Anne Keckler - Diary of a Stage Mom ([info]anne_keckler) wrote,
@ 2008-11-20 08:48:00
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The courts have forced E-Harmony to open up a site for the gays. Some of my friends think this is a great thing.

The site had claimed that the only reason they didn't allow gays or lesbians on their site is that they had no clue what caused gay couples to be compatible. They assured everyone that it had nothing to do with the company being run by evangelical Christians. (And I can't really see why it would matter, except that we have stupid laws that don't allow a private business owner to make decisions like this for religious reasons.)

A group of gays sued, and the courts decided that E-Harmony cannot discriminate against homosexuals (as if everyone has some sort of fundamental right to use an internet dating site, and it must be THAT one).

What are your thoughts?

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[info]mfree
2008-11-20 01:55 pm UTC (link)
It's a private site, they should have been allowed to do whatever they want. If they didn't want to cater to homosexuals, their choice... but it would have been known, and anyone who didn't like it could simply not use the service. Market rules.

This is essentially an unfunded mandate from the courts.

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[info]merccom
2008-11-20 02:16 pm UTC (link)
privately owned business/website. they dont provide service to gays because they dont know HOW TO provide there services to the group but the courts are going to force them to anyway.

if i were the owner, i would make sure to screw up matches as horrably as i could.

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[info]bart_calendar
2008-11-20 02:31 pm UTC (link)
I'm waiting for the first straight woman to sue to be allowed to join M4MSexNow.com.

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[info]chron_job
2008-11-20 02:49 pm UTC (link)
> they dont provide service to gays because they dont know
> HOW TO provide there services to the group

Nah... that's a crock to make their position less politically repugnant. They also disproportionately refuse service to Atheists.

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My thoughts.
[info]chron_job
2008-11-20 02:45 pm UTC (link)
I don't know details of the specific case, so my thoughts below are about the abstract situation as presented.

========

It's difficult. I am torn in two directions... both of them groping toward some principle that will resolve my internal conflict. Both trains of thought worry about their own slippery slopes, in opposite directions.

Thought #1) If Religious asshole idiots want to exclude customers for whatever reason from a private business, then it's literally their business (so long as it really is a private institution... unlike the Boy Scouts who accept gobs of public money). We can point out their idiocy; and publicly mock them for it. We can boycott them for their idiocy... but making a Law is too much. Forcing people to be nice to each other isn't the purpose or place of law. That's the purpose and place of social pressure.

Thought #2) If all truly private business behavior is only a matter of personal conscience, and thus idiots are free to discriminate in their business practices... does that mean that realtors can decide not to sell houses to black people? Can a bank refuse to open checking accounts for anyone who won't proclaim their Christian Faith?

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on thought 2
[info]merccom
2008-11-20 03:02 pm UTC (link)
Q1 YES
Q2 YES

just the same as you can choose to become a mortgage broker and refuse to deal with anybody unless they are a gay atheist

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Re: on thought 2
[info]chron_job
2008-11-20 03:14 pm UTC (link)
Well, there's lots of people who disagree with you, and there's lots of law specifically about racially based housing, employment, and services discrimination. Why are you right, and why are they wrong?

> just the same as you can choose to become a mortgage
> broker and refuse to deal with anybody unless they are a gay atheist

The fact that discrimination can be reciprocal 'in principle' isn't enough to make it right, or legal, or acceptable. For instance, in the Jim Crow south of the early 20th century, the simple fact that IF some black people happened to own a bank, they would be free to exclude whites from receiving loans from it, well... that would probably have been very cold comfort to black folks who couldn't get a loan or buy a house.

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Re: on thought 2
[info]anne_keckler
2008-11-20 03:37 pm UTC (link)
there's lots of law specifically about racially based housing, employment, and services discrimination

Because when people feel bad they want the government to fix everything and make everyone play nice.

IF some black people happened to own a bank, they would be free to exclude whites from receiving loans from

There were probably government regulations that prevented them from doing so.

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Re: on thought 2
[info]merccom
2008-11-20 03:42 pm UTC (link)
>>>and there's lots of law specifically about racially based housing, employment, and services discrimination. Why are you right, and why are they wrong?

because i'm not forceing anybody to do anything and they are!

>>>The fact that discrimination can be reciprocal 'in principle' isn't enough to make it right, or legal, or acceptable. For instance, in the Jim Crow south of the early 20th century, the simple fact that IF some black people happened to own a bank, they would be free to exclude whites from receiving loans from it, well... that would probably have been very cold comfort to black folks who couldn't get a loan or buy a house.

what can i say, sometimes life is hard and sucks but i dont think anybody has a "right" to someone elses money. just because you cant get a loan for a house doesnt mean you cant buy a house it just means you have to pay cash for it which is doable and preferable, it just takes a little longer. also, why would you want to give your money to somebody that doesnt want to take your money?

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Re: on thought 2
[info]chron_job
2008-11-20 04:29 pm UTC (link)
> because i'm not forcing anybody to do anything and they are!

"All relationships possible should be consensual relationships" is a great ideal... but we abandon it when we ask for taxes, when we have building codes and pollution regulations. Why is preventing discrimination different than those others?


> i dont think anybody has a "right" to someone elses money.

Tell it to uncle Sam. He has a right to a % of my money every year. And much of it goes to things I hate (like maintaining the War on Drugs, maintaining the War on Terrorism, etc.) The only thing that legitimizes this control over my property is the fact that the Government is representative of the people.

> just because you cant get a loan for a house doesnt mean
> you cant buy a house it just means you have to pay cash for it

Which is of course irrelevant if the same discrimination in the loan market also exists in the housing market.

We're getting distracted by details, but lets state it as simply as possible, as a single principle. We'll call it P1.

People's discretion over their own property is absolute. Thus they should be able to freely discriminate in their business behavior with no restrictions.

If we accept P1, this position is inconsistent with lots of law currently on the books, like the Fair Housing Act, or the Civil Rights Act of '64. Remember that in the late 40's and early 50's there were still overtly racially discriminatory housing covenants (i.e. you can't buy the house unless you're white. You also can't buy it unless you sign a contract saying you won't sell it to anyone else but whites)

If you stand by P1, are you willing to recreate a segregated, Jim Crow south? Because that's what P1 allowed... and it took laws that violate P1 to attack it.

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Re: on thought 2
[info]merccom
2008-11-20 06:25 pm UTC (link)
once again it comes down to the simple reality of there being 2 different kinds of people in the world, those that want to control people and those that dont.

you desire to control other people lives and how they live them while i do not.

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Re: on thought 2
[info]chron_job
2008-11-20 07:19 pm UTC (link)
So that would be a 'Yes'... i.e. you would be willing to live with a Jim Crow south, if preventing it requires laws of the nature of the Fair Housing Act and the Civil Rights act.

> you desire to control other people lives and how they live
> them while i do not.

Hmph. You're overstating your principle there a bit I think. We ALL seek to protect ourselves and others by controlling other people's behavior. Thus, laws against Assault, Murder, Fraud, etc. etc.

Your stated principle is typically REFINED by differentiating between legally actionable behavior, and legally non-actionable behavior... the typical test analogy being "Your right to swing your fist stops at my face".

But, in any case, you have no idea what I 'desire' in this respect, because I don't know what I desire here either! Remember, this thread started with my statement of my ambivalence on the issue, about how I am torn between these two world views. I'm attempting to resolve this conflict internally, but, alas, this discussion has revealed no new principles or arguments.

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Re: on thought 2
[info]anne_keckler
2008-11-21 02:42 am UTC (link)
Your stated principle is typically REFINED by differentiating between legally actionable behavior, and legally non-actionable behavior... the typical test analogy being "Your right to swing your fist stops at my face".

That's not about what is legal and what is not. It is about the difference between an initiation of force, and self-defense.

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Re: on thought 2
[info]anne_keckler
2008-11-20 09:09 pm UTC (link)
He has a right to a % of my money every year

What if he doesn't have a right to it, but takes it anyway?

the fact that the Government is representative of the people

So if you happen to be the sheep in a democracy, that's just too bad for you? As long as the majority (the wolves, in this analogy) want something, they get it?

That may be true, but it's not because it's their right. It's only because they are the majority and they have bigger guns teeth. ;-)

If you stand by P1, are you willing to recreate a segregated, Jim Crow south?

Wow. This is an area you might want to research that era of history further. Jim Crow laws PREVENTED people discretion over their own property! Business owners were not allowed to serve "colored people," even when they wanted to.

So, you have set up an either/or situation where it doesn't really exist. I will stand by P1 and still fight against a segregated "Jim Crow South." Because that kind of segregation requires government intervention to maintain.

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Re: on thought 2
[info]chron_job
2008-11-20 09:42 pm UTC (link)
> What if he doesn't have a right to it, but takes it anyway?

Give me a good extra-legal definition of "Rights" and we'll talk more.

> So if you happen to be the sheep in a democracy, that's just too bad for you? As long as the majority (the wolves, in this analogy) want something, they get it?

Then how do you justify taxation? Do you want to abolish all taxation? If your answer is "minimum necessary", who gets to define necessary? And uses what principles?

> This is an area you might want to research that era of history further. Jim Crow laws PREVENTED people discretion over their own property! Business owners were not allowed to serve "colored people," even when they wanted to.

'Jim Crow LAWS' is a term covering specifically those laws that codified prejudice in the reconstruction south. I said "The Jim Crow SOUTH" is a term for the general society of which those laws were a part.

It's not like there was a popular movement to treat blacks with economic equality that was tragically stimied by a bunch of segregationist laws that somehow managed to magically appear on the books. The laws appeared because of the sentiment of local whites, who insured continued political power through paramilitary organizations and violent intimidation. But discrimination did not begin with, and extended beyond, specific laws. There are literally thousands of examples of everyday discrimination which were not covered by explicit Jim Crow laws, or any other statute, one example of which was the Housing Covenants I mentioned earlier.

> Because that kind of segregation requires government
> intervention to maintain.

I wish.

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Re: My thoughts.
[info]anne_keckler
2008-11-20 03:36 pm UTC (link)
Sure! And plenty of people will compete agains the realtor who won't sell houses to black people, and the realtor will likely be publically ridiculed. There are plenty of other banks, and plenty of other realtors, and you don't have a *right* to the services of either. You could purchase a house from a private seller, or stuff your money in your mattress.

While I don't like bigotry, we have to admit that it exists. I find it much better to *know* whether someone dislikes me, than to have them pretend to like me and possibly stab me in the back somehow.

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Re: My thoughts.
[info]chron_job
2008-11-20 03:52 pm UTC (link)
> And plenty of people will compete agains the realtor who won't sell
> houses to black people, and the realtor will likely be publically
> ridiculed. There are plenty of other banks, and plenty of other
> realtors

And if the discrimination is widespread and endemic?

If the market fixes everything, no civil rights movement of the late 60's would have been necessary. The market would have / should have already removed discrimination. It didn't. Law's were changed... that didn't end discrimination either, but it is less than it was.

"Let the market work" is not a way out of this tough decision fork.

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Re: My thoughts.
[info]merccom
2008-11-20 03:59 pm UTC (link)
now wasnt discrimination a part of the law prior to the 60s?

that whole seperate but equal thing? the LAW is what the civil rights movement was about! not the market!

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Re: My thoughts.
[info]chron_job
2008-11-20 04:34 pm UTC (link)
No... the civil rights movement was not about the law. It was about behavior. Behavior of individuals, behavior of businesses, and the behavior of governments.

the "seperate but equal" rule of thumb was not just about what cities and states could do, it was also about what businesses and individuals could do. (For instance, in some zoning areas, some businesses were required to provide access to water (water fountains). If they made one "white only", they ostensibly had to provide a "black only" one as well.

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Re: My thoughts.
[info]anne_keckler
2008-11-20 04:19 pm UTC (link)
The government created the Jim Crow laws in the first place. Plenty of business owners wanted to do business with blacks, but weren't allowed to! The market wasn't allowed to remove discrimination.

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Re: My thoughts.
[info]chron_job
2008-11-20 04:52 pm UTC (link)
> Plenty of business owners wanted to do business with blacks,
> but weren't allowed to! The market wasn't allowed to remove
> discrimination.

This is the current operative myth of libertarians vis a vi discrimination. The fact that several racist attitudes became codified as law does NOT mean that it was Laws that maintained racism. Nor does it mean that the magical market would have fixed things if those laws were not there. The Laws, and The Market, are both expressing symptoms from the same source, i.e. the bigotry of the people in the region.

"The Market" is not some force of nature, or abstract ideal plane of existence. "The Market" is a semantic fiction invented as an umbrella term to describe the cumulative actions of many, many individual agents. If the constituent agents in a region are largely Bigots, "The Market" in that region will express bigotry, unless externally constrained.

We talk about "The Market" and how it behaves, in abstract terms which are often useful, but neglect important realities... just like when a high school physics problem ignores friction.


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Re: My thoughts.
[info]drakemobius
2008-11-21 01:35 am UTC (link)
yes, but when human agents collectively began to want to act in a less racist fashion, the laws more racist people had created kept them from doing so.
people change, cultures change. the laws had to be changed to reflect this. not to incite it.

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[info]dustin_smith
2008-11-20 04:53 pm UTC (link)
So instead of letting the market run it's course in the direction of someone or some group of people forming their own website for the purpose of providing a matchmaking/dating service that would be able to fufill the needs/desires for those wanting the service for gays, the government intervenes and forces a private business to do so, even though the business states they would not know how to provide the service for gays (and it could very well be a sincere reason, although the ownership of the company/site throws a shadow over that). This, in turn, could lead to a less-than-satisfactory service for gays; ie they get matched up with someone they end up despising. Sure, that's probably happened a lot with E-Harmony over the years, but it could happen even moreso if they do not know what their target audience likes/needs. All that said, I would think gays would look for similar characteristics in their partners as straight people would...however, being that I'm not gay, I wouldn't know, so take that (along with all my other blabbering) with a grain of salt.

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[info]jakobmorningstr
2008-11-20 06:01 pm UTC (link)
I can't say that this ruling makes me terribly happy. I do understand both points of view, but the business model was assumedly created for hetero couples. This is a private business, not a public one, nor does the government have a hand in it.

I think this is government getting involved where it shouldn't.

But it does break ground to stomp the Boy Scouts of America's no-gay policy. I'd be happy with that, but I believe that the grounds for them not allowing gays and not being forced to allow gays is that it is a private club, not governmental.

I think that if eHarmony wants to exclude gays, that is their right, they just miss out on that revenue. I don't think they're crying about it. The government and courts shouldn't be sticking their nose into this, IMHO.

I'm torn on this, I'm for gay rights but I'm also for private business/free-market.

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[info]anne_keckler
2008-11-20 09:11 pm UTC (link)
I'm all for gay rights, but nobody has a *right* to another's services or product.

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[info]urban_homestead
2008-11-20 06:31 pm UTC (link)
It bothers me that people use legislation to prevent companies from focusing on a particular market. They will need to adapt their software and user interface now so that people can specify what sex they're looking for in a partner, and I don't think they should have to. As someone else pointed out, there are plenty of sites that provide service *just* to people in search of same-sex partners. Even as a purely business decision, I think it's probably a good idea to focus on providing one service or the other. I imagine most people in search of same-sex relationships would prefer to join a service that specializes in that, so E-Harmony isn't likely to do well in this market anyway. If you only get a small number of people wanting same-sex match services, they're going to get bored reading each other's profiles pretty fast and move on, at which point e-Harmony's investment in offering same-sex services will have been a total waste.

I think it would be interesting to start a service just for smokers. The vast majority of non-smokers do not want to date a smoker. Same reasoning - try to get all the single smokers at one site, and the pool of potential mates opens up dramatically for all of them, instead of having them spread out at a number of different sites where virtually none of the other members are going to even look at them. (Of course, I say this as a non-smoking woman who married a smoker, so... heh. But when I started seeing him, a number of non-smokers asked me, ewww, how can you date a smoker, that's so gross!)

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[info]anne_keckler
2008-11-20 09:13 pm UTC (link)
I suspect that the group who took this legal action did so merely to punish eHarmony for their religious beliefs, really. I can't imagine that they truly want to use the service of a company that doesn't want to serve them.


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[info]urban_homestead
2008-11-20 10:29 pm UTC (link)
I'm sure you're right, but presumably the legislators' intent was to make eHarmony's services available to homosexuals, and my point is that this intent is silly. :)

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[info]drakemobius
2008-11-21 01:39 am UTC (link)
the real question is, how successful will eHarmony be catering to a market they have no passion to serve? they've been, essentially, legally mandated to fail. how unfortunate.

i say that's the real question because there is no question in the other -- a business has a legal right to discriminate, because your business is, ironically, none of anyone elses.

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