It is a sign of how far anti-discrimination laws have gone when a dating website is sued for not including homosexuals in the matchmaking service. I completely agree with Jacob Sullum:
In a settlement with the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office, the online dating service eHarmony, until now limited to heterosexuals, has agreed to start matching men with men and women with women. The deal resolves a complaint by a gay man who claimed that eHarmony’s failure to accommodate homosexuals violated New Jersey’s Law Against Discrimination.
[...] I’ve never bought the argument that gay marriage—i.e., the government’s evenhanded recognition of relationships between couples, without regard to sexual orientation—is a way of forcing “the gay agenda” onto people who object to it. But this coerced agreement, compelling a private business to provide a service it did not want to provide, certainly is. As Michelle Malkin notes, “this case is akin to a meat-eater suing a vegetarian restaurant for not offering him a ribeye or a female patient suing a vasectomy doctor for not providing her hysterectomy services.”
Also read this old article by Jason Dixon.
While I would instinctively tend to agree with Jacob, I do wonder if it would be correct to draw an analogy between eharmony and, say, a restaurant that refuses to serve gays, or blacks? Or a restaurant that has nothing on its menu for vegans? Would a vegan, therefore, on the strength of this judgment, be entitled to sue the restaurant and win?
And this confuses me, since I also agree with Michelle Malkin’s examples. Any thoughts?
Cheers,
Quirky Indian
http://quirkyindian.wordpress.com
QI-
The anti-discrimination law that applies here prohibits discrimination in provision of services to a person on the basis of his/her belonging to a protected category. Since a restaurant does count as a service (indeed it also is a ‘place of public accomodation’ so other anti-discrimination laws also apply) and color is a protected category, a restaurant is indeed prohibited from discriminating against blacks. On the other hand veganism is not a protected category (though I won’t be surprised if they include it someday!!) so a restaurant can indeed have nothing for vegans without fear of a lawsuit.
As for homosexuality, it is a protected cateogry in some state laws (such as the one in New Jersy), which is why eHarmony caved in.
I suppose Michelle Malkin’s examples weren’t meant to give another example of an illegal activity but just to provide an analogy to explain how ridiculous such laws are.
Anti-discrimination are a classic example of a slippery slope; the extent to which the scope of laws have increased in the last three decades is quite stunning. Initially meant to cover only core issues like employment and housing, they now cover everything from roommates to dating websites. For some more examples, see this old, long post of mine.
Abhishek, thanks for the clarification. You’re right, it is a very dangerous road to travel on, since any category can claim inclusion (hypothetically, a town could sue an airline for not flying there!), and coercing a private business to make commercial decisions based on such lawsuits is stupid, and can only lead to disaster.
Cheers,
Quirky Indian
http://quirkyindian.wordpress.com
I remember reading about something similar a long time ago, on LRC. Dumb is just how I can describe it.