Michelle Malkin » eHarmony and the tolerance mau-mau-ers

eHarmony and the tolerance mau-mau-ers

By Michelle Malkin • November 21, 2008 11:47 AM

My syndicated column today expands on yesterday’s eHarmony post (link). As I note, eHarmony will be forking over $5,000 to the gay plaintiff and $50,000 to New Jersey’s Civil Rights office. Here’s the entire settlement the company agreed to, via onlinedatingmagazine. There’s more on the class-action lawsuit against eHarmony proceeding in California here. And Jacob Sullum weighs in.

***
The eHarmony shakedown
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2008

Congratulations, tolerance mau-mauers: Your shakedown of a Christian-targeted dating website worked. Homosexuals will no longer be denied the inalienable “right” to hook up with same-sex partners on eHarmony. What a landmark triumph for social progress, eh? New Jersey plaintiff Eric McKinley can now crown himself the new Rosa Parks — heroically breaking down inhumane barriers to Internet matchmaking by forcing a law-abiding private company to provide services it was never created to provide.”Men seeking men” has now been enshrined with “I have a dream” as a civil rights rallying cry of the 21st century. Bully for you, Mr. McKinley. You bully.

eHarmony founder Neil Warren is the gentle, grandfatherly businessman who launched his popular dating site to support heterosexual marriage. A Focus on the Family author with a divinity degree, Warren encourages lasting, healthy unions between men and women of all faiths, mixed faiths, or no faith at all. Don’t like what eHarmony sells? Go somewhere else. There are thousands upon thousands of dating sites on the Web that cater to gays, lesbians, Jews, Muslims, Trekkies, runners, you name it. No matter. In the name of tolerance, McKinley refused to tolerate eHarmony’s right to operate a lawful business that didn’t give him what he wanted. He filed a discrimination complaint against eHarmony with the New Jersey Division of Civil Rights in 2005.

To be clear: eHarmony never, ever refused to do business with anyone. The company broke no laws. Their great “sin” was not providing a politically correct service that a publicity-seeking gay plaintiff demanded they provide. For three years, the company battled McKinley’s legal shakedown artists — and staved off other opportunists as well. eHarmony had been previously sued by a lesbian looking to force the company to match her up with another woman and by a married man who ridiculously sought to force the company to find him prospects for an adulterous relationship.

This case is akin to a meat-eater suing a vegetarian restaurant for not offering him a ribeye or a female patient suing a vasectomy doctor for not providing her hysterectomy services. But rather than defend the persecuted business, the New Jersey Attorney General intervened on behalf of the gay plaintiff and wrangled an agreement out of eHarmony to change its entire business model. The company agreed not only to offer same-sex dating services on a new site, but also to offer six-month subscriptions for free to 10,000 gay users, pay McKinley $5,000, and fork over $50,000 to New Jersey’s Civil Rights division “to cover investigation-related administrative costs.” Oh, and that’s not all. Yield, yield to the grievance-mongers:

Additional terms of the settlement include:

* eHarmony, Inc. will post photos of same-sex couples in the “Diversity” section of its Web site as successful relationships are created using the company’s same-sex matching service. In addition, eHarmony, Inc. will include photos of same-sex couples, as well as individual same-sex users, in advertising materials used to promote its same-sex matching services;

* eHarmony, Inc. will revise anti-discrimination statements placed on company Web sites, in company handbooks and other company publications to make plain that it does not discriminate on the basis of “sexual orientation;”

* the company has committed to advertising and public relations/ marketing dedicated to its same-sex matching service, and will retain a media consultant experienced in promoting the “fair, accurate and inclusive” representation of gay and lesbian people in the media to determine the most effective way of reaching the gay and lesbian communities.

I have enormous sympathy for eHarmony, whose attorney explained that they gave in to the unfair settlement because “litigation outcomes can be unpredictable.” The recent mob response to the passage of Proposition 8, the traditional marriage measure in California, must have also weighed on the eHarmony management’s minds. But capitulation will only yield a worse, entirely predictable outcome: More shakedowns of private businesses who hold views deemed unacceptable by the Equality-At-All-Costs Brigade. Perhaps heterosexual men and women should start filing lawsuits against gay dating websites and undermine their businesses. Coerced tolerance and diversity-by-fiat cut both ways.

Posted in: Proposition 8

Send to a Friend
Printer Friendly

comments (212)

trackbacks (17)

See what others have said

Note from Michelle: This section is for comments from michellemalkin.com's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that I agree with or endorse any particular comment just because I let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with my terms of use may lose his or her posting privilege.

Trackbacks

Trackback URL

Comments

Comment pages: « 1 2 [3]

#201

On November 21st, 2008 at 8:38 pm, Atlas Shrugged said:

All this “Big Brother” forced “Tolerance” has made me extremely “Non-Tolerant”. This “Non-Tolerant Racist, Homophope, Pepsi Product Hating, Lactose Intolerant” just wants to knock out all the enlightened “Tolerant” people. Tolerant = RANT!
#202

On November 21st, 2008 at 8:40 pm, RockyR said:

Who really wants to do business in this country anymore? This place is coming unravelled, fast.
#203

On November 21st, 2008 at 8:43 pm, Atlas Shrugged said:

Oops, should have been Homophobe vice homophope. I did not know the word Homophobe existed until very recently. Kinda like NAMBLAPHOBE.
#204

On November 21st, 2008 at 8:44 pm, marsouin said:

I can’t see how this is remotely legal. A private concern can’t do whatever it wants without trampling over the rights of others. How in the name of hell are homosexual rights infringed by eHarmony? If the gays don’t like itthey can start their own dating web service. How is eHarmony impeding them from doing so? This is an outrageous injustice. Another shining example of socialist legal mentality.
#205

On November 21st, 2008 at 8:57 pm, flmom said:

you might even go very low and include lawyers and judges

Now, that was funny!
#206

On November 21st, 2008 at 9:57 pm, torabora said:

After the eharmony gay hookup=marriage there will be the gay divorce and the eharmony divorce lawsuit. It is just another front in the war on Christianity.

just wait…these people are scum.
#207

On November 22nd, 2008 at 6:16 am, Cameron said:

That’s nonsense Cameron.

Is it? When you are running a business, you have to do what is right for it if you want to stay afloat. Lawyers, like other predatory animals, cost a lot of money in their daily expenses. This suit was going on for three years before this happened and I doubt that the company that runs eHarmony is rolling in the cash.

Personally, I think they should have forced it into the courtroom quickly (Speedy trial and all that) and done everything they could to throw the case out with prejudice. But I don’t run the business and it wasn’t my decision.

When you see the queerness start creeping into the TV ads, will you be proud that eHarmony “stood up”?

Actually, I don’t watch live TV anymore. There are maybe five shows I record on my DVR and I speed through the commercials. And as I said, they stood up to this for three years.

I think not. Catholic leaders promised to shut down their hospitals if they are “forced” to provide abortions. You have to stand up no matter what the cost!

Which is a noble idea and I do agree with it. And perhaps they should have pulled the plug and made the name of the guy who filed the suit public stating that they could complain to him.

Otherwise how can you call yourself a Christian?

I wasn’t aware I ever had. But I am a former Marine and quite comfortable in fighting dirty and getting bloody over my principles if I have to.

Just curious, what makes this a frivolous lawsuit?

I am going to make the assumption that this is an honest question and not an attempt at trolling so I will answer it in that spirit.

Quite simply: eHarmony catered to a particular segment of the population. They have never said that gay people aren’t welcome. A gay man could sign up and meet women that were compatible with him. Heck, Andrea Dworkin married a gay man so it’s not outside the realm of possibility.

It is frivolous because there are other services available online that would have been happy to have him as a customer. There was no logical reason for him to go forward with this case, especially since he admitted that he’s never going to use the service. This was never about equal treatment; it was about special treatment as well as wanting to shut down a business over a perceived slight.
#208

On November 22nd, 2008 at 10:01 am, happy2behere said:

COMING SOON! Lawsuits forcing churches to marry homosexuals and others, in order to force churches out of existance or change their beliefs.
#209

On November 22nd, 2008 at 10:53 am, WarEagle82 said:

This strange episode made me think. Who owns your business? Who decides what services you offer? Who decides to whom you must offer those services? After this it is the courts and not you!

If you had a business model just throw it away because any moonbat in American can now get the courts to change it.

This is NOT about tolerance. This is about forcing EVERYONE in America to APPROVE of homosexual behavior.
#210

On November 22nd, 2008 at 10:37 pm, wayiwalk said:

I’m sure there’s plenty of moronic politicians that think because my business has REVENUES of $500,000 per year, that I can afford to offer health benefits to all of my employees (most of whom are part time and would not and could not work full time).

I’m sure they could tell me a lot of things about running a business that would be news to me….or at least things that I should do and that they’ll make me do with a few regulations.

Dam them and the NJ attorney general office. Have they no respect for the individuals who own eHarmony? Apparently not.

This story I found more disturbing than anything, anything I heard that the dems MIGHT do once in power.
#211

On November 23rd, 2008 at 12:25 am, ITookTheRedPill said:

Men seeking men” has now been enshrined with “I have a dream” as a civil rights rallying cry of the 21st century.

On the prior thread, Red State Skeptic and right4life were debating whether or not Louis F@rr@kh@n’s Nation of Islam (NOI) has white members.

Watch the last two minutes (7:12 - 9:12) of this video and tell me:
1) How many white members you see
2) What Barack Obama means to the Nation of Islam
#212

On November 24th, 2008 at 11:29 am, BigAnge said:

Why didn’t we think of this?? Here is a sensible way of monitoring al-Gayda and the consequences of their deviant sexual lifestyle:

Indonesian AIDS patients face microchip monitoring.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081124/ap_on_re_as/as_indonesia_aids_tagging