If you’re a regular visitor to dating site OkCupid and you happen to browse the web using Firefox, you might notice something a little different the next time you log in. In fact, you’d have to try pretty damn hard to miss it.
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Anyone visiting the dating site on Firefox is met with a virtual roadblock informing them that newly appointed Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich is an opponent of gay marriage and that it would prefer that its users visit the site on other browsers.
“Mozilla’s new CEO, Brendan Eich, is an opponent of equal rights for gay couples,” the message reads. “We would therefore prefer that our users not use Mozilla software to access OkCupid”.
OkCupid’s truck with Eich comes from his 2008 financial support of Proposition 8, a Californian bill that sought to prevent gay marriage in the state.
Here’s the message in full:
While OkCupid does acknowledge that Eich’s donation was made six years ago and that people can change, it suggests that his “boilerplate statements in the time since make it seem like he has the same views now as he did then”.
The site says it has only taken action now because the issue only came to its attention after Eich’s promotion. It adds however that Eich’s donation “was known to Mozilla at the time of his promotion, and, furthermore, CEOs are rewarded based on their company’s performance”.
“The CEO is the visionary for a company and its products,” it adds. “We are sad to think that any OkCupid page loads would even indirectly contribute towards the success of an individual who supported Prop 8—and who for all we know would support it again”.
For his part, Eich has written a blog post addressing the backlash toward him. In it, he apologises for “having caused pain” and also says that he remains committed to making Mozilla “a place that includes and supports everyone, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, age, race, ethnicity, economic status, or religion”.
As Mashable notes however, he has not really given any indication on whether his stance toward gay marriage has changed at all.
In a separate blog post from 2012, he also refused to give any real indication of his stance on gay marriage.
“I’m not going to discuss Prop 8 here or on Twitter,” he wrote. “There is no point in talking with the people who are baiting, ranting, and hurling four-letter abuse. Personal hatred conveyed through curse words is neither rational nor charitable, and strong feelings on any side of an issue do not justify it.”
