The Pasadena-based dating website, heavily promoted by Christian evangelical leaders when it was founded, has agreed in a civil rights settlement to give up its heterosexuals-only policy and offer same-sex matches.
A little more:
attorney Theodore Olson, who issued a statement on the company’s behalf, made clear that it did not agree to offer gay matches willingly. “Even though we believed that the complaint resulted from an unfair characterization of our business,” Olson said, “we ultimately decided it was best to settle this case with the attorney general since litigation outcomes can be unpredictable.”
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 a site called Compatiblepartners.net.
Warren had said in past interviews that he didn’t want to feature same-sex services on EHarmony — which matches people based on long questionnaires concerning personality traits, relationship history and interests — because he felt he didn’t know enough about gay relationships.
I agree with Michelle Malkin that the suit is a bit like suing a vegetarian site for not catering to meat-eaters --and people ought to fight back by suing gay websites for not catering to heterosexuals. (Much as we should be prepared to inundate the FCC with complaints against the MSM and RadioAmerica when the Fairness Doctrine takes hold).
A short step from this kind of thing to Shar'i'a, as Mark Steyn points out. This isn't creating tolerance, it's creating hatred and isolated communities.
As the Belmont Club comments:
Sharia law is at heart a desire to live outside the system and while its spread is probably a bad thing for the West, one wonders how much the paralyzing and expensive effect of excessive litigation and over regulation in Western society has driven the rise of parallel private institutions.
There'll be more of that in the years ahead.... The "tolerance" enforcers are jeopardizing the very possibility of any shared societal space. Good luck with that.
Yup. Misuse the system and eventually what you will have is everyone opting out of the system.
Creative Minority Report notes the cave-in is spectacularly abject. Not only will the company comply, they're giving the complainant free service for a year.
You've got to love it. The bullies kick the company around so much until the company starts apologizing for getting blood on the bully's kicking boots. And then the bullies kick a little more until the company offers to pay for new kicking boots. It's a disgrace.
The moral of this is that morals are disallowed from the public sphere and if you don't like it, say something. They dare you. Because you might be next.
Related: Culture War won at democracy's cost.
