Dating Website Discourages Firefox Users Over Mozilla CEO Support Of Same-Sex Marriage Ban
NEW YORK (CBS SF) -- An online dating site is asking its customers not to use the Firefox browser made by Mountain View-based Mozilla as a protest against Mozilla's new chief executive over his prior support of California's gay marriage ban.
Brendan Eich had been Mozilla's chief technology officer until he was named CEO last week. In 2008, Eich donated $1,000 to support Proposition 8, the ban on same-sex marriage which has since been struck down. The donation was made public in 2012 and created a brief controversy at the time.
With Eich's ascension to the top job, Firefox users accessing New York City-based OkCupid.com are now greeted by a the following message:
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.
Politics is normally not the business of a website, and we all know there's a lot more wrong with the world than misguided CEOs. So you might wonder why we're asserting ourselves today. This is why: we've devoted the last ten years to bringing people—all people—together. If individuals like Mr. Eich had their way, then roughly 8% of the relationships we've worked so hard to bring about would be illegal. Equality for gay relationships is personally important to many of us here at OkCupid. But it's professionally important to the entire company. OkCupid is for creating love. Those who seek to deny love and instead enforce misery, shame, and frustration are our enemies, and we wish them nothing but failure.
If you want to keep using Firefox, the link at the bottom will take you through to the site.
However, we urge you to consider different software for accessing OkCupid.
The message goes on to say Firefox users can link through to use the site, but are urged to use another browser.
Following Eich's appointment to CEO last week, three Mozilla board members resigned while a number of Mozilla employees have tweeted their desire to see Eich step down because of his stance.
The Mozilla Foundation denied to the U.K.'s The Register that the departure of three board members was a protest against Eich's appointment.
Meanwhile, Eich himself has published a blog post where he addressed the controversy around his previous stance, promising to work with LGBT communities and supporters to foster equality and expressing "my sorrow at having caused pain."