Ok...what is new? A dating website by eHarmony to cater for Adams and Steves -- Compatiblepartners.net.
I am very happy to know that (and finally!) justice is served! Yesterday, eHarmony has agreed (it was forced!) to offer same-sex dating services. The settlement, which did not find that eHarmony broke any laws, called for the company to either offer the gay matches on its current venue or create a new site for them. eHarmony has opted to create a site called Compatiblepartners.net.
I wrote about this months ago on www.edgenewyork.com and have received so many emails from the LGBT community, expressing their strong p.o.v on this issue (see my story below)
This Christian-targeted dating site (though not very Jesus-like as many of my straight Christian male friends have been very naughty with their "dates" via the site on many occasions, if you know what I mean), was sued by a gay man this time, demanding that the business match him up with a same-sex partner. According to reports, eHarmony agreed not only to offer same-sex dating services on its new sister site, but also to offer six-month subscriptions for free to 10,000 gay users.
This is not the first LGBT member to have sued eHarmony. A lesbian sued it last year, (see my story below) demanding the same thing. The much-maligned Pasadena-based dating website, has finally agreed in a civil rights settlement to give up its heterosexuals-only policy and offer same-sex matches. Neil Clark Warren, the founder, will implement the new policy by March 31 but also give the first 10,000 same-sex registrants a free six-month subscription. The settlement, which did not find that EHarmony broke any laws, calls for the company to either offer the gay matches on its current venue or create a new site for them. EHarmony has opted to create Compatiblepartners.net.
Below, my previous article, via www.edgenewyork.com:
Lesbian’s eHarmony Lawsuit Stirs Passions on Both Sides
by Ambrose Aban
EDGE Contributor
Thursday Jun 21, 2007
It all started with a lesbian in San Francisco, Linda Carlson, who tried to post a personal ad on eHarmony.com, a popular dating site. She was apparently hoping to find love, but she ended up only getting her ad rejected. Her recent lawsuit has gotten bloggers, pundits and gay rights groups weighing in with a broad range of opinion.
eHarmony, a straight dating site, has long rattled the LGBT community by refusing to men-seeking-men and women-seeking-women options on its site. eHarmony’s 12 million members, see it as playing to its own niche market: straight Christian singles (although not exclusively religious).
Dale Carpenter, Julius E. Davis professor of law at the University of Minnesota Law School, believes that the lawsuit has merit and a chance of success. "Since I’m not an expert in California law I do not know how high its chances are," says Carpenter, who contributes to Independent Gay Forum. "If this suit is successful then, yes, in California it would seem they must."
California has an anti-discrimination law that includes sexual orientation. The lawsuit is being argued on the merits of that law. It is one in a series of similar lawsuits testing the limits of gender and sexual-orientation exclusion, here and in Canada.
Just as Carlson began her lawsuit, a Montreal man filed a human-rights complaint against Curves, a U.S.-based chain of women-only fitness clubs on the grounds he was denied membership. The case comes after a Montreal woman filed a sexual discrimination complaint after being evicted from Le Stud, a men-only bar in the city’s gay district. And a gay couple filed a lawsuit against Adoption.com for not allowing them to adopt kids based on sexual orientation.
Brian Chase, a counsel for Lambda Legal, says California law protects LGBT people from discrimination by places of public accommodation. "The court will have to determine whether or not eHarmony’s policies are discriminatory and, if they are, whether or not e-Harmony has a legal defense that would excuse their discrimination," he says. "Cases involving disputes in cyberspace get a lot of attention because it’s a new area of law. The disputes can be quite contentious in part because the rules haven’t been clarified yet."
Some bloggers have been agreeing with the lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court. A new site, Chemistry.com, has been ridiculing eHarmony and is pointedly offering gay and lesbian entries. The brouhaha began last month after Barry Diller’s Chemistry started running television and print ads taking on the eHarmony’s gay ban. "Chemistry is not backing down from eHarmony’s threats," says Queerty, a gay blog.
"Discrimination sure is convenient, huh?," a senior blogger at Queerty writes. "It certainly is for Chemistry advertising agents, who concocted the aforementioned ads to prove their gay worth. In addition, they are certainly getting in the thick of the gays this and next weekend: the company has booked two ads in New York fag rag, Next Magazine. "Something tells us eHarmony hasn’t booked any space in the weekly’s pages. Perhaps they are too busy fending off Carlson’s discrimination lawsuit." Will eHarmony’s anti-gay tenacity take them down? We fucking hope so," the blogger stresses.
But eHarmony members believe it is wrong to force it to change its business policy for a lesbian’s convenience. eHarmony’s owners insist they do not discriminate against gays because they disapprove of them, but because their psychological tests are not calibrated for the queer mind. And because the site is a niche site with its own unique niche market--millions of straight Christian singles--its unique selling point (USP) is its scientific matching system. Then there’s the whole no-gay-marriage aspect: eHarmony boasts its marriage-oriented goals.
Loyal eHarmony members are responding by calling out gay bloggers and their readers. "The LGBT community and all the new sites out there should learn from eHarmony’s phenomenal success and adopt its winning strategies instead, and not simply introducing a new site just to ridicule eHarmony, " a fan of eHarmony, Tim Geller, 44, a self-described single Christian, has written.
"There is a reason why it is a niche site with its own niche market, " a member of eHarmony wrote. "Site owners and gay bloggers must be responsible and must not take revenge. Chemistry must do it genuinely for the LGBT community with good intention and not with a mission to destroy the site or take its business or members away. That is revenge if you asked me. And revenge is no good to anyone."
eHarmony appears to be highly successful as a serious dating site. It is not a "hookup" site pretending to be a dating site, where it closes one eye and allows members and visitors to find their own matches by using photographs. Controlling the online crowd is no easy task for dating sites. eHarmony differentiates itself from other sites that allow members to find their own matches using pictures. Besides, the owners maintain that changes aren’t very "sticky" for its users. Abstaining from sex is part of eHarmony’s Christian ethos.
"The research that eHarmony has developed, through years of research, to match couples has been based on traits and personality patterns of successful heterosexual marriages," went an eHarmony statement. "Nothing precludes us from providing same-sex matching in the future, it’s just not a service we offer now based upon the research we have conducted."
"Successful sites do create sex culture and self-exploration for love or money," Geller says. "Or in many cases, for the heck of it. We are not sure whether it is a good or a bad thing to allow men and women seeking each on the Internet like letting them look for a used daybed on Craigslist’s garage sales. For us, this is still new--a new way to find love, a complex issue, a complicated modern 21st century online tradition."
"eHarmony pleases its target market and pleases it all the way. What is so wrong about that?" asked a lesbian radio talk show host recently. "eHarmony should be respected and left alone as a site specializing in matching straight singles--men and women seeking each other with intentions to fall in love-not looking ’looking for now when online’ like most LGBT sites-get married and start a family."
Audacia Ray, author of "Naked on the Internet," adds, "I think constantly about what online culture is worth to lesbians, particularly what they’re making and participating in. User-generated content is shifting culture in a major way."
"As a single woman seeking a single man, I do not want to stumble upon a lesbian on my dating site, purposely or by accident," wrote an eHarmony user. "As it is, it is a long shot at finding compatibility on line, so I really appreciate eHarmony for connecting me with the right matches. I am not anti-lesbian, but for the love of God, I do not want to tell lesbians to fuck off for cordially or accidentally contacting me."
’As a single woman seeking a single man, I do not want to stumble upon a lesbian on my dating site, purposely or by accident.’But do lawsuits like this eventually help or hurt the long-term goals of equal rights?
"Lawsuits like Carlson’s ultimately will not help the long-term goals of equal rights, and in fact they may hurt if people think that gays are trying to force antidiscrimination into every aspect of life, no matter how trivial and personal the underlying issue is," Carpenter says.
In fact, some members of popular lesbian dating sites, such as Lesbotronic.com, wonder what got into Carlson’s head when she tried to place an ad on a Christian, straight site like eHarmony.
"You don’t go around and sue everyone for not including your ’needs’ in their sites," wrote one eHarmony member. "That is not right. And you don’t go around push the boundaries and expect to have your cake and eat it too. And there are so many LGBT-based sites that lesbians can use socially, casually or seriously to find their matches. I would never use a lesbian dating site like Lesbostronic to find straight men and would never sue the site for not catering to me unless they reject my online job application".
There’s also the question of whether Carlson’s suit will force gay sites to open to heterosexuals.
"I have always been angered by eHarmony’s straight-only policy, which implies that gays and lesbians are not interested in long-term committed relationships (which is what eHarmony promotes). I hope LGBT wins through Carlson," says a gay activist in New York City. "I think they should allow gays and lesbians to look for partners there. The only reason they don’t is that they’re run by a right-wing fundamentalist Christian. As to gay sites allowing straights: sure, but I don’t think there will be much of a demand."
A Yahoo Personals executive agrees that the site is successful with its one-way policy compared with other dating sites "because, unlike Craigslist, it is not anonymous where people can post ads for just about anything. For example, if I wanted another lesbian to come over and piss on me and let me spank her while we clean up, I couldn’t with eHarmony." A male member of Craigslist, who is not a fan of eHarmony or Carlson, says that most members of the site are members of "dirty sites" too, so there is no point in believing that there is only one site that is "pure and holy".
Carlson’s lawyer Todd Schneider was reported as saying that the lawsuit was "about changing the landscape and making a statement out there that gay people, just like heterosexuals, have the right and desire to meet other people with whom they can fall in love." The lawyers expect a significant number of gays and lesbians to join as a class action.
Blogger Janet Folger advises eHarmony to "stand strong for your freedom of conscience or you’ll invite a whole new batch of lawsuits from the Mary Kay LeTerneau’s of the world, because there’s no ’teachers seeking students’ category, the Pete the Pedophiles for age discrimination (no ’men seeking children"’ category), the Chris the Cross Dresser because there’s no category for cross dressers (and whatever they seek) leading people on-line to believe that he’s just a very ugly woman."
Carpenter, who also wrote about this lawsuit on Independent Gay Forum, says the dating service matches people based on a very long list of questions they answer about their likes and dislikes, lifestyle, philosophy, religious and political views, and so on. "That’s part-for-the-course with these services, but this one adds a twist. Unlike almost every other dating site, it will not match people with members of the same sex," he wrote. "This upset the lesbian, claiming that this practice amounted to illegal anti-gay discrimination under state law. While eHarmony’s practice is indefensible and likely bigoted, the lawsuit trivializes the serious phenomenon of anti-gay discrimination. I support antidiscrimination laws that prohibit certain types of group-based discrimination by government, including discrimination based on sexual orientation. I also support extending these principles to the private sphere on important matters like employment and housing, with some limitations and exemptions."
Many lawyers, however, are dubious that eHarmony’s questions and answers are based on research tailored to heterosexuals that may not fit well for homosexuals. The dynamics of gay and straight relationships are very similar if not identical: the same sorts of problems arise (e.g., financial, division of labor, differences over child rearing), the same traits are desired in mates (e.g., honesty), and so on. Given that eHarmony’s founder is a Christian evangelical with longstanding ties to James Dobson and the anti-gay group Focus on the Family, the real objection is probably that eHarmony does not want to facilitate what it regards as immoral and unbiblical relationships.
But regardless of whether it is viable under California law, is the suit against eHarmony an example of a frivolous use of an important legal protection?
Carpenter believes that, indeed, Carlson’s suit "allows some opponents of antidiscrimination law to point with some justification to excesses as evidence that the underlying idea is bad. It also allows anti-gay activists to belittle claims that gays are subject to serious and ongoing discrimination that should be remedied in law," he says. "The claim against eHarmony forgets the four most important words in public policy: up to a point. That point is passed when we make trivial and harmless discrimination, however dumb or prejudiced it is, a matter of legal concern."
Ray adds, that "the social and internet-social significance of it" points to niches, which "are increasingly important in online social networking. Sites like Lesbotronic.com and STDSingles.com create an online safe space for people who identify as lesbians or who have sexually transmitted diseases, respectively. However, smaller sites do not offer the same incredible variety of functions that a big site with many Web developers behind it has."
Match.com, for example, allows gays and lesbians to use the site (though Ray says it discriminates against bisexuals, because you can’t say that you are looking for both a man and a woman). And that doesn’t detract from the overall functioning of the site. "There is really no good reason for eHarmony to exclude an entire population based on their sexuality," Ray adds, "allowing men to search for men and women to search for women wouldn’t require a whole new compatibility test on eHarmony. Many gay men and women are searching for the same things that straight people are searching for, and by excluding them, eHarmony is treating gays as entirely different kinds of people. A lesbian might want to use eHarmony to have access to their personality profile, which is a pretty unique feature of the site. Because the site is full of straight women, she might not find many promising matches, but it[’s better to for people to have the option of exploring rather than being told by a site that their business isn’t welcome.
A former prosecutor and a full time soccer mom in Brooklyn, N.Y., has written that Carlson might have a case. "California has no-fault divorce, abolished its heart balm torts, and decriminalized adultery. Therefore, there is no legal reason why a service could not enable adulterers, either technical or actual. eHarmony’s preferences, and even its market research, must bow to California law," she explains
A female member of Singlesnet.com disagrees. "I like the fact they do not allow married men and married women to join the site," she writes. "It’s unfair to everyone in the situation--the cheating spouse, the cheating spouse’s family, and the potential date (if unaware).’
Most recently, eHarmony has said that its research to match couples has been based on traits and personality patterns of successful heterosexual marriages is a genuine hard work and not used to discriminate the LGBT community. Nothing precludes it from providing same-sex matching in the future, it is just not a service it offers now based upon the research it has conducted.
Caught between the moon and New York City which he calls home since 2000, Ambrose Aban wrote for Malaysia, Singapore and Bangkok Tatler, reviewed restaurants and wrote special ad supplement, "Christopher Street", for HX Magazine New York, contributed to leading English dailies in Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore. Ambrose loves giving up the secrets of everything from where to find the most delicious Orange Glazed Peking Duck to how to prepare extravagant chic soirees in the city.
I wrote about this months ago on www.edgenewyork.com and have received so many emails from the LGBT community, expressing their strong p.o.v on this issue (see my story below)
This Christian-targeted dating site (though not very Jesus-like as many of my straight Christian male friends have been very naughty with their "dates" via the site on many occasions, if you know what I mean), was sued by a gay man this time, demanding that the business match him up with a same-sex partner. According to reports, eHarmony agreed not only to offer same-sex dating services on its new sister site, but also to offer six-month subscriptions for free to 10,000 gay users.
This is not the first LGBT member to have sued eHarmony. A lesbian sued it last year, (see my story below) demanding the same thing. The much-maligned Pasadena-based dating website, has finally agreed in a civil rights settlement to give up its heterosexuals-only policy and offer same-sex matches. Neil Clark Warren, the founder, will implement the new policy by March 31 but also give the first 10,000 same-sex registrants a free six-month subscription. The settlement, which did not find that EHarmony broke any laws, calls for the company to either offer the gay matches on its current venue or create a new site for them. EHarmony has opted to create Compatiblepartners.net.
Below, my previous article, via www.edgenewyork.com:
Lesbian’s eHarmony Lawsuit Stirs Passions on Both Sides
by Ambrose Aban
EDGE Contributor
Thursday Jun 21, 2007
It all started with a lesbian in San Francisco, Linda Carlson, who tried to post a personal ad on eHarmony.com, a popular dating site. She was apparently hoping to find love, but she ended up only getting her ad rejected. Her recent lawsuit has gotten bloggers, pundits and gay rights groups weighing in with a broad range of opinion.
eHarmony, a straight dating site, has long rattled the LGBT community by refusing to men-seeking-men and women-seeking-women options on its site. eHarmony’s 12 million members, see it as playing to its own niche market: straight Christian singles (although not exclusively religious).
Dale Carpenter, Julius E. Davis professor of law at the University of Minnesota Law School, believes that the lawsuit has merit and a chance of success. "Since I’m not an expert in California law I do not know how high its chances are," says Carpenter, who contributes to Independent Gay Forum. "If this suit is successful then, yes, in California it would seem they must."
California has an anti-discrimination law that includes sexual orientation. The lawsuit is being argued on the merits of that law. It is one in a series of similar lawsuits testing the limits of gender and sexual-orientation exclusion, here and in Canada.
Just as Carlson began her lawsuit, a Montreal man filed a human-rights complaint against Curves, a U.S.-based chain of women-only fitness clubs on the grounds he was denied membership. The case comes after a Montreal woman filed a sexual discrimination complaint after being evicted from Le Stud, a men-only bar in the city’s gay district. And a gay couple filed a lawsuit against Adoption.com for not allowing them to adopt kids based on sexual orientation.
Brian Chase, a counsel for Lambda Legal, says California law protects LGBT people from discrimination by places of public accommodation. "The court will have to determine whether or not eHarmony’s policies are discriminatory and, if they are, whether or not e-Harmony has a legal defense that would excuse their discrimination," he says. "Cases involving disputes in cyberspace get a lot of attention because it’s a new area of law. The disputes can be quite contentious in part because the rules haven’t been clarified yet."
Some bloggers have been agreeing with the lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court. A new site, Chemistry.com, has been ridiculing eHarmony and is pointedly offering gay and lesbian entries. The brouhaha began last month after Barry Diller’s Chemistry started running television and print ads taking on the eHarmony’s gay ban. "Chemistry is not backing down from eHarmony’s threats," says Queerty, a gay blog.
"Discrimination sure is convenient, huh?," a senior blogger at Queerty writes. "It certainly is for Chemistry advertising agents, who concocted the aforementioned ads to prove their gay worth. In addition, they are certainly getting in the thick of the gays this and next weekend: the company has booked two ads in New York fag rag, Next Magazine. "Something tells us eHarmony hasn’t booked any space in the weekly’s pages. Perhaps they are too busy fending off Carlson’s discrimination lawsuit." Will eHarmony’s anti-gay tenacity take them down? We fucking hope so," the blogger stresses.
But eHarmony members believe it is wrong to force it to change its business policy for a lesbian’s convenience. eHarmony’s owners insist they do not discriminate against gays because they disapprove of them, but because their psychological tests are not calibrated for the queer mind. And because the site is a niche site with its own unique niche market--millions of straight Christian singles--its unique selling point (USP) is its scientific matching system. Then there’s the whole no-gay-marriage aspect: eHarmony boasts its marriage-oriented goals.
Loyal eHarmony members are responding by calling out gay bloggers and their readers. "The LGBT community and all the new sites out there should learn from eHarmony’s phenomenal success and adopt its winning strategies instead, and not simply introducing a new site just to ridicule eHarmony, " a fan of eHarmony, Tim Geller, 44, a self-described single Christian, has written.
"There is a reason why it is a niche site with its own niche market, " a member of eHarmony wrote. "Site owners and gay bloggers must be responsible and must not take revenge. Chemistry must do it genuinely for the LGBT community with good intention and not with a mission to destroy the site or take its business or members away. That is revenge if you asked me. And revenge is no good to anyone."
eHarmony appears to be highly successful as a serious dating site. It is not a "hookup" site pretending to be a dating site, where it closes one eye and allows members and visitors to find their own matches by using photographs. Controlling the online crowd is no easy task for dating sites. eHarmony differentiates itself from other sites that allow members to find their own matches using pictures. Besides, the owners maintain that changes aren’t very "sticky" for its users. Abstaining from sex is part of eHarmony’s Christian ethos.
"The research that eHarmony has developed, through years of research, to match couples has been based on traits and personality patterns of successful heterosexual marriages," went an eHarmony statement. "Nothing precludes us from providing same-sex matching in the future, it’s just not a service we offer now based upon the research we have conducted."
"Successful sites do create sex culture and self-exploration for love or money," Geller says. "Or in many cases, for the heck of it. We are not sure whether it is a good or a bad thing to allow men and women seeking each on the Internet like letting them look for a used daybed on Craigslist’s garage sales. For us, this is still new--a new way to find love, a complex issue, a complicated modern 21st century online tradition."
"eHarmony pleases its target market and pleases it all the way. What is so wrong about that?" asked a lesbian radio talk show host recently. "eHarmony should be respected and left alone as a site specializing in matching straight singles--men and women seeking each other with intentions to fall in love-not looking ’looking for now when online’ like most LGBT sites-get married and start a family."
Audacia Ray, author of "Naked on the Internet," adds, "I think constantly about what online culture is worth to lesbians, particularly what they’re making and participating in. User-generated content is shifting culture in a major way."
"As a single woman seeking a single man, I do not want to stumble upon a lesbian on my dating site, purposely or by accident," wrote an eHarmony user. "As it is, it is a long shot at finding compatibility on line, so I really appreciate eHarmony for connecting me with the right matches. I am not anti-lesbian, but for the love of God, I do not want to tell lesbians to fuck off for cordially or accidentally contacting me."
’As a single woman seeking a single man, I do not want to stumble upon a lesbian on my dating site, purposely or by accident.’But do lawsuits like this eventually help or hurt the long-term goals of equal rights?
"Lawsuits like Carlson’s ultimately will not help the long-term goals of equal rights, and in fact they may hurt if people think that gays are trying to force antidiscrimination into every aspect of life, no matter how trivial and personal the underlying issue is," Carpenter says.
In fact, some members of popular lesbian dating sites, such as Lesbotronic.com, wonder what got into Carlson’s head when she tried to place an ad on a Christian, straight site like eHarmony.
"You don’t go around and sue everyone for not including your ’needs’ in their sites," wrote one eHarmony member. "That is not right. And you don’t go around push the boundaries and expect to have your cake and eat it too. And there are so many LGBT-based sites that lesbians can use socially, casually or seriously to find their matches. I would never use a lesbian dating site like Lesbostronic to find straight men and would never sue the site for not catering to me unless they reject my online job application".
There’s also the question of whether Carlson’s suit will force gay sites to open to heterosexuals.
"I have always been angered by eHarmony’s straight-only policy, which implies that gays and lesbians are not interested in long-term committed relationships (which is what eHarmony promotes). I hope LGBT wins through Carlson," says a gay activist in New York City. "I think they should allow gays and lesbians to look for partners there. The only reason they don’t is that they’re run by a right-wing fundamentalist Christian. As to gay sites allowing straights: sure, but I don’t think there will be much of a demand."
A Yahoo Personals executive agrees that the site is successful with its one-way policy compared with other dating sites "because, unlike Craigslist, it is not anonymous where people can post ads for just about anything. For example, if I wanted another lesbian to come over and piss on me and let me spank her while we clean up, I couldn’t with eHarmony." A male member of Craigslist, who is not a fan of eHarmony or Carlson, says that most members of the site are members of "dirty sites" too, so there is no point in believing that there is only one site that is "pure and holy".
Carlson’s lawyer Todd Schneider was reported as saying that the lawsuit was "about changing the landscape and making a statement out there that gay people, just like heterosexuals, have the right and desire to meet other people with whom they can fall in love." The lawyers expect a significant number of gays and lesbians to join as a class action.
Blogger Janet Folger advises eHarmony to "stand strong for your freedom of conscience or you’ll invite a whole new batch of lawsuits from the Mary Kay LeTerneau’s of the world, because there’s no ’teachers seeking students’ category, the Pete the Pedophiles for age discrimination (no ’men seeking children"’ category), the Chris the Cross Dresser because there’s no category for cross dressers (and whatever they seek) leading people on-line to believe that he’s just a very ugly woman."
Carpenter, who also wrote about this lawsuit on Independent Gay Forum, says the dating service matches people based on a very long list of questions they answer about their likes and dislikes, lifestyle, philosophy, religious and political views, and so on. "That’s part-for-the-course with these services, but this one adds a twist. Unlike almost every other dating site, it will not match people with members of the same sex," he wrote. "This upset the lesbian, claiming that this practice amounted to illegal anti-gay discrimination under state law. While eHarmony’s practice is indefensible and likely bigoted, the lawsuit trivializes the serious phenomenon of anti-gay discrimination. I support antidiscrimination laws that prohibit certain types of group-based discrimination by government, including discrimination based on sexual orientation. I also support extending these principles to the private sphere on important matters like employment and housing, with some limitations and exemptions."
Many lawyers, however, are dubious that eHarmony’s questions and answers are based on research tailored to heterosexuals that may not fit well for homosexuals. The dynamics of gay and straight relationships are very similar if not identical: the same sorts of problems arise (e.g., financial, division of labor, differences over child rearing), the same traits are desired in mates (e.g., honesty), and so on. Given that eHarmony’s founder is a Christian evangelical with longstanding ties to James Dobson and the anti-gay group Focus on the Family, the real objection is probably that eHarmony does not want to facilitate what it regards as immoral and unbiblical relationships.
But regardless of whether it is viable under California law, is the suit against eHarmony an example of a frivolous use of an important legal protection?
Carpenter believes that, indeed, Carlson’s suit "allows some opponents of antidiscrimination law to point with some justification to excesses as evidence that the underlying idea is bad. It also allows anti-gay activists to belittle claims that gays are subject to serious and ongoing discrimination that should be remedied in law," he says. "The claim against eHarmony forgets the four most important words in public policy: up to a point. That point is passed when we make trivial and harmless discrimination, however dumb or prejudiced it is, a matter of legal concern."
Ray adds, that "the social and internet-social significance of it" points to niches, which "are increasingly important in online social networking. Sites like Lesbotronic.com and STDSingles.com create an online safe space for people who identify as lesbians or who have sexually transmitted diseases, respectively. However, smaller sites do not offer the same incredible variety of functions that a big site with many Web developers behind it has."
Match.com, for example, allows gays and lesbians to use the site (though Ray says it discriminates against bisexuals, because you can’t say that you are looking for both a man and a woman). And that doesn’t detract from the overall functioning of the site. "There is really no good reason for eHarmony to exclude an entire population based on their sexuality," Ray adds, "allowing men to search for men and women to search for women wouldn’t require a whole new compatibility test on eHarmony. Many gay men and women are searching for the same things that straight people are searching for, and by excluding them, eHarmony is treating gays as entirely different kinds of people. A lesbian might want to use eHarmony to have access to their personality profile, which is a pretty unique feature of the site. Because the site is full of straight women, she might not find many promising matches, but it[’s better to for people to have the option of exploring rather than being told by a site that their business isn’t welcome.
A former prosecutor and a full time soccer mom in Brooklyn, N.Y., has written that Carlson might have a case. "California has no-fault divorce, abolished its heart balm torts, and decriminalized adultery. Therefore, there is no legal reason why a service could not enable adulterers, either technical or actual. eHarmony’s preferences, and even its market research, must bow to California law," she explains
A female member of Singlesnet.com disagrees. "I like the fact they do not allow married men and married women to join the site," she writes. "It’s unfair to everyone in the situation--the cheating spouse, the cheating spouse’s family, and the potential date (if unaware).’
Most recently, eHarmony has said that its research to match couples has been based on traits and personality patterns of successful heterosexual marriages is a genuine hard work and not used to discriminate the LGBT community. Nothing precludes it from providing same-sex matching in the future, it is just not a service it offers now based upon the research it has conducted.
Caught between the moon and New York City which he calls home since 2000, Ambrose Aban wrote for Malaysia, Singapore and Bangkok Tatler, reviewed restaurants and wrote special ad supplement, "Christopher Street", for HX Magazine New York, contributed to leading English dailies in Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore. Ambrose loves giving up the secrets of everything from where to find the most delicious Orange Glazed Peking Duck to how to prepare extravagant chic soirees in the city.
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