Which is the crux of the problem. Until the day our representatives (who are mostly all lawyers) reform the system and enact the English rule, nothing’s gonna change.
These’s one in the OP. All I see are the female symbols you see on bathroom doors.
But even if there weren’t such websites. Do you really feel a URL that caters to (or was designed for) a specific demographic, is violating the civil rights of persons outside of that group?
The gay thing isn’t the only controversy about eHarmony, believe it or not.
Sorry, I did miss that one. If you feel they are in violation of discrimination laws, then you would be welcome to pursue action against them.
Honestly, I don’t know what the discrimination laws allow and what they don’t. It seems that at least one group of lawyers feel that it does so they took the case. I guess we’ll see how it plays out. If they are in violation of the law then yes, they should be required to change their policy.
If they are in violation of the law, then yes.
The Right Stuff: Exclusive dating service for graduates who attended one of an elite list of 5 dozen universities.
JDate: Jewish only dating. They even discriminate against reform Jews who don’t know Hebrew.
Nudist Dating Services: Of course, naturists are welcome as well.
Neither non-Ivy League students nor non-naturists are a protected class. And the Jewish dating site can argue that the fundamentally religious nature of its clientele.
If Warren wants to create a site that caters exclusively to Good Christians, he’s welcome to. Instead, he chooses to argue that there’s some fundamental difference between loving homosexual and heterosexual relationships - cloaking his own, personal bigotry in “science.” Fuck 'em.
Jdate potentially could fall afoul of the civil rights law because it discriminates based on religion. But religious rights are often held above individual rights so they may be ok.
The main areas CA law covers in discrimination (at least in my quick web search since I started reading this thread) are, Age, Ancestry, Color, Disability, National Origin, Race, Religion, Sex and Sexual Orientation. The other two you listed wouldn’t appear to fall under any of those.
It’s generally considered acceptable for minority groups to take separationist actions that would be considered unacceptable for the majority. For instance, a scholarship intended to help blacks or italians specifically would be OK, but a scholarship intended to help everyone BUT blacks or italians would not. You can argue that this is not the right way to think, but it is the way our society thinks.
For the record, Womanline is an affiliate of LavaLife, which handles all manner of relationships, not just lesbians. Jdate is intended for Jews, but does not exclude gentiles.
If eHarmony wanted to advertise as a way for devout Christians to get together, I’d have no problem with them excluding anyone that doesn’t meet that criteria. However, they don’t advertise that way, they pretend to be for everyone, then claim there are “no matches” if you’re not their type of person.
I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one pissed off by this lawsuit. What if eHarmony just feels like they don’t do gay matches well, and they don’t want to tarnish their reputation by engaging in business practices at which they suck balls?
Even if you assume the worst possible motives on their part – i.e., homosexuals are evil and we won’t sully our e-hands by facilitating their e-sodomy – that’s their business. We should let them act on their morals so that they will let us act on ours.
In other words, I can’t believe freedom is such a hard sell.
Ah, one of my favorite arguments. Let’s see what easy counters I shall dust off. You know what? Let’s just go with the most appropriate ones and save the sophistry for another time.
Your representatives are elected by YOU. That issues like this are not addressed is indicative of just how low they are on your (the collective “you,” the electorate’s) list of priorities.
My own personal belief- access to the court system is supremely important, especially in light of #1 above. Let’s look at Boddie et al v. Connecticut and Fuentes v. Shevin for why. Oh, and a little something I like to call “due process.” Almost forgot about due process.
The judge is the proper gatekeeper for the validity of such claims, NOT the legislature. The legislature is too fickle and too responsive to the ebb and flow of humans’ tolerance for each other. One administration (be it state, or federal) amends, the next re-amends- pandemonium. The judge is the right man for the job. If a case survives summary judgment, then it’s (generally) for a jury of one’s peers to decide.
Legislative interference in the court system is unwarranted and dangerous. I trust the legislature less than I trust juries.
Edited to add: I personally think this lawsuit is a load of crap; and I happen to be currently making my living opposing idiots like this woman. But she’s got every right to pursue her gripe and I think that’s one of the things that makes America great- open access to justice.
Amen, and I hope her lawyer takes her for a ride before losing her case for her.
That’s because wearing princess clothing is weird.
Even if you are a princess?
So, this being the United Stated of 'murica and stuff, can I start a dating company for fat people? (I know it probably has been done…)
But being formerly fat, I know how that can affect your date-life. Now that I an svelte and married, i want to give back to my fellow chubbies.
So I want to start “Date-a-Fatty”. This service will allow people with a BMI of 30 or greater to troll for dates. You lose too much weight, your off the program!
As a private citizen, shouldn’t I have the right to do this? If I start a service am I obligated to offer it to everyone?
BMW is discriminating against me for being a financially challenged individual. I demand to be offered a 7 series, regardless of my financial situation! You can’t discriminate against me based on the contents of my bank account!
…er, or can you?
I didn’t say it was good, I said it was valid. California law specifies that businesses cannot discriminate against customers on the basis of sexual orientation. How does eHarmony’s buisness not violate this law? If it does violate the law, and we agree that eHarmony should be allowed to cater to only heterosexuals, how do we rewrite the law to allow eHarmony to operate it’s het-only business, while still keeping important legal protections for homosexuals in place?
As a side discussion, if eHarmony’s offices aren’t located in California, are they obligated to follow California law in their internet business?
Naturally.
Yes, you can. There are any number of factors you can discriminate against people for. The exceptions are those clearly enumerated by law: race, religion, gender, and in California, sexual orientation. There is no law protection people from being discriminated against for not going to an Ivy League school, so comparing the case in the OP to a Harvard-only dating service doesn’t really work.
They appear to be based in Pasadena. But it’s still a good question. Sort of similar to are internet providers of porn subject to the community standards of East Lower Nowhere, Kentucky?
newcrasher, as pointed out, “income” or “body mass” are not “protected categories” under whatever is the applicable California equal rights statute (California State Law recognizes more protected categories than does Federal Law). And the suit at issue hinges on interpreting that California statute as strictly requiring eHarmony to accommodate one of those categories.
But that does bring up a concern as to when do we decide that,having protected a category, then equal rights policy requires abolutist enforcement, disregarding that there may be *any * activities where there’d be no real compelling state interest to force 100% inclusiveness, and either you make your business 100% inclusive or just don’t bother opening it. Someone up above mentioned that religion-based entities get away with discriminating over religion because of a special status – but in that case it’s about an indispensable component of the rights of those engaging in the activity in question: an Orthodox Jewish Matchmaking Service is designed to cater to observant Orthodox Jews who in their Free Exercise of their religion must follow a precept to only marry within the faith; it CAN’T make any other sort of match and still be an Orthodox Jewish Matchmaker, it either “discriminates upon religion"or ceases to exist. So there’s an an example that there CAN be such a thing as reasonable discrimination even in regard to the "protected categories” – the trick is in figuring out where the line should be drawn. As Miller mentions, the case does bring up valid legal questions hingeing on the breadth and reach of the California Equal Rights statute and of the policies in place to enforce it.
At first blush I’d think a dating service, being something that touches into a very personal realm of emotional affinities, and not being an essential public service, should have some latitude; to me it would also be an issue of whether this is to be considered a “public accommodation”, which has to be open to all comers.
BTW, I must say that all the folderol in eHarmony’s publicity about their wonderful scientific compatibility algorithm I’ve always dispatched with a cynic’s chuckle as likely being nothing more than BS puffery, and the super-perfect-soulmate couples in the ads are just a wee bit less than comfortable to behold.
On the other hand, it would be so ridiculously easy for eHarmony to accomodate homosexuals, I don’t know that there’s any particular value in carving out an exception for them. All they need to do is add one more field to their membership forms, and a line of code that matches the contents of the field, and they’re done. It’s pretty surprising they haven’t done this already: it’s a minimal expense that could give them access to a not-insignificant number of new customers. It’s such an easy, obvious business strategy, you almost have to suspect an ulterior motive for not offering it.
How about Black Singles or Asian Dating. I spent a few minutes with google and found pages of links to sites like these. Asian Dating comes right out and says, “The primary goal of Asian Dating is to help Asians find other Asians to date. We know how many Asian parents are very particular about who their kids date and eventually marry.” Maybe there’s a more obvious way of saying, “We discriminate on the basis of race” without saying just that on a big neon sign, but I don’t know what it is.
Black rabbit, I publicly supported gay rights in the early '80s, before it was stylish, but I don’t think gay people languishing without love because they can’t find any dating sites that accept them is a major social problem.
eHarmony feels they have a level of expertise. To them, their expertise is matching heterosexual couples. They feel they DON’T have expertise matching homosexual couples. Why should they be forced to alter their business into a realm they don’t feel they are experts in?
And any gay person who wants to can sign up for eHarmony. They just won’t match them with a member of the same sex. This is no different than if a person went into an italian restaurant and demanded moo goo gai pan. None of the cooks would know how to make it. There’s no law that requires a store to sell what you want to buy.