eHarmony stops discriminating, starts patronizing
Posted at 2:30 PM Nov 21, 2008
By Bonnie Ruberg
If you're a loyal OK Cupid user like me -- or just a decent, open-minded human being -- you know eHarmony.com has some major problems as a dating site. First on the list of issues, above their monogamy-centric approach to love or their evangelic Christian founder: the fact that they don't allow men and women interested in people of the same sex onto the site. Yup, that's right, they discriminate against gay people. They say it's because their matching algorithm was only tested on heterosexuals, but we shunned queers, polys, and other weirdos know they just didn't want us there.
Apparently a judge agreed in a recent court settlement, to the tune of $10,000, half of which was paid to a gay man in New Jersey who filed a suit. As part of the legal agreement, eHarmony also has to build a sister site for those among us who, as the shirts I love in Provincetown say, "can't even think straight." Valleywag bemoans the fact that the site, dubbed Compatible Partners, is sure to suck for actual dating purposes. Personally I can't even get past the name.
"Compatible Partners?" How generic and condescending could you be? Not only are you refusing to talk about gay people in anything but a removed, protected, "professional" way, you're also implying that the only acceptable use for the site is to find life-long mates. Of course, that's one of the problems with eHarmony itself, but really. Now we'll just have to see if anybody uses the thing...
Comments
I don't quite get the outrage here. Why shouldn't a private business be able to focus its attentions on a particular group? There are lots of dating sites that focus on specific groups or types of relationships. What the heck is the basis for the judge ruling against eharmony? If eHarmony wants to target heterosexuals looking for a long-term relationship, that should be their right.
Posted 11/24/2008 at 08:24:06 AMThe problem is that all those other sites that have a target demographic openly advertise that fact. Eharmony, from what I've seen, wants people to think that they're for everybody, that they can find anyone that 'special someone'. Nothing I've ever seen in their incredibly annoying commercials and ads specify 'we only want hetero looking for long-term'. If eharmony would go ahead and state that they only want to service a specific demographic, that'd be fine. Instead, they passively-aggressively deem certain people who don't meet their unstated criteria 'unmatchable'.
Posted 11/24/2008 at 12:47:59 PM