Religious dating sites must make gay matches

SparkNetworks, who make mostly religiously-tailed dating sites, have agreed to settle anti-gay discrimination claims against them under California Law. Basically, their sites, including ChristianMingle.com (for Evangelicals), AdventistSinglesConnection.com (for Seventh-Day Adventists), CatholicMingle.com (for Catholics) and LDSSingles.com (for Mormons), will no longer be allowed to offer only "men seeking women" and "women seeking men," in keeping with the religious beliefs the sites are intended to represent, but must promote and make matches between men and men, and women and women.

ChristianMingle Opens Doors to Gay Singles Under Settlement
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2016/06/30/christianmingle-com-opens-doors-to-gay-singl...

ChristianMingle loses lawsuit, must now include gay singles
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jul/1/christianmingle-loses-lawsuit-mus...

Court settlement forces ChristianMingle.com to allow same-sex matches
http://www.dailydot.com/irl/christian-mingle-lgbt-matches/

Someone should create one of those sites where gender is blind.

If I were taking advantage of a dating site (and I have friends who have found great relationships with a dating site), gender would be a question I would like to know.

Along what their interests are and whether they smoke.

And I suppose to be clear, along with gender, I would like to know what their biological sex is.

It would be an interesting social experiment, though, to see what would happen if you just left it out.

Imagine what will happen to these sites when we get around to normalizing all the different genders out there.

Maybe I'm over-analyzing but it seems to me that an internet matchmaking site isn't exactly providing a service, is it? It is selling access to some kind of algorithm. So it's not that these sites refuse gay users, (the way, for example, that bakery refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple) is it? It's that their matchmaking algorithm isn't going to be useful. That's the kind of thing you'd think would be corrected in the marketplace -- someone could create a Christian matchmaking site that did take into account that some of their users would be gay.

When these sites first started -- eharmony.com, I think? match.com? -- I don't think any of them initially offered same-sex matches. You had to go to a specialized gay matchmaking site for that. They all see to now, though -- obviously they find it a good business decision.

The government is behind though. The mortgage application has a section gathering information for Government Monitoring.

It only mentions sex, with two options.

Government is hard on everyone but themselves.

This is maybe a dumb question, but I looked around on some of the Spark sites and didn't find an obvious answer.

You refer to "ChristianMingle.com (for Evangelicals)" along with Mormons, Catholics, Adventists, etc. But what about plain old Protestants? are they ALL now considered to be 'evangelicals'? even liberal Lutherans? Episcopalians?

I'm a bit bemused here. A good friend of my wife is a devout baptist and after a very acrimonious divorce used a a baptist dating site. This is Inverness in the Scottish Highlands but perhaps for the record I should say I'm neither Scottish nor Baptist. I think she would have been horrifyed to be teamed up with another woman as a potential partner. But my question would be:— if it's not OK to ask for a male or specific gender why is it OK to ask for a Baptist? Or even a Christian for that matter. What happens if a baptist in California wants to subsrcibe to (say) LDSMingles.com mentioned in the OP?

Maybe I'm over-analyzing but it seems to me that an internet matchmaking site isn't exactly providing a service, is it?

One of the things it is, is free speech. ChristianMingle, for example, talks a lot about "Christian marriage" and its meaning, and features testimonials from happily-married people about Christian marriage. True equality is going to require "compelled speech." Simply adding the options, and making matches, is compelled speech. But they're going to need to take down all this talk of Christian marriage being about a man and a women, and put up testimonials from same-sex partners. This isn't requiring someone to sell a cake to a gay person; this is much more entangled in basic human and Constitutional freedoms—freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of association.

I'm in favor of same-sex marriage; I would never use sites like these. But I can't see this as anything other than the death of religious freedom, or at least it's reduction to a narrow "freedom of worship within the confines of a religious building." If a site specifically for evangelical Christians, with "Christian" in the name and many explicit statements of belief, built to promote a Christian understanding of a Christian sacrament, can't cater to people who identify with that understanding of marriage as a matter of faith, well, what's left?

This feels to me like a jokey "edge case" scenario for an argument—something we'd all have laughed about a few years ago. Of course Muslim matrimonial sites weren't going to need to add a gay section! Don't be silly!

Well here we are, and it's not far from other jokes. What's next? Will real-life matchmakers within the Hasidic community be required to make same-sex matches? Will Christian bookstore have to add a GLBT section? Must Catholic liturgical supply companies sell robes for female priests? Must all straight porn sites add gay sections? Will Thomas Kinkade have to paint gay couples into his shitty paintings, next to Jesus? More to the point, this sort of thing presents a million ways to attack all the other religious organizations that aren't explicitly owned by and fully part of a house of worship. Evangelical and Catholic schools and hospitals are target number one.

Back in the late 90s I spent some time looking into the Zoroastrian marriage sites. I don't know what they're like now, but Zoroastrians were one of the first communities to embrace online matrimonial sites, because their ridiculously ancient religion is going extinct from being so few and so spread out, and because Zoroastrians must marry inside the faith or leave it. The sites were made by the community, and weren't flashy. There can't be much money in it--their numbers are so few. Are the liberals here really saying that Zoroastrian matrimonial sites must now lend their voices and algorithms to promote same-sex marriages--something utterly rejected by Zoroastrian believers? Is that where equality leads--really? And you're okay with this?

When these sites first started -- eharmony.com, I think? ... They all see to now, though -- obviously they find it a good business decision.

No, eharmony was sued into it also.

>11 timspalding: One of the things it is, is free speech. ChristianMingle, for example, talks a lot about "Christian marriage" and its meaning, and features testimonials from happily-married people about Christian marriage. True equality is going to require "compelled speech." Simply adding the options, and making matches, is compelled speech. But they're going to need to take down all this talk of Christian marriage being about a man and a women, and put up testimonials from same-sex partners. This isn't requiring someone to sell a cake to a gay person; this is much more entangled in basic human and Constitutional freedoms—freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of association.

See, I wouldn't have thought that what was on offer by an internet site would be the issue. Anti-discrimination usually comes in when people are denied access to the use of "public facilities" -- so once again, I find myself wondering do these sites make a practice of rejecting gay users from creating accounts? If so, that would be discrimination. But not being able to find them matches? That's a question of the kind of inventory your site provides. I can't see how that is applicable. I also think the free market is the natural corrective for this kind of situation -- if one site doesn't provide the product you are looking for, find a site that does, or create one.

Don't get me wrong, I obviously think all this obsession by a certain segment of the American Christian population with the rejection of homosexuality is ugly, pointless, and doomed. And I think building the defense of freedom of religion around the issue of how badly you can treat a group of people is just nuts -- it is bound to backfire and make "freedom of religion" be defined in ever-narrower ways. But unless the sites in question are asking if users are gay and then actively rejecting them (or firing employees they discover are gay) then discrimination doesn't seem to apply. They are just sites that offer a limited product.

I find myself wondering do these sites make a practice of rejecting gay users from creating accounts?

No. But they offered only men-for-women and women-for-men.

Don't get me wrong, I obviously think all this obsession by a certain segment of the American Christian population with the rejection of homosexuality is ugly, pointless, and doomed. And I think building the defense of freedom of religion around the issue of how badly you can treat a group of people is just nuts -- it is bound to backfire and make "freedom of religion" be defined in ever-narrower ways.

I think so too, but so much of Constitutional law, and human rights law generally, happens at the ugly margins. Most of the big free-speech cases were won on behalf of Nazis, horribly misogynistic pornographers, etc. The last big right-of-assembly case was won by the "God Hates Fags" people. But if pornography law hadn't been overturned, and the right to demonstrate not established, it wouldn't stop at the margins. And, well, rights are rights.

>1 timspalding: Since it's clear this is not an issue of the corporate belief, isn't this more of a matter of "dating sites must make gay matches"? I don't see why the targeted audience matters for whether a business violates anti-discrimination laws. Note that BlackSingles.com was included in this lawsuit.

So these sites are considered as an internet equivalent of a restaurant or nightclub? Everyone gets to sit at the lunch counter and get lunch?

BlackSingles.com

Right. Now try StraightSingles.

I don't see why the targeted audience matters for whether a business violates anti-discrimination laws.

Rights have to adhere irrespective of the ultimate owner's belief. For example, an Evangelical imprint owned by a secular publisher--for example, Zondervan, owned by HarperCollins--still ought to be able to publish books about "Christian marriage" only.

So these sites are considered as an internet equivalent of a restaurant or nightclub? Everyone gets to sit at the lunch counter and get lunch?

I went to a gay male porno site; they didn't have any content for me. Where's my lunch?

>16 timspalding:

That's a false analogy (gay evangelicals have something in common with straight evangelicals--an interest in dating a person of specific religion--that would orientate them naturally toward a business catering to evangelicals; you don't share such a commonality with gays that would reasonably bring you to a gay porno site), and your >1 timspalding: is misleading.

These people aren't forced to "make gay matches", but to open their membership to gays. Whether anyone "makes a match" there is obviously going to depend on customers and not on the business.

>11 timspalding: One of the things it is, is free speech. ChristianMingle, for example, talks a lot about "Christian marriage" and its meaning, and features testimonials from happily-married people about Christian marriage.

So apparently a restaurant in Enid, Oklahoma recently declared itself to be a black- and gay-free zone. (Not in those words, of course.) Is that not free speech?

But I can't see this as anything other than the death of religious freedom, or at least it's reduction to a narrow "freedom of worship within the confines of a religious building."

Food and meals are a sacred part of many religions. Does that give Kosher restaurants the right to ignore the Civil Rights Act? They may not want to break bread with a nonbeliever. A Christian restaurant may not want gay people to pollute the sacred space of people going in a meal together.

More to the point, this sort of thing presents a million ways to attack all the other religious organizations that aren't explicitly owned by and fully part of a house of worship.

The idea that's one's beliefs are only relevant if you can present them as part of your religious organization is disturbing to me. That a hospital run by a religion of pacifism could turn down veterans, but a hospital just run by pacifists doesn't have that option, strikes me as perverse and wrong.

I don't see why Best Friends Animal Society couldn't refuse to adopt animals to Santeria followers, but The Foundation Faith of the Millennium could have, in theory.

I don't see anything new here since the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The government has listed certain groups you can't discriminate against, and businesses open to the public can't do that, not free speech grounds, and not on freedom of religion grounds.

>16 timspalding: Right. Now try StraightSingles.

If you're arguing that they can't reject gays, but they don't have to match them with people of the same sex, well? It seems to go against Obergefell v. Hodges and Loving v. Virginia. More importantly, many of your intervening arguments become irrelevant; that's a very narrow ledge to stand on.

Rights have to adhere irrespective of the ultimate owner's belief. For example, an Evangelical imprint owned by a secular publisher--for example, Zondervan, owned by HarperCollins--still ought to be able to publish books about "Christian marriage" only.

The freedom of the press is not really under discussion here. Can HarperCollins call upon Hobby Lobby to save them a few bucks on insurance? Can anyone use peyote because some people have a religious right to use peyote? "Rights have to adhere irrespective of the ultimate owner's belief" is not really consistent with religious exceptions to the law.

>17 LolaWalser: These people aren't forced to "make gay matches", but to open their membership to gays. Whether anyone "makes a match" there is obviously going to depend on customers and not on the business.


Ah, I see. so it was originally a question of not letting gay people register by wording the user info to exclude them. That is a discriminatory practice, but doesn't the change in the form address it?

Umm, you do realise that SparkNetwork's initial dating site was focused on Jewish singles, right?

This doesn't seem a corporation that necessarily holds the beliefs it caters to (they also offer military dating, BBW dating, etc.), it's simply a corporation that is tailoring matchmaking sites to specific niches.

It is interesting to wonder why there would be a need for evangelical Christians to offer gay dating options unless gay evangelical Christians (or the men and women who love them) wanted the option.

Speaking of niche markets, this is for you Mr. RichardBSmith...

http://smokersingles.com/?gclid=CNnOntT12s0CFQsDaQod-8oNvw

These people aren't forced to "make gay matches", but to open their membership to gays. Whether anyone "makes a match" there is obviously going to depend on customers and not on the business.

Let me explain how website algorithms work. They happen on the company's machine, not on yours. The company's machines engages in various mathematical operations and emerges with the match. Their former algorithm no doubt was based on men matching women, and the reverse. To make it work for both gender and sexual preference, they would have to change the algorithm--indeed, probably pretty deep changes in the data model. Any such changes would require testing, iteration and so forth. This new algorithm would do the matching. It's not magic, and it's definitely something the company is doing.

If you don't think the company is doing the matching, would you mind if they allowed people to express their sexual preference but have the old algorithm serve up only opposite-sex matches?

Does that give Kosher restaurants the right to ignore the Civil Rights Act?

Kosher restaurants are not required to offer non-kosher food, nor ordinary restaurants forced to offer kosher food.

I don't see anything new here since the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The government has listed certain groups you can't discriminate against, and businesses open to the public can't do that, not free speech grounds, and not on freedom of religion grounds.

In fairness to California, this was decided based on specific California law, not Federal law. We'll see if someone draws federal law into this somewhere else.

The freedom of the press is not really under discussion here.

So, you would have no problem if, by the button for same-sex matches, they quoted Biblical passages about executing gay people?

This is not some theoretical thing. Religious sites quote Biblical passages at people all the time. ChristianMingle is very fond of Bible passages about men and women. There are a lot of them, and, I assure you, they are pervasively heteronormative.

Maybe I'm biased, because I run a website, but I think website creation is absolutely an act of free speech. Underneath ChristianMingle, as LibraryThing, there are millions of lines of copyrightable code, not to mention copyrightable user-displayed text. Just because website content is delivered at request, and not printed on paper, doesn't mean we're any less a publisher of content.

Incidentally, are we also saying Catholic match must accept matches between divorced, non-nullified people? Must a Muslim matrimonial service accept non-Muslims? Must an Orthodox Jewish site accept non-Jews, although marrying non-Jews is religiously prohibited within Orthodox Judaism? As Wikipedia puts it "secular intermarriage is seen as a deliberate rejection of Judaism, and an intermarried person is effectively cut off from most of the Orthodox community." Are Orthodox marriage sites required to facilitate that?

Really, I want to know--how far do you take this?

It is interesting to wonder why there would be a need for evangelical Christians to offer gay dating options unless gay evangelical Christians (or the men and women who love them) wanted the option.

Well, one possibility is that these lawsuits are raised by people trying to win a legal point, or by organizations with that motive, who then recruit people to be their "perfect cases." I have nothing against that--it's a standard way such battles are waged. But let's not pretend that this doesn't happen.

Umm, you do realise that SparkNetwork's initial dating site was focused on Jewish singles, right?

Indeed. JDate didn't participate in the suit. However, there are Orthodox-Jewish sites that certainly would have. They just don't own any.

>22 timspalding: Kosher restaurants are not required to offer non-kosher food, nor ordinary restaurants forced to offer kosher food.

Again, that's a narrow take on the issues at hand, which you seem to ignore elsewhere.

In fairness to California, this was decided based on specific California law, not Federal law.

I don't see that as relevant to the discussion. California made no law that was of new character; your objections hold to the long established Civil Rights Act of 1964 in the same way they do to the new law.

So, you would have no problem if, by the button for same-sex matches, they quoted Biblical passages about executing gay people?

I don't know; would you be okay with if by the notice that they serve everyone by law, a restaurant displayed pictures of black people being lynched? In both cases, they're using free speech and following the letter of the law though not the spirit of it.

website creation is absolutely an act of free speech.

So you're saying that Pizza Hut restaurants can't refuse to serve black people, but PizzaHut.com can?

Just because website content is delivered at request, and not printed on paper,

The law prohibits a business from publishing menus that declare they won't serve members of protected groups. Again, this is not a new issue.

Incidentally, are we also saying Catholic match must accept matches between divorced, non-nullified people? Must a Muslim matrimonial service accept non-Muslims? Must an Orthodox Jewish site accept non-Jews, although marrying non-Jews is religiously prohibited?

Must BlackSingles take white people? Must eHarmony take black people? Again, I think you're ignoring the longstanding basis for this. Do you agree with the Civil Rights Act of 1964?

Must BlackSingles take white people? Must eHarmony take black people? Again, I think you're ignoring the longstanding basis for this. Do you agree with the Civil Rights Act of 1964?

ChristianMingle wasn't refusing to allow people to join. It was refusing to make the matches they wanted.

Black people are not entitled to demand foods the restaurant doesn't serve. And, more, Christians are not entitled to ham sandwiches from kosher restaurants.

So you're saying that Pizza Hut restaurants can't refuse to serve black people, but PizzaHut.com can?

The Supreme Court has allowed significant restraints on commercial speech. I would hope that a religious site having Bible quotes would not be considered liable to such restraints.

>22 timspalding:

Precisely. You have just made my point.

SN doesn't own any Orthodox Jewish dating sites. Because the sites aren't Jewish or Christian, they are dating sites owned by a corporation that markets them to consumer demographic groups.

This isn't deeply held corporate conviction, it's marketing.

If there are gay people in the world, then a Christian ministry should minister to them. If a Christian gay person is seeking companionship, where would the church desire they look - perhaps at a bar?

>27 richardbsmith:

Absolutely. I believe that, and I go much farther than most Christians in it.

But what someone "should" do is distinct from what the government can force them to do.

Tim, I will defer to all others on the question of the applicable law. Though a court decision seems to suggest an answer.

In my mind the question related to what grounds a business can refuse service.

>24 timspalding: ChristianMingle wasn't refusing to allow people to join. It was refusing to make the matches they wanted.

Then you're okay with a Muslim service or an Orthodox Jewish service being forced to accept people of any religion?

The Supreme Court has allowed significant restraints on commercial speech. I would hope that a religious site having Bible quotes would not be considered liable to such restraints.

Huh? Many restaurants are religious and have Biblical quotes, and are subject to such restraints. If you run a business offering a service for money, you have to obey the Civil Rights Acts, no matter how many Biblical quotes you put up.

Then you're okay with a Muslim service or an Orthodox Jewish service being forced to accept people of any religion?

Religious services aren't businesses. And, for what it's worth, I don't think people are refused entry at either. But, yes, I do support allowing a religious service to police who may or may not enter.

If you run a business offering a service for money, you have to obey the Civil Rights Acts, no matter how many Biblical quotes you put up.

You really might want to read about the case, which did not involve the Civil Rights Act at any time.

>31 timspalding: Religious services aren't businesses.

That was a response to

>22 timspalding: Must a Muslim matrimonial service accept non-Muslims? Must an Orthodox Jewish site accept non-Jews, although marrying non-Jews is religiously prohibited within Orthodox Judaism?

A dating service is a business. Do you support MuslimMatch being forced to accept people of any religion? A dating service that sells memberships, especially across state lines, is subject to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, so excluding people based on religion wouldn't not be legal, and has not been legal for a long time.

You really might want to read about the case, which did not involve the Civil Rights Act at any time.

Actually the law this was about was the Unruh Civil Rights Act. And again, I ask, what is so fundamentally different about that law from the series of federal Civil Rights Acts?

You keep broadening the question, but then keep running back to the exact details of the case. If you want to ask the question above (in >22 timspalding:), then the detail of rejecting gays versus not offering same-sex services is less interesting.

So here's another bit of church/state weirdness. Online for profit dating sites might not be able to discriminate against homosexuals, but the new Noah's Ark theme park in Kentucky is allow to only hire Christians, despite receiving public funding.

And yes, the ark has a spot for dinosaurs.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-noahs-ark-kentucky-20160705-snap-s...

>22 timspalding:

Let me explain how website algorithms work. They happen on the company's machine, not on yours. The company's machines engages in various mathematical operations and emerges with the match. Their former algorithm no doubt was based on men matching women, and the reverse. To make it work for both gender and sexual preference, they would have to change the algorithm--indeed, probably pretty deep changes in the data model. Any such changes would require testing, iteration and so forth. This new algorithm would do the matching. It's not magic, and it's definitely something the company is doing.

My point is that algorithms produce only matches "on paper"--between ANY individuals. The actual, real life "matching" depends solely on whether people represented by their online profiles actually decide to form a relationship. Do the owners spend sleepless nights worrying they might have matched future abusers with their future victims etc.?

If you don't think the company is doing the matching, would you mind if they allowed people to express their sexual preference but have the old algorithm serve up only opposite-sex matches?

Dumb question, I would mind for the same reason you'd mind if on asking for beer someone offered you tea.

You claim the changes to their algorithm would have to be substantial. I don't know what exactly that means, nor why it would matter, if true.

If they accept gay members on principle, then whatever changes necessary are no more difficult than what other sites have been doing.

I find all aspects of religion troubling, but this issue seems over the top. If a group wishes to help people make connections with specific criteria, i.e. religious faith, then they should be free to do so. I certainly cannot fathom why a devout Baptist would expect to find "true love" on a gay website, so the opposite should hold true, as well. My perception of the whole kerfluffle is the continuing desire of many gays to feel "normalized" by inclusion, even within a website activity not designed for them, at all. Misguided, at best.

What about a gay devout Baptist looking for another gay devout Baptist? I'm sure they're out there...

>35 K.J.:

I think you misunderstand, it's a matter of opening the site to religious gay people, Baptists or whatever they are, not to gays in general. The distinction that (presumably) draws anyone to that site and not other dating sites IS that particular religion.

And as noted before, there's nothing religious about the site but its branding.

>37 LolaWalser: Yes, I do understand your point, and I still feel that it is unnecessary to force inclusion.

>39 K.J.:

Why is it necessary to force exclusion?

>40 LolaWalser: I'm not jumping into that rabbit hole. No one is forcing anyone to accept my opinion on the matter, nor do I feel it necessary to debate my opinion, as it is merely that and nothing more.

What exactly are the edges here? Stipulating the death of all religious arguments, does the Constitution require--or do you want it to require--that all dating sites must cater to all gender identities, gender expressions, sexual orientations, etc.? Is it simply illegal to have a service that aims to hook up gay people, or straight people, or men, or transsexual people, or whatever? Or is it that they're allowed to have that as a goal, but must implement other options--so the recent transsexual-dating site I read about is okay, but it must have radio buttons for people who aren't transgender, and algorithms to hook them up with other people who want to use the site in ways that go against its apparent marketing?

Blech.