Before Mozilla Exec's Donation To Prop 8, OkCupid.com CEO Also Donated To Anti-Gay Candidate
(CBS SF) -- The CEO of dating service OkCupid.com, which urged customers not to use Mozilla's Firefox browser because of the Mozilla CEO's past support of Proposition 8, once donated to an anti-gay congressman, according to a report.
Conservative political website The Daily Caller reported that OkCupid's CEO and co-founder Sam Yagan donated $500 to the Utah Rep. Chris Cannon in 2004.
Cannon, who was defeated in the 2008 Utah Republican Primary, has a 0% rating by the Human Rights Campaign for his stance on gay rights. Cannon has voted for a ban on gay adoption, supports a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman, and voted no on prohibiting job discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Last week, Brendan Eich stepped down as CEO of Mozilla after the fallout over his 2008 donation of $1,000 to the campaign for California's same-sex marriage ban reached a fever pitch, helped in large part by OkCupid's much-publicized lamentation of the Eich's donation.
The resignation under fire by Eich over his donation has also caused a stir over free speech issues and has many online pundits surmising that OkCupid's action against Mozilla was a well-calculated publicity stunt.
Yagan, who is also the CEO of OKCupid parent Match.com, sent CBS San Francisco a statement about his donation.
A decade ago, I made a contribution to Representative Chris Cannon because he was the ranking Republican on the House subcommittee that oversaw the Internet and Intellectual Property, matters important to my business and our industry. I accept responsibility for not knowing where he stood on gay rights in particular; I unequivocally support marriage equality and I would not make that contribution again today. However, a contribution made to a candidate with views on hundreds of issues has no equivalence to a contribution supporting Prop 8, a single issue that has no purpose other than to affirmatively prohibit gay marriage, which I believe is a basic civil right.