When and where does it all end?

Before Netscape was acquired by AOL back in what some call the “good old days,” the source code was released and rewritten by the Mozilla project into what would become Firefox. Coming onto the scene in 2004, Firefox was revolutionary. Developed out of the urge to provide a service for society for free, it helped make the Internet what it is today.
In 2008, Brendan Eich, a co-founder of the Mozilla Project donated $1,000 to supporting Proposition 8, a 2008 state constitutional amendment that would declare that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” Proposition 8 passed but was ruled unconstitutional in 2010 and subsequently was effectively struck down by the Supreme Court. In 2012, someone looking through a public list of donors found Eich’s donation and sectors of the Internet erupted in disgust and consternation. The furor died down until recently, when Eich became CEO of the Mozilla Corporation. LGBT activists suddenly called for a boycott against the Mozilla Corporation
and a number of Mozilla employees called for him to step down.
For all the faults this country has, freedom of expression has been a fundamental ideal from the beginning. When a community who vocally, sometimes belligerently calls for acceptance of their way of life and expression of that uses another’s expression of their way of life to publicly castigate him, at what point is there a double standard? Eich arguably contributed a great deal to individual freedom by providing a vital product
free of cost and beyond the control of large American corporations, yet one small action of support for his personal opinion is enough to denounce and demonize him.
Where does the fight for equality and acceptance become oppression and bullying? Even after the Supreme Court ruled against Proposition 8, Eich’s contribution was used as the main motivator to oust him. When was the last time the anti-war left looked at who donated a grand to George W. Bush’s campaign and called for them to be kicked out of their job? How does more than a decade of war weigh against two years of not being able to be married? When one’s sexual orientation or self- professed gender identity is able to be used as grounds to declare another unfit to act as a head of the company they helped found 11 years ago, at what point does equality become inequality?
The entire point of the democratic process is supposed to involve presenting a case so that both sides can be heard and then
having the population decide their opinion, not condemning people for their part of the process after they lost. While the LGBT community has achieved commendable success in their fight for equality and rights, the message can become one of hypocrisy. A preacher of tolerance has no credibility if they do not practice it, and when the differences that are celebrated are the differences used to divide and create conflict, things can only go downhill from here.