I just want to say that this is an awesome debate. Thanks to everyone for staying on topic and making some really good points. Thanks to BD for phrasing the questions for debate in a neutral manner.

Kudos all.

The debate has been good, but I'm not particularly interested in it.

eHarmony is, in my opinion, irrelevant to much of anything other than just being another annoying commercial to flip through.

Wow...thanks for the heaping helping of negativity. If you're not interested in that debate, why do you have enough interest in THIS thread to bring it down? Sheesh...

I think it's an excellent debate because several layers of the issue need to be peeled away to get at the substance of the debate. And eHarmony in itself is not irrelevant even if it is to you. The other guitar player in my last band met his wife on eHarmony. He was so uninterested in the women I'd introduce him to at gigs, that I thought he was gay. I mean, just like the guy in Corky Romano - talked about women around the guys but was more interested in guys. And I was perfectly cool with that. Whatever made him happy was good by me.

But what he really wanted was a woman he could connect with on a completely different level. He met a school teacher that was his perfect match, they hit it off, they got married, and are trying to have kids. I'm sure there are plenty of other services that accomplish the same thing for other classes of consenting adults that eHarmony might not provide.

This entire lawsuit/debate is probably the best thing to ever happen to eHarmony. The argument is framed as if they are the only game in town. They have to be loving this - they can't buy this type of publicity.

My assessment of eHarmony here in casual conversation avoids getting the debate off-topic on the "real" thread. I said it was my opinion (just an opinion) and besides nearly everyone knows I have a deeply cynical side.

If I had to choose a character in literature to depict my cynicism, it would be the skeptical old donkey Benjamin in George Orwell's Animal Farm. That explains a lot, doesn't it.

I feel that it really doesn't help the cause for gay rights to sue eHarmony over this. It just comes off as sour grapes, and the founder does make a point that his research was specifically based on long-term heterosexual relationships. To blame this Neil Clark Warren (or whatever his name is) for being a heterosexual Christian who has based his business--not a service receiving government funding--on what his personal values are is specious. It is not so much discriminatory as not inclusive of a broader range of sexual orientations.

There are plenty of matchmaking or dating services out there. It's like blaming a Hershey bar because it isn't a Nestle's Crunch bar. If the woman in question did not lose money to eHarmony or was not promised to be matched up with a female of her choice, I can't really see how she sustained any "damages" or harm.

As a contented married person, I dismiss as SPAM any email advertisements promising to "hook me up" with the "right single" or to find lifelong companionship based on the assessment profile.

I tried out eHarmony to see if it was worth writing an article about. Naw, not worth it. The outfit does spam the dickens out of you and wants money. How about that.

Here's something interesting though. Even when I described myself as a freelance writer looking for material, not a date, I still got overtures. WTF? And it wasn't like someone wanted to tell their personal story about eHarmony. Either these were fakes or people who could not/would not read.

If I were in the market for a mate, maybe eHarmony would be worth doing. As far as disallowing gay mating, it's their business and can be defined to exclude gays. I see ads in the Independent all the time for gay mating get-togethers, so its not like this type of service is unavailable.

On the other hand, Colorado had its Amendment #2, which was truly a load of #2. There's where the discrimination is, not online dating.

BTW, I met Lydia on CompuServe and we emailed for several months before meeting up. That was in 1990. It has not all been peaches and cream, nor should it be. This is one of the reasons the eHarmony ads make me gag.

I'm also leary about their psych profiles and the matching algorithms. What Lydia and I have in common that has served to keep the relationship going does not show up on any psych profile. We're really not sure what the heck it is either. But it is undeniable. We know this, as we have tried to deny it and failed. So the relationship is a success, whether we like it or not.

I'd like to see a couple like that on eHarmony ads: Yes, we fell into bed and had hot sex for two years, along with highly emotional fights. We broke up a couple times and discovered that the misery of being alone outweighed our differences. Then we bought this house together and decided that fighting wasn't worth the energy or emotional hangovers. What can I say other than SCREW YOU eHARMony!

Then the couple throws eggs at the guy doing the narrative. But oh, what teamwork!

I agree actually. I wanted to add (better here than in the actual thread) that I have been arguing that according to the law of California, the lawsuit is legal, and appropriate and will likely win.

I still think the lawsuit is STUPID, (who actually got hurt here? What mental suffering did person X endure by not being able to select a gay mate on one of a million websites?) but then many lawsuits are often stupid: that does not prevent them from being legally viable.