If the headline strikes some as offensive, it will nevertheless remain, because that’s the case I’m making, and I’m sticking with it: a gay CEO with a pair of brass ones needs to step up and speak truth to a growing, and most illiberal new power. He or she needs to hire Brendan Eich in some sort of corporate leadership capacity for the sake of the most fundamental of freedoms — the freedom to think what you want to think, even if your thinking is unpopular or deemed “mistaken” — and in so doing boldly declare that our society has no truck with inquisitions.

If you’re going to get hung up on my vulgarisms, stop reading now, because there will be more and none of them will begin to approach the level of the patented-pure-d-bullshit that is the groveling of Mozilla before a victorious movement that, feeling its oats, needs to catch its breath and show some damned maturity and discernment. Writes Andrew Sullivan:

Will he now be forced to walk through the streets in shame? Why not the stocks? The whole episode disgusts me – as it should disgust anyone interested in a tolerant and diverse society. If this is the gay rights movement today – hounding our opponents with a fanaticism more like the religious right than anyone else – then count me out. If we are about intimidating the free speech of others, we are no better than the anti-gay bullies who came before us.

The very same people who have declared, “I yam what I yam”, and “we’re here, we’re queer; get used to it,” and who fought against discrimination on the basis of physical or emotional natures are proving themselves empty of magnanimity in victory. They are now saying “don’t be who you are,” and “you’re wrong, you’re gone; get used to it.” They’re applauding employment discrimination on the basis of an intellectual or spiritual philosophy.

What are they, anyway, philosophobes? Are they so terrified of any outlook which does not conform to theirs? I always thought a well-founded argument could withstand a little principled opposition. Apparently not.

Let’s think about this, for a second. Barack Obama only “evolved” on the issue of gay marriage when his re-election team deemed it necessary. Hillary Clinton came along even later, once the issue was clearly showing up in the “win” column. They blow with the wind, stand for nothing, but they’re given a pass. Meanwhile, as Allahpundit notes:

The difference between Eich and Obama is that. as far as we know, Eich didn’t lie to people’s faces about his views to further his own ambition. He could have publicly renounced his donation this week in the name of keeping his job, but apart from a statement about making sure that Mozilla supports everyone regardless of orientation, he didn’t. . .When forced to choose Eich evidently preferred to sacrifice his job [rather than recant].

Imagine that. A man who didn’t simply kowtow to a movement for the sake of personal or political expediency! Take a big whiff and marvel, boys and girls, because that’s a fragrance rarer than ambergris; it’s the scent of leadership in the morning, and it is almost unknown around these North American parts.

Clearly America’s successes since the 1690’s have been illusory; in reality, she has only moved her witch hunts and trials from Salem to Silicon Valley.

Well, I have known gay people and loved gay people and buried gay people and fed gay people and edited gay people and argued on their behalf, even when it has at times meant facing opposition from my co-religionists. It seems to me some “official gay folk” need to step up, and speak up for the basic human right of free speech and free thought for all people — without fear of poverty and social stigma.

Let me be clear: I hold out absolutely no hope that this chill wind will be checked or reversed — too many people with money and influence and no individual courage at all find totalitarianism an alluring idea. Nevertheless, though everything is part illusion, I’ll still resist and say, as Tom McDonald so succinctly puts it, “this shit has to stop.”

Indeed; it is an execrable, detestable trend that, if unchecked, will affect every facet of our lives as “correct” thoughts and “correct” ways become ever-narrower and trap more and more people in its stinking and miserable gullies.

Do yourself a favor and watch The Lives of Others, and see how narrow it all becomes:

In a particularly creepy scene, a Stasi captain, observing that a neighbor has seen his crew bug the protagonist’s apartment, explains to her that a word of warning to the neighbor will end her daughter’s academic career at University. . .watching these lonely, desperate lives, observing the ease with which careers are destroyed on the merest whim of an ambitious party member, or the merest unguarded whimsy of a joke, is hair-raising.

I would ask my gay friends to openly reject this movement to oppress so-called “wrong” thinking — suffocate it right now, as it is being born — because eventually it will grow into a monster that will consume anyone, indiscriminately.

On a different note, we may rejoice that “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” has been repealed and that gay men and women are serving in our military, because — as a young person passing through my house noted, on hearing the Eich story — “gays should always have been welcomed into the military; turns out when they’re motivated, they’re freaking ruthless!”

Well, yes, but that’s not exclusive to gays; it is true of members of any group that creates an idol of their ideology, forces everyone else to bow to it, loses sight of the humanity of those who will not, and begins to punish.

Someone should write a book about that, you say? Well, someone has, complete with study guide.

Who knew a book on idolatry would be so relevant to the times?

Comments are still closed for Lent.

UPDATE: First Things asserts the IRS leaked the list of Prop 8 donors? . Apparently a misunderstanding. In California, such donations are a matter of public record; no leak required.

Related:

Leah Libresco, The Perils of Workplace Purges

The Culture Wars: All fun and games until someone gets hurt