ENS Operations Director Brantly Millegan Fired For Inappropriate Comments

True Names Limited, the non-profit organization behind the distributed domain protocol Ethereum Name Service, has announced that it is terminating its contract with Director of Operations Brantly Millegan after many discovered his previous anti-LBGTQIA tweets.

On Feb. 6, the decentralized autonomous organization Ethereum Name Service (ENS) asked users to take action against a May 2016 tweet by Millegan stating that "homosexual behavior is evil" and that "transgender discrimination does not exist." What actions (if any) are discussed. The DAO said some had proposed suspending Millegan from his leadership role at ENS, voting to remove him from his position as a director of the ENS Foundation, and calling for his resignation.

While the DAO hadn’t formally voted on any resolutions at press time, ENS founder and developer Nick Johnson had earlier announced that True Names Limited had terminated Millegan’s contract because his position was “no longer tenable.” Twitter also removed homophobic tweets and suspended Millegan's account, preventing him from tweeting, liking and retweeting content.

"Brantly's comments have hurt many of you in the past 24 hours, and we firmly believe that ENS should be an inclusive community," Johnson said. "Going forward, we will continue to do what we can to ensure the situation remains the same."

Before losing access to his Twitter account, Millegan stood by his 2016 statement, suggesting it was in line with his Catholic beliefs. He later claimed in a Discord discussion that he "never excluded anyone from ENS based on their identity or beliefs."

“I don’t think it’s realistic or ethical for the web3 industry to exclude many traditionally minded Christians, Muslims, Jews, and others who agree with me,” Millegan said on Discord.

However, the 2016 tweet wasn't the only controversial statement. In 2018, Millegan reiterated his views on homosexual behavior in a post about birth control on the social media platform, calling it "very immoral". Additionally, a November 2016 tweet from the ENS director of operations shows that he published an article in the conservative news organization National Review promoting a questionable narrative about racial bias.

"I believe this is the mainstream traditional Christian position held by the largest religion in the world," Millegan said on Feb. 5. "It's not exactly marginalized."

It's unclear how many in the ENS community support Millegan's removal, but Johnson's termination of Millegan's contract suggests there is considerable support for doing so. ENS representative Eleftherios Karapetsas said on the governance discussion forum that Millegan should be given the opportunity to respond to the community's anger, but "if he does still believe that a group of people should not have a right to live, or has hatred for them, I think that as the project leader It is inappropriate to be a member of the

He added on Twitter:

"You can disagree with someone and still co-exist, as long as neither party is trying to impose their views on the other, or harm them because of their beliefs."

Launched in 2017, the ENS protocol allows users to register domain names ending in ".eth" and direct them to an Ethereum wallet address. The project distributed 100 million ENS governance tokens in an airdrop in November 2021.