BACKLASH – AT 9:51 A.M. ET:  By this time all of you know the story of how Brendan Eich, the new CEO of Mozilla, which runs the popular Firefox browser, was forced out of office after only one week because someone discovered he'd made a 2008 contribution to a drive to ban gay marriage in California. 

The ouster, at first praised by the politically correct, has now created a huge backlash.  And I'm happy to say that some liberals and gay-rights advocates have joined the backlash.  They realize that this is nothing more or less than modern-day McCarthyism.  And what is ironic is that Eich was taking, in 2008, the same position on gay marriage as Obama and Hillary Clinton.  I don't see anyone asking that either of these two be banned from public life.

Sane liberal Kirsten Powers examines what has happened in this case, and a related one, in a fine piece at USA Today: 

Last week brought a chilling reminder of how mercilessly some liberals will work to silence and marginalize people who hold views with which they disagree.

Even for those of us who support same-sex marriage, the virtual manhunt of Mozilla chief Brendan Eich was scary to watch. His heresy was a private donation in support of an anti-gay marriage initiative six years ago. Mob rule enforcing groupthink is as illiberal as it gets, and yet it was liberals demanding uniformity of thought — or else.

Another incident of muzzling those without the proper worldview received less attention. Kickstarter, the nation's biggest crowd-funding site,refused to accept a film about convicted abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell unless descriptions of his crimes were removed.

COMMENT:  It doesn't matter how you feel about gay marriage or anything else.  The destruction of reputation, the ruining of careers, over a difference of opinion, is simply unacceptable in American society.  And another thing that is unacceptable is pinning the label "bigot" or "racist" on anyone who disagrees.

Demonizing an opponent is one of the recommendations in Saul Alinsky's infamous manual, "Rules for Radicals."  It's McCarthyism at its worst.  Brendan Eich is a brilliant software engineer, who should not have been fired because he ran afoul of the liberal thought police.  I don't know if he is employable now, since companies shy away from controversy.  But I'll bet he can write a whale of a book.

April 9, 2014