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November 20, 2008

eHarmony Settles Suit, Agrees to Offer Same-Sex Matching Services

Three years after a New Jersey resident filed a discrimination suit against Web-based matchmaking service eHarmony.com, the online dating portal has settled out of court and agreed to offer same-sex matchmaking services to members.

Garden State resident Eric McKinley filed suit against the California-based company in 2005. As part of the settlement, eHarmony agrees to provide new services for members identifying themselves as "male seeking a male" or "female seeking a female" by March 2009.

eHarmony did reserve the right to provide a disclaimer -- that its compatibility-based matching system was developed solely on the basis of researched focused on married heterosexual couples.

"I applaud the decision of eHarmony to settle this case and extend its matching services to those seeking same-sex relationships," New Jersey Division on Civil Rights director J. Frank Vespa-Papaleo said in a statement Wednesday.

eHarmony was one of a few Web-based dating holdouts that had not ventured into the world of offering same-sex dating services. Last year Time magazine named eHarmony one of the five websites to avoid, noting, among other things, its discrimination against gay people.

Frank Mastronuzzi, who worked for Match.com from 2001 to 2004 as the senior manager of business development and now oversees gay dating portal OneGoodLove.com, says Match has always offered same-sex dating services -- but he says he left the company because it refused to spend ad dollars marketing to the gay community.

Around the same time, Match launched Chemistry.com to combat eHarmony, which was increasing in popularity. Though Mastronuzzi says the website is a virtual replica of eHarmony.com once you get past the first page, it gained traction with an ad campaign featuring members who had been rejected by eHarmony -- including a gay man, turned away because the site didn't offer same-sex dating services.

Mastronuzzi says he approached eHarmony about developing a same-sex dating site -- albeit a private-label service with no direct connection to eHarmony.

"I was told point-blank no," Mastronuzzi says.

Neil Clark Warren, Ph.D., who developed eHarmony's matchmaking program, had long rejected the idea of matching same-sex couples -- in part because he said his research was based on heterosexual married couples. He also argued that eHarmony is about marriage and that same-sex couples cannot legally wed in most states.

Clark Warren was also one of the founding members of anti-gay group Focus on the Family.

"I think this is a very good step in the right direction ... to admit they screwed up," Mastronuzzi says. "But what are they going to do differently for the community?"

According to the settlement, McKinley will receive a free one-year subscription to the service. eHarmony agreed to pay McKinley $5,000 and the Division on Civil Rights $50,000 to cover investigation-related administrative costs. (Ross von Metzke, The Advocate)

Reader Comments

These comments are reproduced as written by visitors to this Web site. They have not been edited for content, grammar, or spelling. The viewpoints appearing here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or views of advocate.com, The Advocate, or its affiliates.

Name: Bob
Date posted: 2008-11-22 12:44 AM
Hometown: Berkeley, CA

Comment:

I went to craigslist and found the following dating categories: women seek women, women seeking men, men seeking women, men seeking men and then misc. romance and casual encounters. Does the lack of these last two categories on other sites constitute discrimination against those not wanting a long term relationship? Are computers capable of discrimination? What if the algorithm that eHarmony uses gives a better result for heterosexual users than for homosexual users, will the algorithm be declared discriminatory? This opens a large can of worms. I think the truth here is that the gay community does not like the guy who started eHarmony and is attacking him in every way that they can, even these dangerously invalid ways.

Name: Ryan W.
Date posted: 2008-11-20 10:09 PM
Hometown: Santa Monica, Ca

Comment:

"Would you have the same reaction if they refused to serve...jews? " Yes. If they didn't serve Jews, I'd go to JDate. Who cares? Can't this guy find a different service to use? I voted against prop 8 (i.e. I voted in favor of gay marriage in California) , but if gay marriage is legalized we're going to get a lot more garbage like this which makes me hesitate. The government shouldn't allow discrimination. But private individuals have the same right to free association that gays want, to associate or not associate with who they please. I'm tired of hearing people say "we're not going to let you vote on our rights!" If we don't solve this democratically, which laws should opponents of gay marriage break? Democracy and law is a good thing, even if it messes up quite frequently. Should we say that gay people are being sexist for refusing to date members of the opposite sex? Standards like that are clearly insane when the situation is reversed.

Name: Mikey
Date posted: 2008-11-20 4:05 PM
Hometown: Orlando

Comment:

Anyone from Anytown: No, we can't expect everyone to instantly tolerate us. However, you also can't expect everyone to simply fall in rank behind what you believe we should be allowed to do. You laugh at us with our "gay rights" while you want to sit there and pontificate about "religious freedom"? Please. Every religion has had plenty of freedom in this country...perhaps a little too much freedom, seeing as how some wanted to turn this democracy into a theocrasy...and almost succeeded. Sorry to say, but not everyone follows the decrees from your 5,000-year-old storybook. It is not the ultimate tie-breaker. Nothing new has been added to it in over 2,000 years. It's old, outdated, and aside from some general moral backgrounds, it needs to be retired to the fiction section of a library where it belongs. Judge not, lest ye be judged.

Name: Jerome
Date posted: 2008-11-20 1:17 PM
Hometown: Canada

Comment:

Hmmmm. This doesn't feel good. This is about telling a business who they can and can't serve, what they can and can't do. I think people went after eHarmony because it "worked" and I use that tentatively. Who knows how long those marriages will last either? But I suppose the GLBT community wanted relationships that might last too. Is it necessary to force a business to cater to people to which their business never worked before? eHarmony matches men with compatible women---that's what they do. Do I trust them to match me to a compatible man? No. Do they even know first thing about being gay? No. What do I want their services for? I want someone who knows how to match gay people... This is not a restaurant in Selma we're talking about here, where all people should be able to eat the food served there. The product from eHarmony is a heterosexual relationship---they don't offer Homosexual ones....and they won't be good at it when they try.

Name: JJ
Date posted: 2008-11-20 9:50 AM
Hometown: C;ifton, NJ

Comment:

The point is, anyone, for any reason, who publicly discriminates against anyone else should be challenged and made to recant. All their talk about marriage et al is subterfuge to condone their discrimination. Five years from now, no one except gay people will remember this lawsuit because we will still be boycotting the site. Remember Coors? There are many of us out here still boycotting them even though their policies and management have changed. And that restaurant whose name I only remember when I drive past one and remember that gays don't support that business. And Dennis Haysbert’s work because of he is still shrilling for State Farm after their horrendous treatment of Katrina home owners; or Will Smith movies because of his homophobia.

Name: Could be anyone
Date posted: 2008-11-20 8:39 AM
Hometown: Anytown

Comment:

You are forcing someone to go against their moral beliefs because you want to do online dating? Come on. I just have to laugh at you people "gay rights". Whatever. What about religious freedom? What ever happened to Tolerance? You can't tolerate people who don't believe what you believe? Funny thing is that your argument is not with people, it's with God himself. Marriage is defined in the Bible, the Bible is clear about the sin of homosexuality as it is with all other sin. Your sin isn't any worse than anyone else's, but let's call a spade a spade. Get real. You want people to tolerate your sin. I don't care if you sin, that's your choice. You choose to live according to the sin of your flesh; that's between you and God. But don't push your beliefs on others. You don't have the right to redefine marriage because you are not God.

Name: Chris
Date posted: 2008-11-19 5:57 PM
Hometown: San Francisco

Comment:

An entertaining image of a middle age mother of 3 going to Manhunt for F seeks M advertisement. Although an interesting point of logic, I think it lacks a note of reality. Seriously, how many housewives are looking to spend $$ to post their profiles on Manhunt? At the end of the day, exclusion limits freedoms. If they want it that bad, then give them an “F seeks M” dropdown and give Manhunt another revenue stream. It would be a great “tongue and cheek” marketing campaign (pun intended). As to the research on marriage compatibility based solely on straight couples. Any good researcher is driven by curiosity and not the religious convictions of the day. Imagine how far Galileo or da Vinci would have gone if they allowed the religious convictions of the day to define their research. What better way to create a pool of subjects for a research project on this topic. I am sure that we in the gay community would find value in their results.

Name: Tyler
Date posted: 2008-11-19 5:17 PM
Hometown: San Luis Obispo

Comment:

If you go to the e-harmony website right now, there is no man seeking man or woman seeking woman on the drop down menu, so clearly the lawsuit didn't work. Besides after hearing who runs the eharmony site and that one would have to sue to be included in the drop down menu, I want no part of that site. However, it is also like someone on the comment board said, does that mean a straight person can sue a gay dating site because it doesn't offer a drop down selection for a man seeking a woman on say manhunt, adam4adam etc., so in a way I kind of understand eharmony's point although disagree with it, as it is the only traditional love match dating site that doesn't include a drop down for same sex profiles. Why would you want to be on it anyway after all this.

Name: Chase
Date posted: 2008-11-19 4:31 PM
Hometown: Toronto

Comment:

I think this was an incredibly stupid lawsuit. The site's founder has over 35 years of working with hetero couples and that's what he based his questionaire on, and the algorithim is based on that. Next up some homos will be whinning when the new site doesn't work for them (because he had to use his hetero data cause that's all he knows). Also, for the idiot who sued, is it ok with him if straight people start suing gay dating sites? I bet not. Frankie in the comments here has started a gay dating site (guys/girls?) and I wonder who he would feel if heteros came calling with a lawsuit. And should gay girls sue dating sites that are only for gay guys, and should gay guys sue dating sites only for gay girls?

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