Fired Google software engineer, James Damore, says being conservative and working at the tech behemoth is "like being gay in the 1950s."

Damore, the author of the controversial anti-diversity memo, made the comparison in conversation with Business Insider.

He says he was fired for "wrong-think" and that anyone who has conservative viewpoints at Google "are currently marginalized."

"These conservatives have to stay in the closet and have to mask who they really are. And that's a huge problem because there's open discrimination against anyone who comes out of closet as a conservative," Damore tells Business Insider.

Damore wrote a 10-page memo claiming the gender gap in tech is a due to biological differences between men and women, not discrimination. The internal memo went viral in early August.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the memo violated the company's Code of Conduct by "advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace."