Brendan Eich donated thousands of dollars to Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan in the 1990s, according to public data
 |
| Pat Buchanan announces run for president as Reform party candidate in 1999. Photograph: Greg Gibson/AP |
Mozilla's controversial new CEO Brendan Eich made a string of
donations to politicians on the fringe of the Republican party a decade
before he donated $1,000 to the campaign against equal marriage in
California.
Public records show that between 1991 and 1992, Eich donated a total of $1,000 to Pat Buchanan, then a rightwing Republican presidential candidate. In 1996 and 1998, Eich donated a total of $2,500 to Ron Paul, a maverick Republican congressman for Texas's 14th district.
The discovery could increase the pressure on Eich, appointed only in March, whose apparent opposition to equal marriage has been unpopular among some within the company but insists that his "personal beliefs" are not relevant to his ability to carry out the job. He insisted this week that he would not resign.
Buchanan has a decades-long track record for controversial statements on homosexuality, gender relations, immigration and race.
In 1990, a year before Eich’s first donation to his campaign, Buchanan said in relation to the Aids outbreak that “our promiscuous homosexuals appear literally hell-bent on Satanism and suicide”. A a few years earlie he said “homosexuals have declared war on nature, and now nature is exacting an awful retribution”.
Buchanan’s position on same-sex marriage appears to have changed little in the intervening decades since Eich’s donation.
In a 2010 article on the issue, Buchanan remarked that "all the great religions have condemned homosexuality and all the great nations have proscribed or punished it" and concluded: "Historically, from the late Roman Empire to Weimar, flagrant homosexuality has been associated with sick societies, decadent cultures and dying civilizations"
The Guardian asked Mozilla if Brendan Eich wished to make any remark on his donation to Buchanan, or if he had any comment on the candidate’s views on homosexuality and same-sex marriage.
Eich declined to comment, while Mozilla reiterated its earlier statement in support of marriage equality.
Eich has repeatedly refused to discuss his donation to the Proposition 8 campaign, saying that to do so would violate Mozilla’s principle of inclusiveness, which asks participants in their project to leave personal views at the door.
“I agree with people who say it wasn't private, but it was personal,” he said of the donation in an interview on Wednesday. “But the principle that I have operated by, that is formalised in our code of conduct at Mozilla, is it's really about keeping anything that's not central to our mission out of our office.
“If I stop doing that now I think I would be doing wrong that code of conduct and doing a disservice to Mozilla. And I really do think it's an important principle of inclusiveness for Mozilla to succeed.
Buchanan's presidential campaign attempted to outflank the incumbent Republican president, George HW Bush, from the right, with an anti-immigrant, social conservative platform. Characterising Bill and Hillary Clinton's agenda as "abortion on demand, a litmus test for the supreme court, homosexual rights, discrimination against religious schools, women in combat units," Buchanan described the election as a "religious war going on… for the soul of America."
Ron Paul's campaign four years later was aided by Buchanan, who was again running for president. But it was overshadowed by the release of more than two decades of newsletters that Paul had published. They contained a number of homophobic and racist remarks, such as Paul's claim that "homosexuals, not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities".
While Buchanan eventually supported George HW Bush in his failed presidential campaign, Paul won in Texas, and remained a congressman for the Republican party until 2013, following his failed bid for the presidency.
Eich's political donations also include money given to more mainstream candidates, such as California's Tom McClintock, to whom Eich donated $750 over the course of 2008, and Linda Smith, who ran for senate in Washington state. McClintock opposes same-sex marriage; as does Smith, who has said that "homosexuality is a morally unfit inclination".
At the time of his donations to Buchanan, Eich was employed by Silicon Graphics, later to become SGI; by the time of his donations to Ron Paul, he had moved to Netscape Communications, where he would stay until his move to Mozilla in 2003.
• Mozilla CEO insists he won't resign over 'private' opposition to Prop 8
Public records show that between 1991 and 1992, Eich donated a total of $1,000 to Pat Buchanan, then a rightwing Republican presidential candidate. In 1996 and 1998, Eich donated a total of $2,500 to Ron Paul, a maverick Republican congressman for Texas's 14th district.
The discovery could increase the pressure on Eich, appointed only in March, whose apparent opposition to equal marriage has been unpopular among some within the company but insists that his "personal beliefs" are not relevant to his ability to carry out the job. He insisted this week that he would not resign.
Buchanan has a decades-long track record for controversial statements on homosexuality, gender relations, immigration and race.
In 1990, a year before Eich’s first donation to his campaign, Buchanan said in relation to the Aids outbreak that “our promiscuous homosexuals appear literally hell-bent on Satanism and suicide”. A a few years earlie he said “homosexuals have declared war on nature, and now nature is exacting an awful retribution”.
Buchanan’s position on same-sex marriage appears to have changed little in the intervening decades since Eich’s donation.
In a 2010 article on the issue, Buchanan remarked that "all the great religions have condemned homosexuality and all the great nations have proscribed or punished it" and concluded: "Historically, from the late Roman Empire to Weimar, flagrant homosexuality has been associated with sick societies, decadent cultures and dying civilizations"
The Guardian asked Mozilla if Brendan Eich wished to make any remark on his donation to Buchanan, or if he had any comment on the candidate’s views on homosexuality and same-sex marriage.
Eich declined to comment, while Mozilla reiterated its earlier statement in support of marriage equality.
Eich has repeatedly refused to discuss his donation to the Proposition 8 campaign, saying that to do so would violate Mozilla’s principle of inclusiveness, which asks participants in their project to leave personal views at the door.
“I agree with people who say it wasn't private, but it was personal,” he said of the donation in an interview on Wednesday. “But the principle that I have operated by, that is formalised in our code of conduct at Mozilla, is it's really about keeping anything that's not central to our mission out of our office.
“If I stop doing that now I think I would be doing wrong that code of conduct and doing a disservice to Mozilla. And I really do think it's an important principle of inclusiveness for Mozilla to succeed.
Buchanan's presidential campaign attempted to outflank the incumbent Republican president, George HW Bush, from the right, with an anti-immigrant, social conservative platform. Characterising Bill and Hillary Clinton's agenda as "abortion on demand, a litmus test for the supreme court, homosexual rights, discrimination against religious schools, women in combat units," Buchanan described the election as a "religious war going on… for the soul of America."
Ron Paul's campaign four years later was aided by Buchanan, who was again running for president. But it was overshadowed by the release of more than two decades of newsletters that Paul had published. They contained a number of homophobic and racist remarks, such as Paul's claim that "homosexuals, not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities".
While Buchanan eventually supported George HW Bush in his failed presidential campaign, Paul won in Texas, and remained a congressman for the Republican party until 2013, following his failed bid for the presidency.
Eich's political donations also include money given to more mainstream candidates, such as California's Tom McClintock, to whom Eich donated $750 over the course of 2008, and Linda Smith, who ran for senate in Washington state. McClintock opposes same-sex marriage; as does Smith, who has said that "homosexuality is a morally unfit inclination".
At the time of his donations to Buchanan, Eich was employed by Silicon Graphics, later to become SGI; by the time of his donations to Ron Paul, he had moved to Netscape Communications, where he would stay until his move to Mozilla in 2003.
• Mozilla CEO insists he won't resign over 'private' opposition to Prop 8
0 comments:
Post a Comment