In defense of Mozilla

Mozilla, maker of the Firefox web browser, has taken a lot of heat this month for having its CEO, Brendan Eich, resign under pressure on April 3. And yet, Mozilla was within its rights to want a CEO who shares the organization’s worldview. We want Christian businesses and nonprofit groups to be free to hire executives with a biblical worldview, so Mozilla should have a parallel freedom.

Tension between organizational and individual liberty is inevitable. Hobby Lobby’s liberty to say no to abortifacients does in a small way restrict the liberty of its employees (although they can readily obtain them in other ways). The liberty of any organization to have a code of conduct restricts the liberty of an employee to do whatever he wants—which is why a private enterprise economy should have lots of options. (Under socialism, a boss can insist on “my way” because he doesn’t have competitors who can offer dissidents a highway to alternative havens.)

This is not to say that it was right to view Eich, a computer world George Washington—he created JavaScript, a programming language web browsers use—as if he were Adolf Eichmann, the German Nazi who was a major organizer of the Holocaust. Only a few years ago, “blacklist” was a nasty word among liberal thinkers, but now many advocate lynching those who won’t toe their line. It’s good that a few thoughtful gay advocates like Andrew Sullivan opposed the mob.

Happily, we’ve decided as a society that racism is not allowable (and we can hope that reverse racism is on the way out). But we’re better off—and Christians, as a minority, may particularly benefit—if companies and nonprofit groups have a diverse character. If America is still a melting pot, many Christians will melt. We should try to maintain a civil society in which groups can set their own standards for leadership. Some we’ll like, some we won’t, but we’re better off with variety than a government-imposed uniformity.