Brendan Eich steps down as Mozilla CEO amid anti gay-marriage outrage

TORONTO – Brendan Eich has stepped down as CEO of software maker Mozilla following public criticism for having once supported a ban on gay marriage.

“Brendan Eich has chosen to step down from his role as CEO. He’s made this decision for Mozilla and our community,” read a blog post by Mitchell Baker, executive chairwoman of Mozilla.

Eich, who cofounded Mozilla, maker of the popular web browser Firefox, took over as CEO on March 24. Soon after Mozilla employees and social media users began calling for Eich to step down over controversy that he donated financial support to Proposition 8 – a constitutional amendment that outlawed same-sex marriages in California in 2008.

On Wednesday, during an interview with The Guardian, Eich said he would not step down despite the outrage surrounding his US $1,000 donation to the Proposition 8 ballot measure.

“Mozilla prides itself on being held to a different standard and, this past week, we didn’t live up to it. We know why people are hurt and angry, and they are right: it’s because we haven’t stayed true to ourselves,” read the blog post, published Thursday.

“We didn’t act like you’d expect Mozilla to act. We didn’t move fast enough to engage with people once the controversy started. We’re sorry. We must do better.”

READ MORE: OkCupid dating website urging users to boycott Firefox browser

Other Internet companies also publically protested Eich’s position as CEO.

On Monday, dating service OKCupid.com placed a message on its home page for those who logged in with Firefox, Mozilla’s popular web browser.

“Hello there, Mozilla Firefox user. Pardon this interruption of your OkCupid experience. Mozilla’s new CEO, Brendan Eich, is an opponent of equal rights for gay couples. We would therefore prefer that our users not use Mozilla software to access OkCupid,” the message said.

Mozilla is still discussing who will replace Eich as CEO, according to the company’s blog post.