OkCupid Asks Users To Boycott Firefox Because The Company's CEO Is Anti-Gay Marriage
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If you try to log on to OkCupid using Firefox, you'll get a message from the dating site urging you to use a different browser to protest the fact that Mozilla's new CEO doesn't support gay rights.This is the latest in a slew of controversy over Mozilla's appointment of Brenden Eich, who both supported a proposition to ban gay marriage in California - Proposition 8 - and donated to the politicians who backed it. Last week, several Mozilla employees publically posted their disappointment in the company's decision to hire Eich, stating that his personal beliefs contradict the company's values.
The OkCupid post says that if people like Eich had their way - if gay marriage was banned - then 8% of relationships formed on OkCupid would be illegal and that the company doesn't want to contribute to the success of someone who supported Prop 8, even through its page loads.
"OkCupid is for creating love," the post reads. "Those who seek to deny love and instead enforce misery, shame, and frustration are our enemies, and we wish them nothing but failure."
Here's the full post:
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.