RSS 2.0 FeedCalifornia Lesbian Sues eHarmony
by Doug MataconisThis one comes straight out of the totally ridiculous lawsuit file:
A Northern California woman sued the online dating service eHarmony on Thursday, alleging it discriminates against gays, lesbians and bisexuals.
Linda Carlson said she tried to use the Internet site in February but could not based on her sexual orientation. When Carlson wrote to eHarmony to complain, the company refused to change its policy, according to the lawsuit filed on her behalf in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
The lawsuit claims that by only offering to find a compatible match for men seeking women or women seeking men, the company was violating state law barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
“Such outright discrimination is hurtful and disappointing for a business open to the public in this day and age,” Carlson said in a statement.
The suit names Pasadena-based eHarmony, company founder Neil Clark Warren and his wife Marylyn, the company’s former vice president, as defendants. It seeks class action status, a jury trial and unspecified damages.
Of course it does. In it’s defense, EHarmony points out that it’s system is based on specific research that only included opposite-sex couples:
“The research that eHarmony has developed, through years of research, to match couples has been based on traits and personality patterns of successful heterosexual marriages,” a company statement said.
“Nothing precludes us from providing same-sex matching in the future, it’s just not a service we offer now based upon the research we have conducted,” the statement said.
Over at The Volokh Conspiracy, Dale Carpenter points out just how this lawsuit reveals the pernicious ways in which anti-discrmination laws are being applied by Courts today:
Modern antidiscrimination law is expanding in two ways that I think are very unhelpful. First, it is being applied in ways that infringe important liberties outside the commercial context. The Boy Scouts case, involving the exclusion of an openly gay scoutmaster, was an example of this. While the harm and indignity done to the gay scoutmaster, who’d been an eagle scout, was not trivial, requiring that the Boy Scouts let him lead troops violated the Scouts’ associational and speech interests in very important ways.
Second, antidiscrimination law is increasingly being applied to trivial and/or pretty harmless discrimination that goes well beyond core concerns about things like employment and housing. The exclusion of Catholic Charities from offering adoptions in Massachusetts was unjustified because it was difficult to show how the group’s anti-gay policy actually hurt gay couples seeking to adopt.
The eHarmony suit is an example of the trivialization of antidiscrimination law. It doesn’t involve a core concern like employment or housing or even a traditional public accommodation. It’s also very hard to see how any gay person is really harmed by the policy. Gays aren’t lacking for match-making sites, either general ones or those tailored just to same-sex pairs. And personally, I wouldn’t give my money to eHarmony regardless of what policy they adopt at this point.
But there is an an even more important point to consider here. Why should eHarmony be forced to provide specific services to a specific group of people. Whether you agree with their approach to online dating or not — and I should disclose at this point that my wife Kellie and I originally met on eHarmony back in February 2003 — it is their approach and their business.
If you don’t like it, don’t give them you’re money and go somewhere else. But that is not the solution that comes to the mind of people who live with the mentality of a victim. Instead of being an adult about it, they go crying to a lawyer and looking for someone to sue.
Pretty sad if you ask me.
Update: KipEsquire addresses this lawsuit at A Stitch In Haste and makes a very good a point:
The lawsuit was filed in California, apparently under that state’s over-reaching Unruh Civil Rights Act:
51.5. No business establishment of any kind whatsoever shall discriminate against, boycott or blacklist, or refuse to buy from, contract with, sell to, or trade with any person in this state on account of any characteristic listed or defined[.]
California’s Civil Rights Act of 2005 added sexual orientation to the list of protected classes.
So, as I tried to explain in this post about another widely lambasted Unruh lawsuit, it is all-important to distinguish between insisting that the eHarmony litigation is “silly,” “misguided,” “petty” or any similar word (which may well be the case), and claiming that it is “frivolous” (which is simply not the case). Under the plain language of California law, this is obviously not a frivolous lawsuit. If anything, it is the Unruh Act that is frivolous.
In other words, not only isn’t the lawsuit frivolous, thanks to California law the Plaintiff may actually have a chance to succeed. If anything, that makes this entire silly episode even more distressing.
Two comments. First, has anyone else seen the ads for another dating site appealing specifically to gays? Once again, before this case even makes it to court, the marketplace has solved the problem.
Second, exactly how does the California law work? Does that mean that doctors are required to check women for prostate cancer or men for ovarian? In truth, this is still a frivilous lawsuit. eHarmony didn’t discriminate against gays. Any gay man can log onto their site and find a woman just as any straight man can. It isn’t like they ask “are you gay” and then reject a man’s account from even finding a woman. The plaintiffs just don’t like the choices offered.
Too bad eating habits probably isn’t on the list. I could go out to California and sue vegatarian places for not serving meat as discriminating against carnivores. Alas, my frivilous lawsuit isn’t accepted even if this one is. Darn.
Comment by trumpetbob15 — June 2, 2007 @ 12:36 pmI’d just like to point out here that the Boy Scouts receive special privileges and governmental support. If they were truly a private organization, I’d have no problem with them excluding whomever they wish. As it is, they shouldn’t receive support for the government if they want to pick and choose who can and cannot be a member.
Comment by Bill — June 2, 2007 @ 12:58 pmWhat amazes me about these frivilous lawsuits is, WHERE do the plantiffs get their time, energy and money? have they nothing better to do? My gawd, my day is taken up by work during the week and sometimes on the sknd as well, then yardwork, honey-dos, paying bills, etc, on the wknd. It would be sheer luxury to have the TIME that these folks do. They must be awfully bored to feel such the need to sue someone, especially when they have not been adversely affected by said company or individual. AND these ARE TRULY FRIVILOUS lawsuits; remember, a lawsuit is NOT frivilous if you are suing because your rights were infringed upon or you were robbed, libeled, slandered, assaulted, or injured mentally and or physically. If a lawsuit fullfills any of the above conditions, as rediculous as it might seem, it is therefore NOT frivilous. In the case of E-Harmony, for a lesbian to be suing them (to me at least) is as frivilous as a man suing Daughters of the American Revolution for admittance, for example.
Comment by nikolai — June 2, 2007 @ 8:04 pme-Harmony isn’t discriminating here. Gays or lesbians can use their site, then just won’t be receiving useful matches, seeing as how they’re the wrong gender. They’re simply limiting the scope of what their company does. I don’t sue Victoria’s Secret for not offering men’s briefs, because that’s not their business, they make womens undergarments.
Comment by Eric — June 3, 2007 @ 12:20 pm