will eHarmony be forced to match false prophets with child wives?
eHarmony.com was forced by the New Jersey Civil Rights Division to setup a gay dating site because their site didn’t support man to man matching.
I don’t like that eHarmony caved, but I suppose I understand it in light of the difficulty of fighting a powerful state.
So for gay activists, and their powerful government agency backers, diversity is we do what we like, and you do what we like.
How “tolerant”.
Is there a limit to what activists with the force of government behind them can require of private businesses and citizens? Why should a private business be forced to do business with people they don’t feel they can help? Can they force dog adoption sites to also adopt out cats? Can they force me to build commenter Carl his own blog?
This clearly wrong and un-American.
Religions with free choice, like Christianity, aren’t the ones forcing their views on others. Liberal activists and religions like Islam are the dangers to freedom in today’s world.
April 3rd, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Interesting. Although such a ruling would violate freedom of association, I’m guessing the legal basis was that the website is legally a business and businesses are not allowed to discriminate. No white only diners open to the public. Perhaps the idea could survive as some kind of a private club with membership by invitation only. The story does not tell the legal nature of the case.
April 3rd, 2009 at 1:06 pm
businesses should be able to discriminate all they want. Businesses organized sets of people.
April 3rd, 2009 at 1:48 pm
The lunch counter sit-ins brought that discrimination to the attention of the Northern public, and Congress settled the issue in the 1960s. Businesses that offer goods and services to the public cannot refuse customers on the basis of a list of prohibited reasons. I presume the underlying theory is that a business is an economic entity, not a person, and thus can discriminate only on economic bases.
As you are discovering, “un-American” is a personal judgment, not a legal standard. If it is a federal law, it has already gone through the “American” test in the national legislature. That way, “American” is whatever the American law- making system says it is.
April 3rd, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Fancy talk for forcing somebody to think like you do.
That is un-American.
Using your argument then slavery and 90% retroactive taxes are “American” because Congress passed them.
Anyway, if your view is the “educated/elite” one I’ll stay stupid thanks.
April 3rd, 2009 at 4:00 pm
The problem with this is that the government is forcing eHarmony to change the services they offer, not who they offer them to.
If I ran a restaurant and decided I didn’t like people who only eat chicken sandwiches, I would have the right to remove chicken sandwiches from my menu. I may not be able to refuse them service, but I should definitely have control over my own menu.
eHarmony didn’t refuse service. They just didn’t offer chicken sandwiches.
April 3rd, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Good point Pete. The government is forcing them to add man/man as a product.
You should have been their lawyer.
April 3rd, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Its the same argument that has been raised in CA re: gay marriage. As it stands, gays have exactly the same rights as straight- they can marry a member of the opposite sex. They want special rights not afforded to anyone else.