An observant Jew (or Muslim) goes out for dinner one night in a strange city. While at the restaraunt, he asks whether or not the food is kosher/halal. When informed that it isn’t, does he have a basis for crying “religious discrimination”?

Now, perhaps the chef will inform the patron that they don’t have kosher food because a) they don’t have enough demand for it, and b) they don’t have the proper training and skills, etc. How does the religious discrimination charge stand?

Still, let’s look at another food analogy. Instead of religious person, we have a Montana rancher stranded in Granolaville for a weekend due to his pickemup truck breaking down. He goes out for breakfast, but the only thing he finds is vegetarian fare. When he asks why can’t he get steak and eggs, he’s informed that The Earth Goddess prohibits people from eating others Her Children, and so no steak and eggs. He’s welcome to have anything else on the menu, the tofu and sprouts with lemon are positively delicous. Religiously motivitated discrimination?

Finally, a last analogy: our rancher, still stuck in town, finds himself quite hungry come lunch time (tofu and sprouts coming up short in the “stick to your ribs” department!), and seeks out another eatery. This one has a similar menu. Somewhat annoyed, Duke inquires “why can’t I get a burger?!” The cook, with a world-weary yet beatific expression on his face, replies:

“because burgers are bad for you, so I don’t serve them.”

In all these analogies, the proprietors are failing to meet the desires of their customers, for a variety of reasons. None of them are refusing service to their customers.

What’s truly stupid about this case is that the plaintiff is seeking out the expertise of E-Harmony, in all liklihood because she hasn’t had much success finding her ‘soulmate’ on her own. Well, one of the “29 dimensions of compatibility” is sex (as in male or female?). E-Harmony’s expertise leads them to believe that males bond best in romantic relationships with females, and visa versa. So, having failed using her own criteria, she is demanding that they dispense with their own expertise and use her paradigm.

duh….

The barber analogy is still good, I just stated it wrongly.

Jane walks into a barbershop. There is a sign on the counter: “buzzcuts, $1”. Jane pays $1. The barber asks what length she would like her buzz, and she responds that she doesn’t want a buzzcut, she wants a perm, and proceeds to sue.

The service offered and paid for was available! eHarmony could certainly match the woman in question, just as they would any other woman… to a man. That the woman in question doesn’t WANT that service is not their fault – that’s what she paid for.

They are not refusing to give her the same service bcause of her sexual orientation… she is demanding a DIFFERENT service.

Actually, for the woman in question, they could also quite easily give her a blank page as the result of the search of their database for matching lesbians… because they don’t have any. Somehow, I think she would have sued over that as well.

You want a flaw in your analogy? Fine, here it is:

Matching a gay couple is not the same serevice as matching a hetrosexual couple.

Therefore, your race analogy falls flat, and th OB analogy works just fine.

Actually, even better is the hairdresser/barber analogy offered so far. If you went to the barber, who claimed expertise in cutting men’s hair, and asked for woman’s style and perm, could they say no?

If the answer is “yes”, then this suit against Harmony is bogus. Plain and simple.

Yet eHarmony didn’t say that until this lawsuit. Until this lawsuit was filed, it only dealt promised to “match singles.”

And do we really want to mandate by judicial fiate that eharmony put the same amount of resources into aquiring this skill as they have with matching up heterosexuals?

Do we really want a company to provide the service for which they advertise? Only a fool would say “no.”

EHarmony should not be forced to put resources into anything other than they claimed they already had.

Clearly the best solution would be for the woman to get her money back and eHarmony to change their advertising or agreements to contain a disclaimer on homosexual and heterosexual relationships.

The judicial system won’t let that happen though as there is money in dem der hills.

My biggest problem with eHarmony is this line: “their research shows that same sex couples don’t have same abilities to commit”, or words to that effect.

Which is really saying that they believe the anti gay myth that gay couples don’t form bonds, or are incapable of doing so or nurturing each other with the same superior ability that heterosexuals do.
Hey, if anyone has to pay for matching services, and they are such big business precisely to take the hit and miss out of doing it yourself, then their point doesn’t make any sense.

Okay fine, so they don’t provide matching services for gay couples.
Goody for them.

But spreading the misinformation that gay couples don’t or can’t make good couples (while at the same time rejecting gay people who clearly WANT to be with someone), and pretending that straight couples have a lock on natural attraction and success (while match up services, divorce lawyers and children’s services are big business), the hypocrisy clearly has no bottom.

Pshaw. Eharmony doesn’t offer the service of matching up gays and lesbians because they don’t know what factors are involved in matching up gays and lesbians. They would be offering a lesser service if they did this and they, from a corporate standpoint, would be diluting their brand if they did this.

And do we really want to mandate by judicial fiate that eharmony put the same amount of resources into aquiring this skill as they have with matching up heterosexuals? Only a fool would say yes.

And race > sexual orientation. That is a truly faulty analogy.

I think eHarmony’s real problem here is that it won’t want to let this case get into discovery, because then it will come to light that its dating algorithms are (presumably) pseudo-scientific nonsense.