Legal News

A Gay Dating Site, Brought to You by the New Jersey AG

By Ashby Jones

It doesn’t exactly have the feel of a match made in heaven. But because of a court order, it’s happening nonetheless.

On Wednesday, the dating site eHarmony will roll out a gay matchmaking service, called Compatible Partners (a name that strikes us, frankly, as more suitable for a roommate or pet-finding service than a dating site).

Since its inception in 2000, eHarmony has been strictly hetero-only. But in November . . .the company agreed to start the dating service as part of a settlement with the New Jersey attorney general as part of a discrimination suit. Click here for the LA Times story; here for an earlier LB post on the EHarmony suit.

As part of the settlement, Pasadena-based eHarmony must make a “good-faith commitment” to promoting Compatible Partners. For this reason, dating site consultant Mark Brooks says Compatible Partners will be watched closely.

“This will be one of the most scrutinized products in Internet dating,” said Brooks, who hasn’t worked for EHarmony. “They will have to introduce an A1 product.”

It’s not a comfortable fit for eHarmony’s founder, Neil Clark Warren, who based the original service — which requires applicants to fill out lengthy questionnaires — on his own practice as a psychologist.

“It’s what I did for 40 years,” said Warren, 74, who is retired but remains on the board. “I never had a gay couple.” Warren is the former dean of the psychology graduate school at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 31, 2009 (boomark / email).