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1. Whoah, back up Chris. See, this was my point earlier. You are assuming that same sex coupling is a "specialty" service. No it isn't. The criteria to match partners is not so specialized as to be completely different for hets and homos.

   When you take hundreds of criteria that people look for in a mate, same gender is but ONE of the criteria. What about the rest? This argument that E-Harmony isn't equipped to provide matching service for gays is laughable.

   Posted by: mark m | Jun 1, 2007 2:45:32 PM

   
   

2. I disagree. I dont believe that gay men are looking for the same things in men, as women are, or that lesbians are looking for the same types as women as straight men. Or do "women seeking men" personal ads have places to mark "top/bottom" on them now?

   Posted by: Chris | Jun 1, 2007 2:49:05 PM

   
   

3. Also, where is the straight personals section on gay.com?

   Posted by: Chris | Jun 1, 2007 2:50:28 PM

   
   

4. Chris, black women may want slightly different things in their men than white women do. By your logic, eHarmony should be able to bar blacks if their research happened to only be on whites.

   Posted by: Anon | Jun 1, 2007 2:58:28 PM

   
   

5. You're correct in saying that gay men are not looking for exactly the same qualities in a man as a straight woman. But one straight man may seek different qualities in a woman than the next straight man. How do you account for these differences?

   You don't use one model to match all men with women, thus you wouldn't be restricted to using the model of women seeking men to apply to gay men.

   I'm not arguing for the sake of this law suit. I take specific issue with the owner and founder's logic. His response to NPR's Terry Gross was that he isn't gay, so he can't provide a service to match them. But what makes him an expert for finding what women want?

   It's a copout. We know exactly why they don't offer the service, but they won't admit it.

   Posted by: mark m | Jun 1, 2007 2:59:36 PM

   
   

6. Chris - gay.com doesn't bar straights. Straights may not want to post there, but they aren't excluded. You're really grasping at straws.

   Posted by: Anon | Jun 1, 2007 3:01:46 PM

   
   

7. To: Zeke
   From Wikipedia.org:
   Artificial insemination (AI) is when sperm is placed into a female's uterus (intrauterine), or cervix (intracervical) using artificial means rather than by natural copulation.

   That's all I have to say regarding your previous post.

   Posted by: Stephen | Jun 1, 2007 3:07:28 PM

   
   

8. I think Chris said it well (and succinctly) by asking where is the straight section on Gay.com

   Frankly, I don't care if it's a sham or not about eHarmony's reason for not offering the service to gay people. The basics of dating may be the same, but I have to agree Chris on his point about the sexual preferences. Not every gay man is versatile. So unless a woman likes anal sex, top vs. bottom is not really a consideration between heterosexuals. So there's a pretty significant difference right there.

   Further, if you look at the other complaints floating around about eHarmony, you will see that they have a habit of rejecting straight people as well based on their profile answers. Does it seem silly? Sure. But so what? They have their scheme and they have obviously designed it to maximize the potential of success by excluding people they don't think will be well-matched to others. And that happens to include gay men and women.

   The dry cleaner analogy didn't work for some. So here's a different perspective (that's on the subject of discrimination):

   A man visits an attorney because he was fired from a job because he is gay. The attorney hears his story but says "I'm not going to take your case because I specialize in gender and family status cases...I don't know much about sexual orientation cases...you should really seek an attorney that has more experience with your situation."

   IS it a perfect analogy? No, but food for thought nonetheless.

   Is discrimination pretty much the same on the basic level? Sure. But there are some nuances that could make a big difference. And that is why I have no objection to their claim about not having the research on gay relationships. It MIGHT be bullshit, but does it really matter if you consider what difference it would make it they just said they didn't like gay people?

   An important question to ask is, do I really want to force someone to do business with me that doesn't want to because of silly "religious and moral" beliefs?

   Discrimination sucks...it's wrong. But like it or not, they DO have a plausible reason. And if they really don't want to do business with me, then I don't want to do business with them. I'm happy knowing that my money isn't lining the pockets of bigots.

   Frankly, I think this kind of case makes us look like the whiny sissies homophobes say we are. I'm personally more disgusted by the actions of that asshole with TB that decided to take a little world tour and risk the health of others when he knew he shouldn't have.

   Not THAT is disgusting and selfish behavior which is worthy of a lawsuit.

   Posted by: Patrick W. | Jun 1, 2007 3:43:46 PM

   
   

9. The most fundamental complaint against eharmony would be if their "matching" algorithm had a high failure rate. Then they can be sued for several causes: fraud, misrepresentation, neglect, etc. They are very vulnerable on that point alone. So, if she wins her case but still can't find the love of her life, can she sue again??

   Posted by: anon (gmail.com) | Jun 1, 2007 4:30:40 PM

   
   

10. Oh thank you, thank you, thank you Stephen for explaining AI to me. Without your brilliance I never would have known how my son was conceived.

    Now explain to me again why he doesn't deserve married parents and explain to me again how unnatural my son and my family are.

    You are still an idiot.

    Posted by: Zeke | Jun 1, 2007 4:49:03 PM

    
    

11. I'm with Cory. I tried eHarmony a couple of years ago when they first started advertising. At that time they didn't have a "man seeking man" option, they just asked if I was male and then apparently assumed I was seeking a woman. However, one question specifically asked me how attracted I was to the opposite sex and gave me a scale to rate my answer-0 to 10, I think.

    I rated myself a 1 and after another 45 minutes of filling out their forms was told that I matched NO ONE on their entire site. I wondered at the time if it was the gay thing or if some of my other answers had branded me a psychopath not deserving of love. It was, at least for a moment, kind of traumatic. At no time was I informed that they didn't match gays and I felt confused and that I had wasted a LOT of time.

    To see the chemistry.com ad years later brought up those feelings of rejection and helped me close of little door of doubt that had eHarmony had opened. It wasn't just me!

    If the woman filing the lawsuit has been working off of feelings like that, the suit makes sense to me. I don't believe she wants to give this reprehensible service her money. I would suspect that she wants eHarmony's idiocy brought to light. I had no idea of the site's evangelical bent until now either.

    If anyone knows how to contact the class action suit, please post. I'll sign up in a minute if it would force eHarmony to run TV ads admitting their prejudices and religious affiliations.

    Posted by: PrFodorski | Jun 1, 2007 5:11:53 PM

    
    

12. Geez, lots of defenders of the James Dobson-linked eHarmony on here. Weird and depressing.

    Anyway, the bottom line is that eHarmony may be in violation of California law: http://pageoneq.com/news/2006/eh060107.html
    

    Posted by: JOHN IN MANHATTAN | Jun 1, 2007 5:21:05 PM

    
    

13. Thats the thing about Eharmony. It does use one model to match all women and men. Its not like normal dating services where you fill out a profle yourself. With Eharmony, you fill out a preset quiz after you say whether you're a man seeking a woman, or a woman seeking a man, and if i remember correctly, it is pretty gender specific. For gays to use the site, they would have to come up with a whole new quiz. I dont know why they dont simply say that as their reasoning. Just deal with it. You dont expect a survey at a vegetarian restaurant to ask how you like your steak cooked..you shouldnt expect every service in the world to cater to every single type of person.

    Posted by: Chris | Jun 1, 2007 5:23:53 PM

    
    

14. As a straight woman with plenty of gay friends, the minute I heard eHarmony discriminated they were off my list -- and I am an online dating junkie! I just won't ever use them and advise my friends to do the same. This society has become too litigious.

    Posted by: JENNI | Jun 1, 2007 5:32:47 PM

    
    

15. This is absurd.

    Let us assume for the moment that eHarmony has actually done some kind of research, maybe some "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" kind of thing that matches men and women up according to these Cosmopolitan-like Survey points.

    It is relatively easy to see that perhaps they did not develop and were not interested in developing a similar algorithm for gay men and lesbians. Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for small favors, as I'm sure that they would have had "bottoms" register as the "women" and "tops" register as the "men" if current scientific inquiries into homosexuality are any clue. (Did anyone see that episode of 60 minutes? creepy.)

    I think this is a lot closer to why sperm banks discriminate against women sperm donors rather than discrimination in housing. The service being offered goes to the heart of being gay or straight. The real question is how does Hooter's get away with hiring only female wait-staff? (Because the "service" is not "food delivered" but "food delivered by a female with big tits"? I dunno.)

    The very heart of non-discrimination is that sexual orientation doesn't make a difference with respect to doing the work or the service provided but it clearly does with a matching service (not a profile site or a hookup site--manhunt probably fails this test but very few straight men and women are likely to care).

    OTOH, it is very difficult to believe that the whole "Men/Mars;Women/Venus" thing doesn't apply to irrespective of race. So discrimination against blacks would clearly be wrong. Now someone is free to say there are better matching algorithms for blacks. Can that site now discriminate? Well, they should at least warn people that their algorithm is tailored to blacks but what if they don't even provide a race option? I think that would fail discriminatory tests as well.

    It's like these morons who say that Sean Cody (and Blake Mason and Corbin Fisher) discriminates against some customers because all of his "actors" are early 20-something "straight" boys. He is selling a particular service and image. If you want to watch 40-something mixed race porn, make it or live it. Perhaps the market isn't large enough or Sean just doesn't care but he shouldn't be forced to provide porn he doesn't want to make. Or he should be forced to provide straight porn as well (well, straight porn for straight people).

    Diversity doesn't mean everyone is a rainbow...it means all of the colors get along.

    That the guy is a Xian wacko is a good reason to tell your straight friends to not use the service but it has nothing to do with the service per se.

    Posted by: Steve | Jun 1, 2007 5:36:48 PM

    
    

16. I too had noticed that eHarmony didn't have a MAN SEEKING MAN or WOMAN SEEKING WOMAN option to their service, which I thought was strange but it didn't bother me too much. All I did was flag all their promotional emails as SPAM and that was that, since they obviously didn't cater to "my" type. It's like walking into a casual store shopping for tuxedos. Rather than haggle the owner it's better to just leave and go to a store that does carry what you're after. Having said that, after seeing their ads on tv claiming to have such a high success rate it would be nice if they were able to boast the same success with gay and lesbian singles.

    Posted by: Levi | Jun 1, 2007 6:23:57 PM

    
    

17. I'm honestly stunned at the people here defending eHarmony. Hmmmm, I don't know where to begin. I suppose to the individuals who suggested that seeking services from a provider that doesn't specifically provide such services, well, those analogies do not make much sense. EHarmony is a dating service, thus they provide online dating tools for people looking to meet other singles. No where in their advertisements did they specifically state "EHarmony is a Christian based online dating service for heterosexual couples only". This is not statement upfront or in their advertisements as eHarmony certainly knows that violates California law (http://pageoneq.com/news/2006/eh060107.html), where the suit is generated. Further, such a statement would encite negative press.

    Comparing other services, such as someone walking into a law office and being turned away because that particular lawyer doesn't specialize in the law the client is in need of, is preposterous. Comparing different sects of the legal field to different sects of dating is tantamount to comparing apples and oranges. To offer dating services to heterosexual couples only for whatever reasons, is more equivalent to offering services based on race. If you do not want to offer it to the gay community, then state such in your advertisements; be upfront about it. When one makes the comparison of dry cleaning and law specialities to human beings, that degrades the value of humanity by comparing them to dry goods. The fact is eHarmony neglects the homosexuality community based on their founders bias Christian beliefs in "Focus on the Family", thus discriminating against a segment of the population. This is done indirectly through false advertising, as it wasn't until recently that their profiles were tailored to "man seeking woman" and "woman seeking man", but later came after the applicant paid and THEN filled out the info. Pretty interesting debate though... =)

    Posted by: Cory | Jun 1, 2007 7:16:55 PM

    
    

18. THEY NEED A DATING SITE FOR ALL THE FUGLY PEOPLE: I just HATE it when ugly people, fat people, etc. send me their pics online. It is so insulting.....as if I would associate with them much less date them. Don't they ever look in the mirror? Eck.

    Posted by: tonytonytony | Jun 1, 2007 7:19:30 PM

    
    

19. I dont know about that. I tried to sign up with it while I was still in college, and it already had the "man seeking woman" and "woman seeking man" requirements as the very first question, and I graduated in 2004.

    Posted by: Chris | Jun 1, 2007 7:21:28 PM

    
    

20. I agree with TONYTONYTONY all the way!!! There are WAY to many FUGLY guys online these days. They should just go straight home and sit in the dark instead of menacing us with their presence. Eck.

    Posted by: actionjackson | Jun 1, 2007 7:23:00 PM

    
    

21. It is not clear from that article that they have violated CA law, or that the law applies, or that the law is constitutional. There is a first amendment right to free association, despite what many here think.

    Suppose you have a clothes shop. Must you sell both women's and men's clothes? Must you also sell big and tall clothes, children's clothes, maternity clothing and custom tailored outfits for the handicapped? The crux of this issue is the inventory the purveyor must maintain to satisfy the law on one side versus the access any person has to purchase the inventory. The problem for an online dating service is that the inventory and the clients are one and the same! In order for them to exclude inventory they must also exclude clients.

    Now, eHarmony will claim that they offer a dating service that calculates how compatible for marriage a particular women would be for a particular man and vice versa. They are not preventing gay or lesbian men and women from using the service, but that just as a big and tall man may have trouble fitting into a 30/33 size pair of jeans, a gay man might have trouble fitting into the resulting output of their calculations. What advocates here are demanding is that they increase their inventory to satisfy the needs of LGBT people. The advocates are arguing that such an inventory increase is trivial (just add a few buttons on the screen). This would be like a big and tall person going to a custom tailoring shop and being turned away. Why would a custom tailoring shop have any more difficulty fitting a big and tall person rather than a average sized person? The company will argue that a) any inventory is at their discretion and b) it would not be trivial to alter their site (they've already said as much). Both sides would have to find legal precedent to support their case. I believe that both movie houses and airlines have been sued by generously portioned people who have argued that the provided seats are too small, but such cases have not been successful. If so, her case doesn't stand much chance. However, if you can find case law in the other direction, please let us know.

    Posted by: anon (gmail.com) | Jun 1, 2007 8:13:41 PM

    
    

22. Suppose you have a clothes shop. Must you sell both women's and men's clothes?

    -Again, apples and oranges. People are not clothes, and comparing a dating service to selling clothing is faulty logic.

    What if eHarmony stated "We don't offer our dating service to African-American couples as our research doesn't apply to those unions"? Would you still feel the same way? Would the African-American community be accepting of such services? That is a better analogy than comparing homosexuals to clothing.

    Posted by: Cory | Jun 1, 2007 8:21:30 PM

    
    

23. In regards to "finding case law" to suggest a criminal or civil suit, one does not need case precedents to establish a new case. As this is a matter the courts have most likely not ruled on before, perhaps it is time they did and thus establish new case precedents. That is how laws are established. If every case were solely dependant upon previous cases, suits would never have any merit. Case precedents merely help prove merit, not justify it.

    Again, comparing homosexuals to clothing and dating services to tailoring shops is apples and oranges. The use of a better analogy, for example denying services based to race, is more fitting in this situation...
    

    Posted by: Cory | Jun 1, 2007 8:27:02 PM

    
    

24. Cory: Blah

    Anon (Gmail.com): Blah Blah.

    Cory: Blah Blah Blah.

    Eck.

    Posted by: tonytonytony | Jun 1, 2007 10:29:57 PM

    
    

25. TONYTONYTONY:

    This is a comments section for discussion. I'm sorry this debate is a nuisance to you, but if you really don't care for it then don't read it and insult the people who are leaving comments. That's like walking into a political debate and complaining that everyone's talking too much.

    (FYI It's "Tony Toni Tone" not "TONY TONY TONY", assuming you were referencing the old 80's musical group)

    Posted by: Cory | Jun 1, 2007 10:51:11 PM

    
    
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