Dating website OkCupid has taken a stand in the name of gay rights after the company decided to try and block access to the website from users of the Mozilla Firefox browser over the CEO’s previous opposition to gay rights.
Brendan Eich has recently been appointed as Mozilla’s new CEO, though he has been widely criticised for contributing thousands of dollars worth of campaign funding towards a senator looking to end gay marriage in California.
Users of OkCupid through Firefox will be presented with a message stating, “Hello there, Mozilla Firefox users. 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.”
However, it does give Firefox users the opportunity to still use the website by clicking a continue button.
A number of Mozilla’s employees have spoken out about the appointment of former CTO Eich, who is also the creator of JavaScript, including Christie Koehler, Mozilla’s head of education. She wrote in a recent blog post she was disappointed with the news of Eich’s donation against gay rights.
“Like a lot of people, I was disappointed when I found out that Brendan had donated to the anti-marriage equality Prop. 8 campaign in California. It’s hard for me to think of a scenario where someone could donate to that campaign without feeling that queer folks are less deserving of basic rights.”
In the face of this backlash, Eich has stated he has no intentions of making Mozilla a discriminatory workplace.
