Dean's World

Exactly! 'Free Enterprise' and 'California' don't usually appear in the same sentence. 'First Amendment' and 'California' do appear in the same sentence, along with 'fruitcake'.

I think the important thing to remember about California is that when it comes to redefinition they wrote the book on the way it could be if everyone else would just agree to redefine everything else as written on the wind.

Stealing from my comment at Ron's place: Mac users should sue game companies that only write Windows versions.

I believe this suit seeks to go beyond merely accepting homosexuality to actually compelling support, and, in an abstract sense, participation.

I agree with Michael. Besides wouldn't it be better to go to a dating site that specializes in the type of relationship you want?

Dean, it looks like you've simply decided to attack corporations instead of looking into the merits of the case. It isn't even match.com, it is eHarmony. Corporations aren't holy, but frivilous lawsuits should piss every American off no matter who they're against!

This suit makes zero sense to me. Here's why:

1) She was not denied access to the service. The service is about women finding men (or vice versa). If she wanted to find a man then she would be golden, but that's not the service it offers. Basically, it'd be like going to McDonalds, demanding a Whopper, and then suing the golden arches when they don't provide it!

2) The market has already solved the problem. There are numerous exclusively gay and lesbian online matching services, and also places (like match.com and others) that offer the service.

3) If this lawsuit goes through will it also force gay and lesbian sites to cater to heterosexuals? It should.

Dean, eHarmony is currently a close-held corporation. It has a small group of owners who are actual participants in the company. Does that matter? Would it matter if it were a sole-proprietorship?

In another variation, would you say the same rules applied to an Escort Service?

Dean,

Ron has some more pertinent details over at his site but the gist is that Dr. Warren believes that his matching algorithm (for deep compatibility!) wouldn't work for same-sex relationships, and thus catering to homosexual clientele would require a significant business investment, and just isn't the sort of service they offer.

I don't know one way or the other if that's true, and even Dr. Warren admits to basically not having ever looked at the issue. But assuming it is, it complicates the lawsuit into not simply a request to be served, but into a request to be served by an establishment that simply doesn't serve what you're looking for. Like asking for spaghetti at an asian restaurant. Even if they're forced to serve you, it's going to be chow mein.

Penny: Damn right, it should. (And I say this as an atheist!)

Freedom of association, writ large. "AtheistMatchFinder" shouldn't have to accept religious people, and eHarmony shouldn't have to accept atheists (if they in fact do not; the truth of the rumor is irrelevant to the thought experiment).

That Corporations are not inherent to "Free Markets" makes little moral difference; if I, as a sole proprietory with full liability, wanted to do the same with my personally-run business, it would make no difference at all.

The State of California may well have the legal right to require such things, but that doesn't mean it's morally justified or a good idea.

(And before anyone brings up, say, the Civil Rights Act, let it be noted that that quite specifically refers only to public accommodations and the like (in terms of refusing service, which is the relevant consideration; eHarmony has not refused to employ a homosexual); things in public and that are very unlikely to have significant alternatives, such that a refusal to serve would be significantly harmful to those denied.

Online business is naturally much more competitive, and any significant excluded group will (as in this case, they already have) be rapidly served by a business catering to them.

And similarly, non-public-accommodations probably ought to be allowed to refuse service to any group they dislike; I, as a business owner [again, "Corporation" or not, even as a sole contractor] shouldn't have to provide services for anyone I don't want to.

Yes, this lets Klansmen not serve blacks, but it also means I don't have to serve Nazis or the Communist Party, and that gay men don't have to print fliers for Fred Phelps.

Since there's no logical/empirical way to define and separate "good" from "bad" in statute, the choices are either to force everyone to do business with everyone, or allow anyone to not do business with anyone, in this reduce domain of non-public-accommodations.

I choose the latter on basically libertarian grounds.)