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White House silent on gay intolerance

Neil Munro White House Correspondent
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White House spokesman Josh Earnest today claimed he could not comment on gay advocates’ successful campaign to fire the new CEO of Mozilla Corp.

“Does the White House think that there should at least be tolerance… and that there should be other views heard?” Fox News’ Ed Henry asked.

“I certainly understand why an issue like this has been in the news, and why a lot of people are talking about it, but I’m not going to be in a position to weigh in on decisions made by a private company,” he said.

Earnest made the claim even though his boss, President Barack Obama, repeatedly weighs in on decisions made by companies, usually by praising them for paying their workers above minimum-wage.

“Their hypocrisy is obvious,” Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage.

“Are you an ostrich? All of us know why [the Mozilla CEO] resigned — it’s because of the relentless attacks fueled by the same sort of rhetoric that you find the White House using,” he added.

Marriage advocates have been repeatedly targeted for attacks, harassment, boycotts, threats and the illegal leak of information from the Internal Revenue Service, Brown said.

The leaked data was made public in 2012 by the Human Rights Campaign.

Since then, Obama and his deputies have repeatedly aided gay advocacy movements. For example, Obama taped a speech for the HRC’s 2013 dinner, and Vice President Joe Biden headlined the 2014 dinner, where he defined people who disagree with gay advocates as haters.

“Hate, hate can never, never be defended,” Biden declared.

Gay activists say they support tolerance and civil rights, Brown added, but they’re “now launching a new blacklist… [which] is absolutely intolerant of anyone who deviates from their party line.”

“Many of the major groups have gotten to the point where they want to win at all costs, and now [for them] dissent equals hatred,” he said.

The attacks are motivated by gay activists’ determination to make people celebrate homosexuality, he said. “It has never been about civil rights or equality or even tolerance [for gays] — it has been about forced acceptance, and now it is saying ‘You have to be positively celebrating same-sex marriage or you will be punished.’”

In 2005, Brendan Eich helped create Mozilla Corp., which maintains and upgrades the free Firefox browser. Last month, he was appointed the CEO, but the company’s board forced him out amid a roar of anger from progressives and gay leaders in Silicon Valley.

They decried his 2008 donation of $1,000 to a successful ballot campaign in California that preserved the evolved definition of marriage as a mechanism to bind a mother and father to their children, from birth until adulthood.

A 2012 poll funded by Brown’s group showed 60 percent support for the evolved definition of marriage as one man and one woman.

Other countries define marriage to allow one man to marry several wives, or allow men to marry children.

Gay activists insist that marriage should be redefined as a means to help two adults, including two men or two women, without regard to children.

White House officials routinely praise companies for taking decisions that helps its priorities.

Zingerman’s Deli in Ann Arbor, Mich., makes “outstanding“ burgers, Obama told students at the nearby University of Michigan on April 2. “Zingerman’s is a business that treats its workers well, and rewards honest work with honest wages,” he continued.

In the same speech, he also praised warehouse retailer Costco, and the Gap clothing store. “The Gap decided to raise its base wages, and that benefited about 65,000 workers in the United States — and it led me to go shopping at Gap,” he said.

Early in the Friday briefing, Earnest praised Costco and the Gap.

“We’ve seen some steps taken by private companies — Costco and Gap, and even some smaller companies — around the country take a unilateral step to raise the wages of their workers… because they think it’s good for business,” he said.

Obama’s deputies also criticize companies that aid their political enemies, although indirectly.

In February, White House spokesman Jay Carney declined to comment on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s criticism of the Koch brothers, who own energy companies and fund libertarian advocacy groups and free-market media outlets. Reid had called the brothers “un-American.”

But Carney made sure to highlight the White House’s support for Reid’s criticism of the brothers’ free-market advocacy .

“I’m not going to talk about a hypothetical,” Carney said. “What I can say is certainly some of the assertions that have been made in general about the Affordable Care Act have been proven to be wrong by your colleagues.”

In May 2012, Carney also backed up his boss’ criticism of Bain Capital, which was temporarily run by Mitt Romney, the GOP’s presidential candidate.

“The President believes is that there is absolutely a place for a vibrant and successful financial sector, financial industry that includes private equity,” Carney began.

But, Carney added, “the point is what vision would you bring to the job?  What policies would you implement based on that vision?“

Inside the White House, Brown said, “the words and the actions are totally different.”

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Neil Munro