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?

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.

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.

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’ 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.

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.