“A Northern California woman sued the online dating service eHarmony…, alleging it discriminates against gays, lesbians and bisexuals.”http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2007-0…
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Should State Laws Prohibiting Discrimination Against Gays Be Used To Require Dating Sites To Support Them? ?11 comments to Should State Laws Prohibiting Discrimination Against Gays Be Used To Require Dating Sites To Support Them? ? |
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As a private company, you do not have to provide any services you do not feel qualified to provide.
If the people at E-Harmony felt that they could successfully match same sex couples, I’m sure they would. Why else would they lose out on that income.
That’s like saying I’m going to sue Lane Bryant because they don’t sell men’s clothes, or even I’m going to sue them because they don’t sell clothes for “skinny” people.
If a company only caters to a specific client group it’s specialization, not discrimination. No inalienable rights have been breeched. They just need to find a website that does what she wants.
She could sign up for E-Harmony.. they can find her a man.. that is what they advertise.. if she wants a woman, she needs to find a dating service that will do that.
If it were heterosexual people were suing homosexual dating services, they would be laughed at.
I agree with pretty much everyone else on here. They shouldn’t have to cater to everyone if they don’t want to. Homosexuals are free to sign up, they will just be matched with the most compatible heterosexual match there is. That is what the service does, it matches men with women. You can’t demand that a private company create a special product just for you. You can only complain if they don’t allow you to use the product they offer. In this case, the product is a service which matches men with compatible women and vice versa.
Ok, people must remember also that the founder of Eharmony is a predominate Christian marriage counselor. And as such he believes that romantic relationships and marriages should be between a man and woman… that doesn’t make him right and homosexuals wrong or vice versa… Why they are targeting Eharmony when there are dating sites that specifically cater to homosexuals is beyond me.
Besides they are a private company and in a capitalist society such as ours the government should not dictate which business caters to which demographic.
ADD: So what about the sites that cater to just homosexuals? like gay.com? should they then too cater to heterosexuals? Or is that not discriminatory? And honestly a dating site is not a necessary service like the airline service is… the airlines do not ask you what orientation you are as the dating services do.. so that comparison is mute in my opinion.
You might be surprised to note that they refuse most non Christians as well. And the males are always older than the females!
No, they should not. eHarmony and other dating sites use complex algorithms to match people and they are built on heterosexual data. Needless to say, it wouldn’t work or wouldn’t work as well for homosexuals.
They would have to build a new algorithm for homosexuals, and if they don’t want to do that they have every right not to.
No…..online dating services are not funded by the governement, therefore should be able to cater to whatever target audience they choose. It’s not discrimination, it’s a service. A Catholic dating service probably does not cater gays either, but if it’s not funded by the state, they should be able to do whatever they want.
No. The dating service isn’t saying “you can’t come here if you are gay”; it just isn’t offering services that these people would use. The government shouldn’t have the authority to demand that corporations offer certain services unless those services are vital to the survival of the people.
Judging by their radio commercials, their business seems to be based pretty exclusively on matching mush-minded, quite traditional and boring heterosexuals who don’t have the emotional and intellectual resources to find a compatible partner on their own. I’m thinking of one particular woman who has an accent that you would expect to find behind the counter of the giftshop at Dollywood: “Being seen and loved for who I truly am is incred-daybul.” I expect that adding whole new categories of people to match–like, say, lesbians with chips on their shoulders–would be a complicated addition to their work. That is clearly not fair.
This woman is basically saying: “Hey, your company offers a service I have no interest in–meeting dorky heterosexual guys who don’t have enough personality to meet a woman at the cafe or the library, etc. Since I have no interest in that service, you should have to add a different service that I am interested in–finding lesbians desperate enough to put up with a pushy, litigation-happy fight-picker like myself.”
edit: Maybe that unattractive, middle aged maintenance worker who that young lady on here is always complaining about can sue one of those dating sites like “sugardaddy.com” for discriminating against him!
It may not be fair…but does it matter? It’s only an internet company and you sueing would be like sueing an over 50′s dating site for not taking people under 50, or sueing an 18-30 holiday company for not accepting people older.
Only if gay dating sites should be required to support straight dating…
Personally I think they should just let market forces take care of it and let the sites sell to whomever they like.
No, it’s a private company and therefore can make its own rules. I don’t agree with its stance, but they do have the right to choose which customers they wish to serve.