Dating Site eHarmony.Com Sued for Discrimination Against Homosexuals
April 27, 2008 by Sasha Manuel
Filed under Relationships
Lisa Miller writes over at Newsweek.com about eHarmony.com’s troubles. The dating website, which boasts over 20 million users, is facing a class-action lawsuit over its alleged discrimination against gays and lesbians.
Personally, I think the suit is baseless. To be clear I have nothing against homosexuals. Part of the beauty of the web is that there’s a website to cater to any need. I just wonder why the plaintiffs in the eHarmony.com case didn’t just avoid the site and go to Chemistry.com, a competitor.
eHarmony.com was founded by some Christian dude, which is why it originally (and still) offers only “men seeking women” or “women seeking men” why force them to change their ways? I’m not exactly sure which case is this, but the US Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America, which accused the organization of discrimination since it didn’t accept homosexuals.
The majority opinion declared that the BSA shouldn’t be forced to accept people not covered in its “acceptable” list of applicants, but should stand the test of society or something similar. In other words, the Supreme Court realized that the best way to get the BSA to change its apparently discriminatory ways was to leave it to the scrutiny of the society. If society in general wanted homosexuals in the BSA, then the organization would adapt. The same is true for eHarmony.com: if it finds its revenues threatened by its exclusion of homosexuals, then it will probably change its policies.
What do you think of the lawsuit? Feel free to comment below 
I think it’s ridiculous. You shouldn’t force a business to specialize in something they don’t specialize in. There’s a tv network that specializes in entertainment for black people and another for Hispanics. There are tv shows and networks just for certain types of music. Am I supposed to sue Miss Black USA for not having white people on their show? Can I sue a church for not marrying same sex couples? No! People are just looking for things to sue about and it really irks me!
I agree with you Karen – I think if they are going to allow specialty in one arena, they should allow it in all arenas.
There are plenty of sites that cater to gays for them to want to alter the makeup of straight sites.
I sincerely agree with both of you.