Dating site OkCupid has taken a stand against popular web browser Firefox after its parent company Mozilla announced the appointment of anti-gay CEO Brendan Eich over the weekend.
Eich, who was formerly Mozilla’s chief technology officer, in 2008 gave $1,000 in favour of passing Proposition 8, the constitutional amendment that outlawed same-sex marriages in California. The amendment was ultimately struck down by the US Supreme Court.
After Eich was hired as the head honcho at Mozilla, which is a non-profit company, six board members at Moziila resigned and a Twitter storm ensued. You have to wonder WHAT THE HELL they were thinking hiring someone so openly anti-gay?
OkCupid took its own action with a note for users who access the dating site through Firefox. The note says:
‘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.’
President Christian Rudder and his three OkCupid co-founders chatted about the appointment of Eich and thought it was only right to take some sort of stand, since 8 percent of OkCupid users are gay. 12 percent of its 3 billion monthly page views are via Firefox
The message continued ‘We’ve devoted the last 10 years to bringing people_ all people_ together. If individuals like Mr. Eich had their way, the roughly 8% of all the relationships we’ve worked so hard to bring about would be illegal.’
Mozilla, then released a statement saying the company supports equality for all, including marriage equality for gay couples. ‘No matter who you are or who you love, everyone deserves the same rights and to be treated equally. OkCupid never reached out to us to let us know of their intentions, nor to confirm facts.’
Meanwhile, Eich wrote a lengthy response on his blog, saying: ‘I know there are concerns about my commitment to fostering equality and welcome for LGBT individuals at Mozilla. I hope to lay those concerns to rest, first by making a set of commitments to you. More important, I want to lay them to rest by actions and results. A number of Mozillians, including LGBT individuals and allies, have stepped forward to offer guidance and assistance in this. I cannot thank you enough, and I ask for your ongoing help to make Mozilla a place of equality and welcome for all. I know some will be skeptical about this, and that words alone will not change anything. I can only ask for your support to have the time to “show, not tell”; and in the meantime express my sorrow at having caused pain.’
Sure, sure. See y’all over at Chrome, yeah?
Picture: Eylul Aslan
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.