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In any case, OKCupid has taken public actions (e.g. their message to Firefox users) that indicate that, as a company, they come down in favor of gay marriage.

In any case, OKCupid has taken public actions (e.g. their message to Firefox users) that indicate that, as a company, they come down in favor of gay marriage. I don't think that's quite true. Rather, what it seems is that they're being opportunists by milking a controversy so as to make themselves appear as if they have the moral high ground. Telling people to boycott a free software browser that has been the result of over a decade of labor by large numbers of contributors and has been responsible for many advancements in the web, over the actions of one person (even if the CEO), the reasons of which are still unclear, is not what I'd call supporting gay marriage. There's plenty of other much better ways to express support. What's even more interesting is that they have selected Firefox as the product to boycott, and not the rest of the Mozilla Foundation's projects. I guess actually targeting the root cause (Eich, and consequently JavaScript) is too much to swallow.

eridius 13y ago
I think their recommendation of boycotting Firefox is wrong. But the point is that OKCupid has made a public statement that, however misguided, indicates support for gay marriage. > I guess actually targeting the root cause (Eich, and consequently JavaScript) is too much to swallow. Firefox is probably the only thing they can target that makes sense. JavaScript is probably the only other Mozilla project that the majority of OKCupid visitors would even recognize, and most of them probably don't use JavaScript at all and have no way to boycott it (not to mention that it's pretty hard to boycott JavaScript anyway, because it's the assembly language of the web). Also, the only indicating factor they have to decide if they should even show the message is that the user's browser is Firefox. Showing this message to everyone would definitely be too much.
AnimalMuppet 13y ago
Well, it sends the message that, if you oppose gay marriage, they're going to find a way to make you pay. That may be of some value to the battle for gay rights, but it's a horrible way to do it. Even if you frame this as a civil rights battle, you don't win civil rights battles that way. The black right to vote was not won by eliminating the KKK's right to free speech.

eridius 13y ago

I think their recommendation of boycotting Firefox is wrong. But the point is that OKCupid has made a public statement that, however misguided, indicates support for gay marriage. > I guess actually targeting the root cause (Eich, and consequently JavaScript) is too much to swallow. Firefox is probably the only thing they can target that makes sense. JavaScript is probably the only other Mozilla project that the majority of OKCupid visitors would even recognize, and most of them probably don't use JavaScript at all and have no way to boycott it (not to mention that it's pretty hard to boycott JavaScript anyway, because it's the assembly language of the web). Also, the only indicating factor they have to decide if they should even show the message is that the user's browser is Firefox. Showing this message to everyone would definitely be too much.

AnimalMuppet 13y ago

Well, it sends the message that, if you oppose gay marriage, they're going to find a way to make you pay. That may be of some value to the battle for gay rights, but it's a horrible way to do it. Even if you frame this as a civil rights battle, you don't win civil rights battles that way. The black right to vote was not won by eliminating the KKK's right to free speech.