eHarmony Tunes Out Gays

June 07, 2007

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The online dating service eHarmony boasts on their site about being able to match up singles through a psychological survey that measures “29 dimensions of compatibility.” Do you really need 29? What, do our socks have to be the same color or something?

At any rate, not one of these “29 dimensions” bothers to ask the question: “Hey! Are you gay?” something that might prove problematic for, you know … gay people!

Cue Bay Area lesbian Linda Carlson who has filed a lawsuit against eHarmony.com for allegedly violating California law by discriminating against gay and lesbian individuals by not providing service, according to a story in the The Bay Area Reporter Online.

The complaint filed by Carlson claims that her attempts to use the Web site in February 2007 were limited by her inability to base preferences “on her sexual orientation.” The dating site only allows users to make dating selections based on “man seeking a woman” or “woman seeking a man.”

The founder of eHarmony is Neil Clark Warren, a jazzy 72-year-old clinical psychologist with a master’s degree in divinity. He’s that old, silver haired grandpa you see in the eHarmony commercials; the commercials where men and women hug and kiss each other with all the passion of a sale at American Eagle and then they do something active and then they sit naked outside in bathtubs amidst dandelions for some reason -- or is that one for erectile dysfunction?

His online dating service is the only one that employs “empirical research and data” to determine compatibility factors that create successful marriages between heterosexual couples, according to Davis.

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