One thing that always bothered me about giving my money to eHarmony for a subscription was that it refused to match gays and lesbians. But that era is now SO OVER, thanks to New Jersey resident Eric McKinley and New Jersey's Civil Rights Division! As the Associated Press article, "eHarmony Agrees to Provide Same-Sex Matches" (http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-eHarmony-Gays.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss) explains, when McKinley tried to join eHarmony in 2005, he couldn't get past the first screen because "men seeking men" wasn't listed as an option. He filed a complaint against eHarmony with New Jersey's Division on Civil Rights (part of the state's attorney general's office) -- and eHarmony has finally agreed to settle! As this longer L.A. Times article by David Colker (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-eharmony20-2008nov20,0,1772906.story) states, not only will eHarmony launch a new same-sex matching site called Compatible Partners (http://www.compatiblepartners.net/) by March 31, 2009, they "also must give the first 10,000 same-sex registrants a free six-month subscription. 'That was one of the things I asked for,' said Eric McKinley."
The Associated Press article also says eHarmony has been the target of lawsuits before, including others who alleged discrimination against gays and lesbians. In addition, it says that a California man "sued eHarmony in 2005 for refusing to help him find a date. The company said there was one good reason for that: He was still married. That case was dropped on the eve of trial."
Ha! Can you imagine being married to THAT guy? "Honey, I've decided to sue eHarmony because they won't let me find a mistress." Talk about nerve!
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5 comments:
Jeez...sorry, but this is just stupid. What a sad society where everyone just sues everyone for everything. I'm sure there are plenty of ways for gay people to meet each other online. Does everything have to be so PC? Someone puts in an investment and builds a company, and the vultures have to circle around and sue at the first chance they get.
So why should we discriminate against the guy who wanted a mistress then? What about people who think happiness is a warm puppy? You're thinking that's ridiculous. But who's to decide what ridiculous and what's not? How about this: if eHarmony doesn't set up dates for gays, then instead of suing them, go be creative and set up a site specifically for gay people. Maybe we'd all be better off if everyone was a little more clever and enterprising than trying to force their opinions on everyone else.
If eHarmony had refused to match, say, black people, or people with disabilities, or some other minority group, would you feel the same way?
As a matter of fact, yes, I would feel the same way. I'm not saying that I'd think they were good people, or that I would personally support their decision to exclude groups, but I would support the position in my last post.
I'm Jewish. Let's say eHarmony wouldn't match Jews. Shame on them. But I wouldn't sue them - that's their thing. I would go join JDate or Match or some other site that was more tolerant. If there wasn't a viable option, I would start my own - I'd gather like-minded people, find funding, and build my own site. And hopefully, enough people would find eHarmony's intolerant decisions reprehensible enough that they would leave and join my site or some other site, forcing them to change policy through COMPETITIVE PRESSURE. NOT through the court system (caps for emphasis - not raising my voice).
I haven't seen an uprising of people against gaysingles.com, or blacksingles.com or deafsinglesconnection.com - I'm straight, white and can hear just fine, and I don't find it offensive in the least that they have their own sites to find people within their own community, without having their sites muddied by people outside of that community.
In this case, eHarmony is being targeted because they are successful. If they were less successful, less in the public, there would be no law suit. But unfortunately, we're becoming a nation of spoiled brats that just looks to take away from anybody bold enough to take a risk and start a successful venture, if (heaven forbid), our feelings get slightly bruised....so we take to the courts rather than our own ingenuity.
My beef with eHarmony is not their original reluctance to match gay couples, as they are upfront about their mission to promote marriage, but rather the much more insidious attractiveness discrimination. Perhaps it's apocryphal, yes it's become almost knowledge the eHarmony's staff assigns attractiveness tags to photos and matches persons of similar levels of handsomeness.
By the way, I also agree with anonymous. Are Christians suing jdate for discrimination?
I've never heard anything about eHarmony matching people based on attractiveness! I feel like that can't be true -- how would they have time? I've been matched to such a range of guys, attractive-ness wise, on eHarmony that I can't believe it's true. (Or maybe I just don't want to believe it, considering some of the scary photos I've seen! ;)
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