eHarmony — a dating service founded by Neil Clark Warren to serve the pre-marital dating desires of conservative evangelicals — has settled an antidiscrimination complaint in New Jersey by setting up a separate-and-unequal dating site for sexual minorities.
Ex-gay industry pundits promptly sought to exploit the news.
Peter LaBarbera accused the gay man who filed the lawsuit of exploiting New Jersey’s “special rights law” — even though the state law equally protects residents regardless of their gender, race, or sexual orientation. LaBarbera further took the opportunity to distort Exodus International officials’ position that sexual attraction is an “identity” that can be changed as easily as one changes one’s political party label or denominational identity:
Evidence that homosexuality is a behavior — and not an “identity” — issue can be found in the many ex-gays and ex-lesbians who have found freedom from homosexuality through Christ — and true love and marriage with a member of the opposite sex.
No one at Exodus has corrected LaBarbera.
Meanwhile, Focus on the Family — whose supporters have, until now, used eHarmony to sanitize their pre-marital sexual desires — sought to project its allies’ questionable morals onto government:
“It’s basically the power of the government being used to force people across the country to accept beliefs that they know are not moral,” said Kelly Shackelford, president of the Free Market Foundation and chief counsel of the Liberty Legal Institute. “It’s an attack on freedom, and people better get ready to fight.”
I have yet to find a gay activist that fully supports the settlement. Personally, I would prefer to know that a company is antigay before I do business with it. I don’t want to be diverted by the company to an afterthought website for second-class citizens — and while I don’t believe businesses should be permitted to harass or fire workers on the basis of a minority status, I’m not sure I really want government to force companies to pretend to be tolerant toward clients when they’re not.
Advocates of equality and freedom will continue to shame eHarmony (and Focus on the Family) for their ongoing opposition to equality and moral consistency. But perhaps gay dating services should begin to wonder whether they might soon be forced to cater to the desires of antigay fundamentalists.
The best course of action may be to support dating services that don’t discriminate in either direction: Services, such as Chemistry.com, that focus on relationship-building and not the gender — or genitals — of their clients.
Hat tips: Good As You, Republic of T
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I’m gay and I believe all GLBT people should be treated equally, but I do not believe that people should be forced to accept us on dating sites.
Maybe it’s because I already found the one I want to be with for life, but I don’t believe that will do any good for our side.
There are afterall, dating sites that are only for same-sex couples, and we don’t have straight people complaining that we’re discriminating against them.
Comment by James — November 23, 2008 @ 11:44 pm
It is a shame that in today’s society members of the LGBT population still fight for equal rights. Not only did the state of California pass laws this month to ban same-sex marriage, but so did other states (including a state banning gay families from adoption children).
As Dr. Helen Fischer of Chemistry.com recently stated, “how you feel when you love is the same in every human being, regardless of sexual orientation,” is true, how one navigates the mine fields of partner selection is very different across sexual orientation boundaries.
While there are many similarities between same-sex and opposite-sex partner selection, there are also vast differences that relate to cultural traits, relationships histories, personal dynamics and lifestyle interests that cannot go unaddressed.
myPartner.com’s compatibility system was designed by gay men for gay men and would not work for heterosexuals, or lesbians for that matter, in the same way I don’t expect eHarmony’s current compatibility system to work for same-sex daters. I personally have taken on one MTF (male to female transgender) private matchmaking client in 5 years and the differences in navigating the path of partner selection for her immensely differs from that of her fellow gay daters – even though she seeks a gay male partner. Sexuality and partner selection is not black and white and a “one size fits all” matching application does not work for many populations of people.
While the LGBT community has historically been hostile towards eHarmony.com due to their unwillingness to match same-sex couples, I believe their matchmaking methodology to be sound, it just happens to cater to heterosexuals – the largest niche population. But gay clientele are going to expect to receive the same quality of services eHarmony has provided to their current customer base since their launch in 2000 and not feel as though they are being pandered to because of a lawsuit.
Comment by Patrick — November 24, 2008 @ 12:52 pm
Wouldn’t it have been great if eHarmony had partnered with a first-rate service that specializes in same-sex matching, instead of setting up a second-class service which implies low expectations for its clients?
Comment by Michael Airhart — November 24, 2008 @ 1:54 pm
I dont know why any glbt person would want to lower themselves by using e-disharmony’s ’services’. I wouldnt spend one penny to help increase their wealth and success.
Comment by Gary (NJ) — November 24, 2008 @ 3:27 pm
Gary, I’m concerned that many people don’t know about eHarmony’s ties to the religious right. And because of this settlement, they may never know.
A better settlement might have required eHarmony to put a banner across the top of its home page saying, “HOMOS NOT WELCOME HERE.”
I agree with Patrick that dating services should be able to cater to their strengths. I wish eHarmony’s motives were really that innocent.
Comment by Michael Airhart — November 24, 2008 @ 3:34 pm
I don’t get the cynicism and “separate but equal” talk. This isn’t like herding black kids into substandard schools in impoverished communities. Isn’t it a good thing that they’re launching a separate site that will cater exclusively to the needs of LGBT customers, assuming they can work out the kinks of the matching technology? (Patrick is rightly promoting his own site as an alternative example of that.) How would it ever make sense to match gays with straights on one site? Isn’t a website a virtual “place” anyway? It’s really just a brand name and image wrapped around a bunch of technology.
Granted they were forced into doing this by a lawsuit, but presumably they’ll want to make money from paying customers like any business. I’ll be interested to see how it works out.
Comment by TonyInSF — November 27, 2008 @ 6:33 pm
The results of the lawsuit against eharmony is another glaring example of trench warfare between two groups both unwilling to yield an inch in order to promote real “harmony”.
There is something very wrong about not giving someone something the law says is rightfully theirs. In this regard,I have no fundamental problem with the lawsuit in question.
However, there is something equally wrong about forcing a persons to violate their rights in order to satisfy the rights of others. What it seem to be coming down to in America, in my opinion, is who has the most political, legal and economic clout.
There is no question that this battle over rights is becoming a civil war, with no quarters asked and none given.
Forcing someone to provide a service that they would rather not provide due to strongly held convictions (particularly a service of this kind) and especially when there are other services that are much better suited to the one doing the forcing, is, again in my opinion equivalent to animus towards that person.
Were I a Christian in the USA I would be very afraid that my Church or organisation could in the very near future, be forced by law to carry out acts that are totally against our beliefs and/or the principles we hold dear.
When you trample on one man’s rights to give another man his, who really wins? But then again, if all it is about is winning or losing the war, then who cares?
Comment by Steve Skeete — December 3, 2008 @ 3:48 pm