How about this one boys and girls? Assume this was your business and you were a bible believing Christian. What would you do?


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Suit forces eHarmony to offer gay dating service
Wed Nov 19, 3:33 pm ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Online dating service eHarmony has agreed to create a new website for gays and lesbians as part of a settlement with a gay man in New Jersey, the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General said on Wednesday.

The website will provide a dating service with "male seeking a male" or "female seeking a female" options, the Attorney General's office said in a statement.

eHarmony said it will launch the new same-sex dating site, named "Compatible Partners," by March 31.

The settlement was the result of a discrimination complaint filed by Eric McKinley against eHarmony in 2005, which will be dismissed under the settlement agreement.

eHarmony was founded in 2000 by evangelical Christian Dr. Neil Clark Warren and had ties with the influential religious conservative group Focus on the Family.

The New Jersey complaint is not the only legal action to be brought against eHarmony for failing to provide a same-sex option.

In March, lawyers in California brought a lawsuit against the company on behalf of San Francisco resident Linda Carlson, who was denied access to eHarmony because she is gay.

"We believe that this case is now essentially moot, and we're confident that we will prove that in court," eHarmony vice president Antone Johnson said in a statement about the California case.

(Reporting by Rebekah Kebede, Editing by Sandra Maler)

Perhaps he just caved in, heading away from Chritian principals anyway, a search turned this up.


Date with eharmony

Since it's not a secret that Warren is an evangelical Christian with strong ties to the conservative Christian community -- including a prior business relationship with Focus on the Family leader James Dobson -- I suspected that his views on social issues came straight from the Christian right, and the longer the company dodged my calls the more skeptical I got.

Eharmony, it turned out, had been equally skeptical of me. "Salon, I think, is known for being harsh," Warren said. "I wouldn't want you to make me sound bad because, for instance, I believe in God or I pray."

It's an issue Warren is sensitive about, especially right now, as he makes a break from Dobson's ministry. In late May, after Warren began to publicly distance himself from Focus on the Family, Dobson announced a formal separation of sorts on his radio program. It's a significant split; the conservative, evangelical community nourished Warren's nascent business, and now he appears to be leaving it behind for the secular world. Part of his reluctance to talk to a reporter who he guessed would press him on religious and social issues may well have had to do with the delicacy of his situation. Is he a moral man who has begun to question the narrowness of the Christian right, especially their position on gays? Or is he a savvy opportunist looking for a bigger market share? And if it means that he is opening himself up to a more nuanced and accepting worldview, does it really matter?

Finally, after increasingly aggressive phone calls to the site's outside publicity firm, here we were, talking at last. It was hard to believe that we would have many of Warren's 29 dimensions of compatibility to work with. I am a pagan, single 30-year-old feminist with strong suspicions about the ever-creeping tentacles of the religious right. Warren is a married psychologist grandpa with a divinity degree, a Californian by way of rural Iowa; he has three daughters, nine grandchildren and strong suspicions about the liberal press.

But we wound up talking for two hours straight. During the conversation, Warren grappled -- honestly, it seemed -- with his feelings about homosexuality, his pride in his multiracial workforce, his commitment to marriage, and his belief that I should really consider dating an Asian guy. I occasionally felt played, as if he was pulling out some shiny tricks to show a lefty reporter he isn't James Dobson. But I also thought we genuinely connected.

"My agenda is to try to do two things: to change the world and build a business," Warren told me. I had read similar statements from him before, and the saving the world part had always sounded scarily messianic. But in conversation, his tone was so earnest, so nakedly committed to lowering the divorce rate -- which he feels he can do through eHarmony -- that I felt I should congratulate him on his good intentions.

He was certainly aware of the stain political involvement could have on his business as he continues to expand it. And he wasn't shy about bringing it up. Before I even murmured James Dobson's name, Warren was anxious to proclaim his distance from his friend and former associate. "I have a lot of respect for a lot that goes on in Focus on the Family," he said. "Where I get nervous is when people think we're political like Focus on the Family. You kind of have to trust me on this, I guess, but we don't talk about things like abortion. I wouldn't have the slightest idea where our employees would stand on that issue." Warren said that he has "a position on every social issue," though he declined to outline any of them.

A few days after I spoke with Warren, Dobson responded to recent interviews in which Warren has distanced himself from his former booster. "I introduced Dr. Warren and his books -- and eHarmony, more recently -- to our listeners specifically because he was and it was decidedly Christian in nature," Dobson told his radio audience on May 26. "Dr. Warren is anxious to change that direction. So ... we will go our separate ways ... with reluctance and regret." A salty response posted on the Conservative Voice Web site beneath a story about Dobson's on-air comments suggested that some feel the split between Warren and Dobson is less about ideological distance than it is about money, and Warren's desire to broaden his company's commercial appeal.

But if that's the case, why won't he budge on gay marriage?

When I asked Warren about his refusal to serve same-sex couples, he listed several reasons for his policy. "First, we're into marriage," he said, pointing out that gay unions remain illegal in almost every state. He also doesn't feel there is adequate research on how men can be matched up with other men, or women with women.

Businessmen have approached him and asked for his help in building a company designed specifically for gay couples. Warren was proud to tell me that he advises them to research the kinds of compatibility that make gay relationships last. "It did my heart good that these guys I talked to, these gay guys, have since said, 'Neil Clark Warren was sympathetic.' That meant the world to me," he said. But it's also pretty clear that eHarmony is not about to reverse its own policy. Warren is simply too torn on the issue.

When I told him that I found it sad that my gay friends don't have the opportunity to take advantage of the eHarmony compatibility elixir of which he is so proud, he was quiet for some time. "I love the spirit with which you make that point," he said thoughtfully. "And we do do a lot of talking about how we love the idea of being inclusive." He paused again, sounding slightly shaken. "It's just not an easy point! We've got thousands of years of history of the human race in which this was never treated as a marriage and there are a lot of people who think it's just not going to have the same kind of stability over time.

"Where Focus on the Family and a lot of these other places come from is that there are six places in the Bible that say homosexuality is wrong," he said. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. But then he continued: "On the other hand, in the Old Testament if you work on the Sabbath day and you're guilty then you should be shot."

I was surprised to hear him play out his internal debate so openly. Sure, he remained fairly benighted on issues of homosexuality, but I had to acknowledge he's from a different time and culture. I wish that I'd been able to have a conversation this frank with my late grandfather, who was not exactly open to sexual, religious or racial differences -- and whom I loved very much. How could I not appreciate the fact that Warren was at least engaging the topic? Far from dismissing homosexuality as an aberration, or suggesting that gays are going to hell, Warren brought up his best friend's daughter, a lesbian who has two children with her partner. "She's a dear person to us, and a very strong spiritual person," he said. "And when I start seeing things like that, I think we've got to start to think about that maybe this can work."

Then again, Dick Cheney has a gay daughter he loves, and he is a linchpin in an administration that would discriminate against her. And the fact remains that, open as Warren is to conversations about homosexuals, he's still refusing their business.

Churches will be forced to accept this or be faced with government intervention. Obama and the UN will see to that. *Just a prediction.*

So, will "gay" dating sites now be forced to provide straight dating sites too?

Or is a one way street?

Why couldn't that homosexual man use a gay dating site instead of forcing a straight one to create one?

Did he go after E-Harmony just because he knew it was run by a Christian? Wouldn't that be a "hate crime"?

Interesting questions LMC.

Luke 17:26-30 (NKJV)
Likewise AS IT WAS ALSO IN THE DAYS OF LOT;... EVEN SO WILL IT BE IN THE DAY WHEN THE SON OF MAN IS REVEALED.

Just because eharmony was founded by a Christian doesn't make it a Christian dating site. The fact is that it's not. It's not billed that way, not described that way, and if you look at it, there are opportunities for people of all faiths to join as well as athiests.

I agree with your prediction that "Churches will be forced to accept this or be faced with government intervention. Obama and the UN will see to that." Most churches are 501c3 organizations and that brings state control to the church.

quote:

Originally posted by reasonable:
I agree with your prediction that "Churches will be forced to accept this or be faced with government intervention. Obama and the UN will see to that." Most churches are 501c3 organizations and that brings state control to the church.

OR PERHAPS GIVE UP THE TAX EXEMPT STATUS

quote:

Originally posted by Love My Country:
So, will "gay" dating sites now be forced to provide straight dating sites too?

Or is a one way street?

Why couldn't that homosexual man use a gay dating site instead of forcing a straight one to create one?

Did he go after E-Harmony just because he knew it was run by a Christian? Wouldn't that be a "hate crime"?

All this just confirms the truth in Romans. People in sin desperately want to hide the nature of God and pretend that actions are behavior or morally neutral. In this way, God is created in the image of the sinner and the created god does not set any standard that the god creator cannot meet. This is the nature of self deception.

The problem is the created gods have no authority in the everlasting and no form or being in eternity. Hence, on the death of the sinner the created god has no presence or influence.

quote:

People in sin desperately want to hide the nature of God and pretend that actions are behavior or morally neutral.

What is the nature of God?

Depends on the nature of the inspired writer of Scripture.

GOD- I will pull up your skirts over your face that your shame may be seen--

Is this rape?

quote:

GOD- I will pull up your skirts over your face that your shame may be seen--

Is this rape?

Well, sometimes one has to ask silly questions to provoke a discussion.

The nature of God has been subject of much thought, prayer and theological writtings. It is the first question addressed in systematic theology.

Let me list a few aspects of the nature of God.

Holy,
All powerful,
All knowing,
All encomposing,
Personal
Triune being cosisting of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit
Loving
Just
The sole presense and ruler of eternity,


As to the Rape question,

As you recal, Adam and Eve were naked. This is a symbolic sense in the fact that their conscience and being were right with God.

When God says he will pull up the skits, he means he will reveal the deciept of the false gods mentioned in my prior post. He will reveal the false coverings created as people and institutions try to create a god in their own image.

This is a neccasary precedence to repentance and salvation.

ANyone that truely repents and becomes a Christian will face their nakedness before God.

This could hardly be said to be rape.

Good point Dreamin' I believe the Babylonians could have done just this to the Israelites because of their disobiedience.

The only name God refers Himself to is I AM. Other inspired writers call him the other names you mentioned above.

Oh and one thing about Eden, suppose God 'yada' Adam? What does that mean to you?

quote:

Originally posted by Secrets:
Good point Dreamin' I believe the Babylonians could have done just this to the Israelites because of their disobiedience.

The only name God refers Himself to is I AM. Other inspired writers call him the other names you mentioned above.

Oh and one thing about Eden, suppose God 'yada' Adam? What does that mean to you?

I am not sure what you are getting at by yada, more explanation please.

FYI, I was not trying to reference the names of God but characteristics of God.

Let me ask you this one?

Does God have a body of sorts?