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suit forces eharmony to offer gay dating service

Published Nov 20, 2008
Views: 106

Suit forces eHarmony to offer gay dating serviceWed Nov 19, 3:33 pm ET

 

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Online dating service eHarmony has agreed to create a new website for gays and lesbians as part of a settlement with a gay man in New Jersey, the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General said on Wednesday.

The website will provide a dating service with "male seeking a male" or "female seeking a female" options, the Attorney General's office said in a statement.

eHarmony said it will launch the new same-sex dating site, named "Compatible Partners," by March 31.

The settlement was the result of a discrimination complaint filed by Eric McKinley against eHarmony in 2005, which will be dismissed under the settlement agreement.

eHarmony was founded in 2000 by evangelical Christian Dr. Neil Clark Warren and had ties with the influential religious conservative group Focus on the Family.

The New Jersey complaint is not the only legal action to be brought against eHarmony for failing to provide a same-sex option.

In March, lawyers in California brought a lawsuit against the company on behalf of San Francisco resident Linda Carlson, who was denied access to eHarmony because she is gay.

"We believe that this case is now essentially moot, and we're confident that we will prove that in court," eHarmony vice president Antone Johnson said in a statement about the California case.

(Reporting by Rebekah Kebede, Editing by Sandra Maler)

 

** There are a LOT of internet dating sites. There are those that offer a wide variety of services and cater to different interests that the people may have ranging from intimate encounters, married seeking addtl side comfort, man seeking woman, woman seeking man and there are those that allow for men seeking men and women seeking women. Why couldn't this guy go to one of those sites that would allow him to search for his specific need? I think match.com and the majority of sites do allow for this. Why did Eharmony settle? What do you think? Why is it that when people dont get their way they sue and companies, businesses, other people bow down to them and fold making them the winner? What do you think?"

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“I wonder if those of you that support the gay's on this issue have thought about this... would you also support forcing BET to provide programming that caters to their white audience?” - TruthBKnown Returns

I wasn’t exactly supporting the gay dude’s suit, but rather wanted to examine all the arguments. The more I think about it, the more I agree with your stance. But what should not be argued is stuff like they don’t provide service for gays, or the gays can go somewhere else. It should simply be something like, here is our product/service, we hope you like it. :)

Someone more cynical or suspicious might wonder if eHarmony orchestrated this so they could claim they were “forced” to enter the gay dating service market. :)

I wonder if those of you that support the gay's on this issue have thought about this... would you also support forcing BET to provide programming that caters to their white audience?

I see no different between BET and eHarmony here except for their product.

LOL @ Lightfoot, not scared. So can all the single women now start going to the gay sites and search thru the men that are registered in hopes of getting a compatible mate? How hard would this "conversion" be? LOL

I have to take the stand that this was a silly suit to bring to begin with. If the person didn't like the services offered by eHarmony, then he should have gone to a company that offered the service he wanted and give that company his money. I think eHarmony realized that there is a market they haven't tapped yet, and that market tends to have more disposable income- especially in a market downturn. So while they "settled" the suit, I think, from a marketing standpoint, they caved so that they could tap the 10% of the potential market they had ignored.

Personally, I also agree that eHarmony should be able to provide whatever services they want. I’m just not sure how it stands on legal ground. Hope I didn’t scare anyone! :)

And FYI for you Truth, gays have no rights. That is why they are trying to get Prop 8 to pass, thought you knew? LOL

Now you calling me Mocho..LOL..you dont have to call names Truth! 8-)

Mocha, not Mocho. ;)

When Ms. Mocho wrote that she thought it is "their right", I took "their" to mean the gays' right. I misread that. My bad!

“It's one thing to say "gays are not allowed". Or women are not allowed. It's another thing to require them to provide a product (or service) that is specific to one of those groups.” - TruthBKnown Returns

Again, like I said, it’s all in the semantics. Dude and lawyers probably argued it boiled down to “gays are not allowed”. eHarmony didn’t mount a good defense, or maybe they say the diamond encrusted light and “settled”. :)

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