The move led site administrator “Ad Orientem” to resign, according to The Christian Institute, which noted that the administrator pointed out that the decision was “clearly inconsistent” with the project’s commitment to neutrality and condemned hostile comments about traditional marriage supporters.
Wikipedia has decided to restrict its editors from expressing opposition to same-sex marriage on its platform — a decision that comes months after co-founder Larry Sanger said the site’s neutrality policy was “dead.”
Volunteers who write and edit Wikipedia’s articles can no longer include on their profile page any “userbox” — a badge expressing their beliefs — that is against gay marriage. For example, one such userbox states, “This user believes marriage is between one man and one woman.”
The decision was made after a recent discussion where “predominantly left-wing editors” argued such a stance was “discriminatory” and against site policy, according to Breitbart.
The discussion began after an editor, Adam Cuerden, suggested that just one userbox be deleted, calling it “pretty explicitly homophobic” and citing a site guideline prohibiting “inflammatory or divisive” content in userboxes. Soon, he suggested that other userboxes in favor of traditional marriage should also be deleted.
The move led site administrator “Ad Orientem” to resign, according to The Christian Institute, which noted that the administrator pointed out that the decision was “clearly inconsistent” with the project’s commitment to neutrality and condemned hostile comments about traditional marriage supporters.
They “represent an ugly tendency to condemn the views of others as outside the bounds of acceptable thought, never minding those views are held by the vast majority of people globally and the followers of most of the world’s major religious faiths,” the administrator was quoted as saying.
