OkCupid Blocks Itself On Firefox Over Mozilla CEO’s Stance Against Equal Marriage

The message greeting OkCupid users on Firefox.

Dating and the internet go together like well, dating and the Internet. It’s a winning combination, but popular dating site OkCupid is fine with missing a slice of that action if it comes down to a question of equal rights for gay people. The site has effectively blocked itself on Firefox over brand new Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich’s stance on gay marriage. Namely, that he’s against it.

Any OkCupid users surfing on Firefox since last night are greeted with a message that outlines why the dating site decided to post its message of protest.

At the very bottom of the announcement, OkCupid urges users to use other browsers like Chrome, Safari, “Internet Exploder” (which may or may not be an intentional error) or even Opera.

Read the full letter below:

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.

Eich was a supporter of California’s contentious Prop 8 initiative in 2008, adds OkCupid in a bit of background info.

“Granted, his contribution is now six years in the past, and people can change,” OkCupid notes, while adding that statements he’s made since then make it seem his views have remained constant.

“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,” writes OkCupid.

It’s a pretty bold move for a business to effectively throw up a roadblock for users it’d normally want to access its site as much as possible, on any browser. It remains to be seen if this boycott lasts or if the two companies can reach some sort of detente.

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist