The Gay eHarmony: Compatible Partners Launches April 1st
After a challenging court case regarding the absence of same-sex coupling options over at matchmaking site eHarmony (for details see eHarmony Loses Lawsuit), the company was asked to create a gay and lesbian portal offering similar matchmaking services. EHarmony promised to have the site - since named Compatible Partners - up and running by the end of this month.
A quick review of the site shows that they still aren't ready to open up shop, but interested users can easily sign up to get an email reminder when the site goes live. But how many gay and lesbian singles are actually going to use the site? And what about the bisexual or transgendered folks? There doesn't seem to be any room for either group, although I've noticed few larger dating sites have these folks in mind either.
As well, the question has been posed in many a blog and newspaper debating the court case that led to Compatible Partners: why did eHarmony have to create a new site? Couldn't they have merely changed their Terms of Service to reflect their demographic was only heterosexuals, just like many other niche sites already have? JDate for instance, is only for Jewish Singles. And more than a handful of gay dating sites don't allow women to join, period. So why would eHarmony have to go to such lengths and create a whole new business model?
So you tell me. What do you think? Should eHarmony have to create a site dedicated to gay and lesbian singles? Would you sign up for Compatible Partners, and if so, why?
Related: Gay and Lesbian Dating Sites, Bisexual Dating Sites, Matchmaking Sites
Comments
How many sites have a “strictly platonic” option besides CL? Maybe they should be shut down too.
No, eHarmony did not “lose the suit”. I think you need to understand how legal settlements work.
You wrote, “the company was asked to create a gay and lesbian portal offering similar matchmaking services”. By whom? Nobody, actually. No, not even the complainant.
“On July 23, 2007, the New Jersey Attorney General issued a Finding of Probable Cause that eHarmony had violated New Jersey’s Law Against Discrimination. eHarmony filed a Motion for Reconsideration of the finding,
which was pending at the time of the settlement.”
I think you need to familiarize yourself more about the case from sources that are more reliable.
Thank you.
Thanks Ted for sharing your thoughts.
My information came from other news sources; I hadn’t thought to go rooting around for the actual legal lingo regarding the case.
And then, if they weren’t asked to create this portal (as per several large newspapers which have said exactly this), why would they if they didn’t have to? Even the Boston Globe went on (as I referenced in my previous blog post on the matter) said outright they didn’t feel eHarmony wanted to do this based on their observations. And this blog is merely that: my observations on the matter, which in this case obviously weren’t researched down to the source. For that, I apologize.
I’m gay, but I didn’t think that Eharmony should have been forced or coerced into making a gay friendly site. There are tons of gay dating sites out there. Though, with it’s reputation, Eharmony will strongly benefit from this as long as they offer the same quality and service. Maybe that’s why they gave in.
Interesting – I wonder why eHarmony balked at creating a gay/lesbian portal in the first place? It would not be difficult or particularly costly to clone the ‘hetero’ eHarmony site with a few tweaks to allow for a gay demographic. And, as a member of the travel industry I can tell you that GLBT folks are a HUGE untapped market for ‘mainstream’ businesses.
Wake up American business!
Because, Maria, Warren, the Christian evangelical founder of eHarmony wouldn’t even begin to want to associate or promote homosexuality on any level because he believes that homosexuality is an absolute sin and homosexuals are deviants and sinners who are going to hell.
The only reason they are going this route and creating a gay site is to get the gays and the media off their back. Ultimately I’m sure they’re hoping that no self-respecting gay person would want to be associated with them and that like all “bad things”, eventually we’ll just go away.
ha ha Bradley, you are SOOOOO right..Dr. Neil Warren, head fundie,and king of his personal ”literal interp of scripture” ,anyhow, will be interesting to view new site as of o4-o9…regards….
It is the same absurd and violent behavior of the Gay Brigade to force a private company to submit to there strong arm tactics. Simple soultion: Start your own.
As a staunch supporter of both gay rights and personal freedom, I have to say that I do not believe in forcing someone to violate their own personal belief system. While one should not be discriminated against when it comes to health care or jobs, I am very leery of forcing someone to labor for something in which they do not believe.
If this stands, I will be looking for the hetero option soon over at GayDate. Fair is fair, right?
No worries… I help gay travlers in my area…sometimes *personally*. Contact me if you want: ted.zerfas@hyatt.com
It was eHarmony’s choice. They probably don’t know much about the legal system and thought that if they didn’t do it, it would be too much trouble and they might lose the case.
Though, frankly, the website was not created as a heterosexual website, but is based on a religious model of heterosexuality… therefore, if the Christians change their mind about it, I see nothing wrong with them opening up such a website.
I would never participate in eHarmony, not that I date anyway. I can just imagine me… meeting someone from that website and then they try to kiss me, and I flinch in horror… LOL.
Just another case of gay activist trying to force their will on others who disagree with their life chosen style. How painfully intolerant the entire gay movement has proven to be.
This case was about money. eHarmony was not forced to create this site, nor were they found in violation of the law. The complainant was (I think) really trying to make a point that the company didn’t have anything that should exclude homosexuals. Frivolous lawsuit, maybe in some eyes. Gay activists forcing “their will on others who disagree”, definitely not. This is eHarmony playing the conservative heart strings – “Oh, poor us, we are forced to take the gays money… we didn’t want to” – yeah right. They didn’t have to! They just saw this as an opportunity to get lots more money – money from the homosexual community who have wanted the services and they still get money from their conservative base because this group (based on these comments) is not looking at what the case really said and simply assume eHarmony “didn’t want” to take the gays money. Yeah right.
I have no problem with e-harmony only catering to heterosexual users. My issue with them was that I went through their whole darn profile make up process before discovering that they would only match me with women. It really upset me that they had wasted so much of my time. To top it off, now I tried to log onto Compatible partners and they just send me back to E-Harmony. I can’t get into compatible partners apparently because I already created a profile on e-harmony!
Man do I feel like an idiot. So naive. Well living in Canada I guess it’s easy to be so. My neighbour across the hall signed on to eharmony and she had so many replies and matches , I thought what the hell. why not give it a shot. Ihave yet to recieve one match and I broaden my search to include the whoel country. Perhaps I’m the only one signed onto the site.Isn’t that ironic? Probably have more luck finding a partner in a bathhourse. I guess i should have researched. Well I can kiss that 60 bucks goodbye
Compatible Partner or eHarmony is a total waste of time and money. I m in Miami, Fl and i can only match few? It is a joke. Save your buck for a drink on friday in a bar or take your friend out to have funs is better to spend in eHarmony. Adios.
As a gay man who has used other gay-oriented dating sites, e-harmony’s new site obviously didn’t get designed with input from anyone gay.
In the gay world (at least with men), there are particular sexual preferences which are important in a match-up. I won’t go into details here but their new site makes no mention of it. I’m not interested in matches where it just would not work sexually. Also, no way to indicate age preference – it just matches someone around your age. Bigger age differences are routine in the gay world (I’m not talking about sex with minors here so don’t go there). There are no questions which relate to aspects of the gay world which are distinct and important to most gay men.
I have a problem with giving my money to an organization/company who is doing it only due to pressure frankly. There are gay-oriented purely dating services which I’ll take my business to.