides he is transexual, and I feel like society may be failing that
boy. But we are so drunk on the doctrine of equality that there is no stepping
on the brake...

~~~
rayiner
As a conservativeish person on HN, I have to say that pushing to deny a legal
arrangement to gay couples is different than being skeptical about their
impact on society.

Rant: Also, I'm irritated that this is the "conservative" position. Our
culture is doing away with the institution of marriage, and its to the
detriment of our children and our families. In the face of that, conservatives
should not be in the business of discouraging people who want to build
families.

~~~
xj9
I'm probably the furthest thing from conservative (Anarchist), but I
appreciate your view on families. I was raised in a very conservative
christian home and I really believe in the importance of family; it doesn't
really matter to me how a family is organised, but having one (in whatever
form) is a good and beautiful thing.

------
untog
The choice of Eich as a CEO also made me wonder - they took a year to find a
CEO, and ended up with their own CTO. Is it fair to assume that they searched
long and hard but couldn't find anyone? If so, that's a real shame. I want
Mozilla to succeed.

~~~
davidgerard
To be fair, Eich lives and breathes Mozilla and the mission, and is basically
the perfect choice for CEO ... except for his political actions being so toxic
to the brand that other nonprofits issue a _press release_ to say they're
boycotting Firefox over it: [http://gaynewsnetwork.com.au/news/victoria/vac-
gmhc-to-boyco...](http://gaynewsnetwork.com.au/news/victoria/vac-gmhc-to-
boycott-mozilla-13422.html)

~~~
snogglethorpe
Does a (relatively small) monetary donation really deserve to be called a
"toxic political action"...?

~~~
llamataboot
What about a relatively small donation to the KKK or a neo-Nazi party? The
issue isn't the size of the donation but taking a public stance in support of
bigotry.

~~~
mynameishere
[http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/25/politics/supreme-court-
preview...](http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/25/politics/supreme-court-preview-
obama/index.html)

 _President Barack Obama once believed marriage only was for one man and one
woman._

Was Obama once a supporter of the KKK? Do you people seriously not realize
that gay "marriage" has been concocted into a moral imperative only very
recently by the media? And that just a few years ago, not only was opposing it
not _bigotry_ , but being in support of it was completely loony tunes?

~~~
wpietri
Once everybody was in favor of slavery, too. That people now have it right
doesn't mean that the previous position was less wrong.

I agree that this change has been unusually swift compared with, say, the
shift on interracial marriage from "loony tunes" to unremarkable. But I think
that's mainly because there isn't a ton of gay/straight segregation, not like
racial segregation. Now that being in the closet isn't nearly as common, it's
hard for people to take an abstract anti-gay position without facing the fact
that it will hurt somebody's family member.

But the legitimate question for any Mozilla employee or partner is: will I
face discrimination from Mozilla's new CEO? Sure, Eich has promised to behave
at work, but he hasn't apologized, and hasn't done anything to demonstrate
that his opinions have changed.

Personally, Eich's weird avoidance of the topic makes me question his fitness
to lead a major non-profit. His handling of this in the media has been less
than adroit. CEO is a public-facing role, and so far he doesn't seem to be
very good at it.

~~~
bzbarsky
> will I face discrimination from Mozilla's new CEO?

That's a legitimate question, absolutely. The openly gay people who have been
working with him over the last several years at Mozilla seem to be saying they
haven't faced any discrimination from him in the process. And Mitchell, who
has worked with him very closely since 1997 or so, was very surprised when she
found out two years ago about the 2008 donation [1]. Which implies that he had
kept any thoughts he had on the matter out of his closest professional
interactions for those 15 or so years. Make of all that what you will.

[1] [https://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2014/03/26/building-a-
global...](https://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2014/03/26/building-a-global-
diverse-inclusive-mozilla-project-addressing-controversy/) next to last
paragraph.

------
zobzu
Err, I don't think their leave is related to Eich being CEO. I'm not sure even
knew about the "scandal" before they left.

~~~
midnightaz
Actually, the article implies that they resigned over picking an inside
candidate instead of an outside one, not over the gay marriage issue.

This would also explain why Mozilla seemed so unprepared for the criticism on
Prop8: they'd just fought a huge battle over whether the CEO should be from
inside or outside Mozilla, and that was probably all they focused on if it was
so big that half the board resigned.

~~~
zobzu
I think you may be right. :)

------
tungwaiyip
I am disappointed about Eich's support of prop 8 and disagree with his view.
But what is truly appalling is his critics pushing for ousting him base on his
view. Isn't people allowed to have different value? This is not even a fringe
idea. Majority of votes has voted for prop 8. What is the moral to deny people
the job base on their political believe? What sort of world are you really
suggesting? Add a background check to bar 52% of voters who has support prop 8
from employment? This is far more chilling than prop 8 itself.

People need to speak up and stop this insanity about ousting Eich. This
include the LGBT community and their supporters. Yesterday their were fighting
for inclusiveness and accepting people with different values. They need to
walk the talk themselves, even if it means to tolerate people whose value they
disagree with.

------
grannyg00se
I see that Eich put up a small amount of money to support a bill against gay
marriage. This says nothing about the way he treats people, or how he might
serve as CEO. Is there something more, or is it really all about his political
ideals?

~~~
jbeja
Just the state that he doesn't believe in equality is enough for me.

~~~
foolinaround
>he doesn't believe in equality

what you mean is "he does'nt believe in the definition of equality as you
believe it to be".

I believe that he should be penalized if he has demonstrated any hatred
towards people in the workplace. I believe that a man is free to exercise his
right to free speech in his private life, and this is what I deem it to be.

There is a reasonable fear that the gay employees may find themselves cornered
under his leadership, and this was addressed in his letter and in the steps
Mozilla took to assuage those fears.

Anything after this is a witch hunt, and folks taking up the pitchforks are
the ones who have been affected the most. Its sad, but happens all the time.

~~~
icebraining
Would you really extend this to any opinion one might have? Suppose a large
percentage of women in your state thought men were unfit to vote. Supposed
they were enough to legally remove men's right to vote. Now suppose a
supporter of that position was hired as your boss. Would you really be OK with
that?

Feel free to picture more repugnant positions. Would you really not draw the
line anywhere? If you would, then you're not really any different than people
around here, you just disagree where you draw the line. And frankly, I find it
very hard to believe that someone wouldn't.

------
jholly
Locked out of iOS. Under heavly competition on Android. Put the metro port on
the back burner. Increasingly fighting to stay on feature parity with Chrome
on the desktop. FirefoxOS still to make an impact.

I love Firefox. I'm just worried for it. With the world going mobile, I wonder
if there's space for Firefox. It would be such a shame not to see it around 5
years from now.

I wonder if it makes sense for a small organization to spend so much time and
money on a custom rendering engine. Is it such a horrible idea to fork and
contribute to blink? Just thinking out loud. Mostly out of despair.

~~~
magicalist
> _Is it such a horrible idea to fork and contribute to blink? Just thinking
> out loud_

A fairly bad one, yes. There would be virtually no benefit to doing this, and
a serious detriment to web browser diversity (which would likely be a
detriment to the health of the web as a developing ecosystem).

> _It would be such a shame not to see it around 5 years from now_

They still have plenty of revenue, and the amount still keeps going up every
time they renegotiate their search engine contracts. They'd be more in danger
of irrelevance, but while they had a slight dip in browser marketshare
(depending on who you ask), it seems relatively steady state now (just like
their major competitors). Meanwhile no one is wringing their hands over
Microsoft's irrelevance in the browser market even though Windows Phone
remains a tiny contender.

Your worries seem a little unfounded.

~~~
jholly
Microsoft isn't a fair comparison. They have other, multi-billion dollar cash
cows to rely on.

I don't think they're unfounded. Nearly every developer I know uses chrome,
and chrome dev tools. This wasn't always the case. Market share can be a
lagging indicator, i think it's a little short sighted to suggest they're
okay. They're not!

Forking isn't a sin. Diversity often a result of forking. Take a look at this
graphic[1]. There's a good chance the browser you're currently using is a
result of a fork.

Mozilla has to really examine what they stand for. The open web doesn't depend
on implementation internals. Just specs, tests, and sensible governing body,
and a set of willing participants that don't have unreasonable misaligned
interests. They can still promote an open. Perhaps even do a better job of it
with the extra resources.

[1]
[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Timeline_...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Timeline_of_web_browsers.svg)

~~~
JohnTHaller
Firefox has equal share with Chrome and most of the techies I know still use
Firefox. Not having every private test URL of stuff you're working on sent to
Google is reason enough. I do have several dev friends that use Chrome.
They're usually mobile devs unconcerned with privacy (they have everything in
Google).

~~~
camus2

        > Firefox has equal share with Chrome and most of the           
        >techies 
        >I know still use Firefox. 
        > Not having every private test URL of stuff 
        >you're working on sent to Google is reason enough. 
    

And where does Mozilla money come from ? tell me.

~~~
JohnTHaller
Firefox has a separate search box from the URL box for a reason. Every
keystroke of the search box is sent to Google so the auto-complete results
come up. Chrome has a single box for both URLs and search, so every character
of every URL you type is sent to Google. That's the difference.

------
mjn
Have they already appointed replacements? The Mozilla page listing the board
members doesn't list any of these three people as board members, and instead
lists these 6 people as comprising the board: Mitchell Baker, Brian
Behlendorf, Brendan Eich, Joi Ito, Bob Lisbonne, Cathy Davidson
([https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/about/](https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/foundation/about/)).

~~~
heycam
That's the Foundation. The three current Corporation board members are listed
here: [http://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/foundation/moco/](http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/moco/)

~~~
mjn
Ah ok, that makes sense. The article was a bit confusing because it keeps
talking about _the_ Mozilla board, which in an unqualified sense to me implies
the top-level board controlling the entire Mozilla organization. Whereas they
seem to mean the board in charge of its main revenue-producing subsidiary...
which is important, but not the board ultimately in charge. I realize "not
ultimately in charge" doesn't necessarily mean "doesn't exercise practical
power", but the _real_ top-level Mozilla board could ultimately choose to
replace them if it were sufficiently unhappy with the state of things, so I
don't see this board as The Mozilla Board, in the sense of the people who are
responsible for stewarding my donations and ensuring that the charitable
mission is met.

------
yuhong
"They did not want to be identified because they are not authorized to speak
publicly about the matter."

With Mozilla?

~~~
kelnos
The "people familiar" with the matter (who presumably work for or are
affiliated with Mozilla in some way) aren't authorized _by_ Mozilla to speak
publicly about the board member resignations.

~~~
yuhong
I know, why do they need authorization at an organization like Mozilla?

~~~
kelnos
Just because Mozilla has a culture of openness and transparency, it doesn't
mean every piece of information about the goings-on of the company is public.
I find that unsurprising and entirely normal.

~~~
yuhong
Yes, but I wonder exactly why in this particular case.

~~~
kelnos
I'm not particularly surprised. Details about board member resignations are
often fairly sensitive. Agreed that it'd be nice to know the details, though.

------
pdkl95
While I have _zero_ actual proof, I have a nagging _worry_ that is probably
worth brining up. This is entirely supposition and speculation, and I welcome
hard evidence on the subject regardless of which way it points..

Right now we find ourselves watching vital cornerstone of the Free Internet
suddenly ripping itself apart. A community of people who would usually be
working on improving (at least attempting to improve) concepts like freedom of
speech and publication (press). This is especially important right now, given
all of the NSA/Snowden drama of the last year, and the threats they revealed.

So I'm forced to wonder: _who 's the spy trying to wedge the community apart?_

Yes, yes, we've been arguing about sexuality and marriage for a long time, and
it should simply be old factions suddenly forced to confront their current
situation. Normally, I would simply accept that explanation.

However, given that the spy agencies have been using[1] tactics to disrupt
groups they see as threatening, I'm forced to wonder if these new "wedges"
between previously-stable communities. Especially in the cases like Mozilla,
where and its role on the world stage certainly makes them a target for
COINTELPRO or similar attacks.

...

Because of this worry, I'm going to suggest something counter to my usual
instincts. Being gay myself, I would normally be strongly against Mr. Eich for
reasons already said elsewhere. There is a wisdom in picking your battles, and
right now there are more important issues.

So, instead, I am choosing to see Mr. Eich as a strong ally against greater
threats. Marriage rights won't easy to fight for if we lose the
surveillance/police-state battle first. Emotions are running strong right now
- I won't deny that the idea of having funded prop 8 does piss me of - but
winning one war often means _finding allies_ , even if you don't like them.

edit: forgot footnote

[1]: [https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-
manipula...](https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-
manipulation/)

------
xrctl
Good, a necessary pruning from the board of people who are more interested in
politics than product.

------
javajosh
This reminds me of how Clinton was impeached for lying about getting a
blowjob, but Bush wasn't anywhere close to being impeached over misleading us
into _war_. Supporting Prop 8 is Eich's personal Lewinski; let's save our
vitriol for something important. Eich's made it clear that his professional
stance supports total equality in the workplace, so unless he starts firing
gay people, let's give him a shot. As for the board members resigning, it's
not a good sign to see an internal rift like this, but really, only insiders
really know what's going on. Speculation isn't helping.

------
joyeuse6701
Headline makes it seem like this is a resignation over a disapproval. The
witch hunt is coming and they are getting out of the way. With this
resignation they hope to avoid being targets. Similar things happened in
Soviet bloc countries with the NKVD. Hell, similar things happened during all
that McCarthyism crap... 'So we've heard you've donated to the Communist party
several years back... you'd like to keep your job wouldn't you?'

~~~
MrZongle2
"The witch hunt is coming"?

You must not have been paying attention over the last couple of days. The
bonfire has been stoked, the rope is ready, the judges have made their
decision, and the ducks are ready to be weighed.

Eich has been found guilty, guilty, guilty in the court of public opinion: his
offense is having the same opinion as 52.2% of Californian voters in 2008 and
donating to that cause.

No apology is apparently sufficient, so he must be destroyed.

At least, that's sure what it looks like online.

------
the_ancient
So is a Fork coming?

------
hans
never heard of "mozillians" ..

~~~
hans
i guess "mozillans" sounds too much like "villain"

------
sgy
Half the board is resigning

------
desireco42
This is stupid, he might not be the most charismatic leaders but he is genuine
leader for organization like Mozilla, and other causes what he supports in his
free time, I personally don't care, as it is not relevant.

~~~
desireco42
And you who downvote should go out of the closet, it is not everything about
gay rights, there is life beyond that

~~~
jbeja
__" there is life beyond that", yeah and i would love to live it with the same
rights as you. Cheers

~~~
desireco42
and this is excellent example of tolerance you desire :)

~~~
wpietri
That is horseshit. When somebody works to take away your civil rights, a
desire for tolerance does not require you to politely say, "Oh, gosh, you go
on ahead and oppress us then." An open mind isn't an empty mind.

~~~
Pacabel
When people who claim to promote tolerance end up acting in an intolerant
manner, it hurts their credibility. It really doesn't matter what their cause
may be. Contradiction and hypocrisy generally don't make situations better.

~~~
wpietri
Could you spell out your perceived contradiction? As far as I have seen, the
perception of contradiction happens only with people who don't find them
credible to begin with.

Personally, I don't see it as hypocrisy. In the case of those opposed to Prop
8, people aren't arguing for some generic tolerance, they're arguing for civil
rights, including equality before the law. Most of the gay people I've talked
to figure the prejudiced are going to keep on with their hating; they just
don't want that bigotry enshrined in law.

