MINYANVILLE - May 19 - It's been stated that faith and rationality are
two models of belief that are resolutely incompatible. Marrying faith
and rationality is not only spiritually beneficial, but can be
profitable as well. Just ask psychologist and eHarmony founder, Neil
Clark Warren, a man who has effectively integrated moral elements of
his evangelistic religion with practical constituents of business
management to create the most popular dating site. After appearing on
Dobson’s radio show in August 2001, eHarmony received 90,000 new
referrals. However, in 2005, Warren began to distance the company from
the conservative Christian community to try and achieve greater
mainstream involvement. This decision -- while profitable for the
company -- caused grievances on both ends. Running on a platform open
to only heterosexual applicants, eHarmony suffered an inevitable fate
when a New Jersey man complained to New Jersey’s Division on Civil
Rights that his registration to eHarmony was rejected due to his
homosexual classification. The company settled the suit, created a
satellite site Compatiblepartners.net, and offered the first 10,000
same-sex registrants a free six-month subscription. Many evangelists
felt that eHarmony should have gone down fighting, and even argued that
allowing a same-sex service was a betrayal to the Christian community. FULL ARTICLE @ MINYANVILLE
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See all posts on Compatible Partners
Mark, why should a company be forced to cater to any group that demands to be included? Why did a site that is based on 40 years of research of heterosexual couples feel forced to cater to a market it knows nothing about?
Should a gay site have to cater to heterosexuals? By your logic, it should. If what's good for the goose...
Posted by: Sam Moorcroft, ChristianCafe.com | May 19, 2010 at 07:13 PM
The way I see it, no one was being required to "cater" to anyone. If gay people desired to use the eHarmony site as it was -- and pay membership -- why would eHarmony care? They weren't asking for special accommodations -- if anyone of any persuasion desired to use the site as-is, why deny them? The only logical answer is to appease others on the site who don't approve. This is no different from a hotel who is "family" oriented not wanting their customers to have to see gay people -- deciding to build a second hotel just for gays so they don't have to let them in to the initial one. Why not just put a disclaimer -- This site was geared towards creating matches between heterosexual couples. Gay members use this site at their own risk and we do not promise any positive results -- then take their money along with anyone else who desires to pay.
Posted by: DopeyFromDating | May 19, 2010 at 07:33 PM
If a gay man can complain to the NJ Division on Civil Rights for being excluded from a dating site, shouldn't CougarLife.com do the same, and complain against Google on grounds of equal civil rights for cougars? I guess I don't understand why people of one sexual preference (i.e. homosexuals) get civil rights and another (i.e. older women dating younger men and vice versa) do not?
Food for thought.
Posted by: lynn | May 20, 2010 at 06:47 AM
I have talked to a *lot* of gay people about Compatible Partners and there are two common responses. The minority say "whatever floats your boat" in terms of choosing a dating site.
The majority of people tend to smirk with incredulity, responding with something along the lines of, "I don't think I'd want to hang out with a gay person who felt very strongly that they needed to be on a dating site based on matching straight people." They think it's weird that gays would want to belong to a site with eHarmony's particular history as well.
I disagree with Mark, and don't feel that eHarmony should have been forced to create a site for gays. This is a knee-jerk reaction type of situation. Did anyone actually read the legal proceedings and the laws the decision was based on? I didn't think so.
Its kind of sad, this desires to demand inclusion that in case don't really amount to much of an upside. I always say "pick you battles" and this one didn't provide much of an advantage in the end to gays.
Why they didn't buy MyParnter and bring on Patrick to run the site still baffles me, but eHarmony just wants to put this all behind them.
When will eHarmony start publishing their success rates like they do with straight people? That would be interesting.
Good point Sam, agree, lots of parallel comparisons.
Lynn, in a word, no. CL can complain all it wants to Google. Civil rights are being protected from the state. CL is part of a larger content categorization issue at Google, go read Matt Cutts' blog for the details.
Posted by: Datinginsider | May 20, 2010 at 08:30 AM
Ok, once and for all. Neil Clark Warren and Noel Biderman in the Octagon. Since he is older, Neil gets to tag in Sam Moorcroft if necessary.
Posted by: Glenn Millar | May 20, 2010 at 12:37 PM
Dr Warren has the right to run his site any way he feels as appropriate. If that gay person from New Jersey was so upset because he wasn't catered to by Dr Warren's site, why didn't he just find a different service? I think it's wrong and unfair that Dr Warren was forced onto creating a web site for gays. I'm sure the gay community already had sites that catered to them. What's next? Is Dateline NBC going to be forced into making a dating web site for pedophiles to make targeting their prey easier? When is this going to stop?
Posted by: Phil | Oct 25, 2013 at 06:37 PM