Eharmony Being Sued

You have probably seen the ads emphasizing that they match you up based on shared values, not just shared interests, with the grandfatherly looking guy, Dr. Neil Clark Warren, who runs the operation. Homosexuals are suing because Eharmony doesn't provide service for them:

A Northern California woman sued the online dating service eHarmony on Thursday, alleging it discriminates against gays, lesbians and bisexuals.

Linda Carlson said she tried to use the Internet site in February but could not based on her sexual orientation. When Carlson wrote to eHarmony to complain, the company refused to change its policy, according to the lawsuit filed on her behalf in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

The lawsuit claims that by only offering to find a compatible match for men seeking women or women seeking men, the company was violating state law barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

"Such outright discrimination is hurtful and disappointing for a business open to the public in this day and age," Carlson said in a statement.

The suit names Pasadena-based eHarmony, company founder Neil Clark Warren and his wife Marylyn, the company's former vice president, as defendants. It seeks class action status, a jury trial and unspecified damages.

The company, which conducts extensive personality profiling before introducing couples with matching values and interests, denied the allegation.

"The research that eHarmony has developed, through years of research, to match couples has been based on traits and personality patterns of successful heterosexual marriages," a company statement said.

"Nothing precludes us from providing same-sex matching in the future, it's just not a service we offer now based upon the research we have conducted," the statement said.

As David Bernstein over at Volokh Conspiracy points out:

Complicating matters is the fact that Eharmony's founder is an evangelical Christian with apparent ties to Focus on the Family.

And this is probably the real reason for the suit. One of the commenters over at Volokh Conspiracy makes one of those statements that pretty well tells me everything I need to know about him:

Aha! I knew it. Every time I've seen one of those E-Harmony commercials with "Dr. Neil Clark Warren" the "founder" of e-harmony I've said to myself that he looks like a complete, total, 100% fundamental evangelical christian. I'm being completely serious here. There is a look. It's in the eyes mostly. But until now I've never had confirmation of this fact. I can pick an evangelical christian out of a lineup 9 times out of 10 just by looking at their face. I'm happy to have confirmation on Neil Clark Warren because I've been wondering if my evangelical-radar was correct. He's probably the most evangelical looking guy I've ever seen, though, so I was 99% certain.

Yup. He sure seems happy to me. And then this claim:

There is no expertise in matching people. One person says they like action films, so they match you with other people who like action films. Ditto with music types, life aspirations, etc. Just as applicable to homosexuals as it is (if at all) to heterosexuals. The "we don't have experience with matching homosexuals" is a plausible sounding but totally b.s. excuse for discrimination.

Showing that this idiot is ignorant in many areas.

I have long had a philosophical objection to anti-discrimination laws that affect private businesses. I was grudgingly prepared to accept them with respect to race because for generations, governments actively forced private businesses to discriminate based on race. The free market, while not perfect in this area, has substantial corrective mechanisms in it to deal with irrational discrimination. Thomas Sowell's Markets and Minorities has detailed examination of this, and why governments had to force discrimination on private businesses as a result.

Anti-discrimination laws have expanded more and more widely to include groups that were not in the equivalent position of American blacks. Hispanics were never enslaved in America. They were not the targets of de jure segregation in schools as blacks were. The mother of a friend graduated from the University of Texas in 1948--and while Texas spent money irrationally to prevent blacks from attending white universities, a very large fraction of her fellow graduates were Hispanics.

We've spent more than forty years now trying to deal with the effects of racial discrimination against blacks--and it is not clear to me that the need for these laws is still there. As more than a few black leaders have admitted, the major obstacle for blacks today isn't racial discrimination, it is other blacks. The time has come for anti-discrimination laws aimed at private businesses that are not government contractors to go away--and it is because of suits like this one. What's next? Shall we make it unlawful for churches to refuse to hire Muslims? How about making it unlawful for the Catholic Church to limit the priesthood to men?

The "right to privacy" argument that homosexuals used to use was historically incorrect, but at least it led the right direction--less government. Homosexual activists now demand more government, doing more things and telling people what they must do, and when, and with whom. They should reconsider Aesop's fable of the frogs who wanted a king.

If the government has authority to tell businesses who they must do business with, might it not in the future have authority to tell businesses who they must not do business with? "Congress has decided that homosexuals are bad role models for our children--and so it has passed a law prohibiting homosexuals from working as teachers or child care workers, in both public and private institutions."

It's unfortunate that homosexuals aren't content to be left alone, but must now force everyone to pretend that homosexuality is okay. This is part of why I have become far less libertarian over time, because it appears that a society can't tolerate homosexuality without turning into a police state run for the benefit of homosexuals--where speaking against homosexuality gets you prosecuted, or held without bail.