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Mozilla Madness

Mozilla-Firefox-638x358

Yet another same-sex “marriage”-related boycott is in the news.

To be clear up front, I’m down with boycotts, conceptually; however, I’m happy to offer my cynical observations on particular boycotts and their apparent motivation. For instance: New York City mayor DeBlasio’s refusal to attend the St. Patrick’s Day parade because the organizers of that privately-run event will allow everyone to participate, but not to hijack it to serve a personal platform – a right they have defended in the nation’s highest court and retain under the First Amendment. DeBlasio, insistent on seeing a minority rights or free speech issue where none exists, makes himself look like more of a petty purist than Giuliani or Bloomberg, one who inexplicably lacks enough real problems while running a city of 8 million people.

Enter, now, the dating site OkCupid. They’re willing to throw the web browser Firefox, tied with Google Chrome for second place in popularity at about 17% market share (they’re lucky it wasn’t Internet Explorer at nearly 60%), under the bus for the sake of 8% of couples who meet using their website, all because Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich donated money to support Proposition 8. Always the skeptic, I note that their statement doesn’t actually say that these couples are “married,” but they claim anyway that these “relationships” would become “illegal” if Eich had his way…details, details.

To their methods I say, “Whatever. That’s your risk to take, if you think it’ll work out for you.” I don’t think it will, not least of all because they come off as bossy toward users who don’t pay to use a browser and in all likelihood don’t give a hoot about anything but their web surfing experience. I ditched Google search in favor of charity-supporting Goodsearch a while back, but realistically, I just don’t expect that of everyone.

So what am I criticizing? Quite simply, their allegation that anyone with the audacity to disagree with their stance does so out of the fanatical desire to make innocent people miserable — to “deny love,” whatever “love,” that twisting mirage, happens to mean in the current zeitgeist! This is utterly toxic demagoguery.

But wait! Lest you think Mozilla will strongly assert itself, its spokespeople are anxiously performing the sacrificial dance of appeasement. They do seem a bit miffed that OkCupid didn’t reach out to get the facts straight, but those facts consist of already doing contortions to please their overlords. They’re enthralled. We’ve seen the circular firing squad before, notably in the case of Barilla Pasta. There is hardly a more pathetic routine.

I really wish I could pick a sympathetic party in such stories. Understandably, many businesses are cowed by such a militant lobby, and they need support. It’s about time more of them demonstrated a little backbone, though, because if allowed to run rampant this will only get worse…to the detriment of all.

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