What? White guys don’t like chicken wings? Have you seen the demographics of a Buffalo Wild Wings?

Buffalo Wild Wings is to chicken wings what the Detroit Lions are to a pro football team.

Discrimination may be ungood, but sometimes service providers and their customers are discriminating. I know I am at times. Show of hands: who’d put their toddlers in a preschool staffed exclusively by men?

On the other hand, it’s also a bit like the maître d’ telling a black couple “You’re welcome to make a reservation, but we don’t serve soul food.”

What’s odd to me is not just the story, but that the terms of the settlement basically said “you have to provide equal gay matchmaking services but it can be a separate website”.

Or some iced tea.

Motherfucker.

Toys-R-Us puts up a sign: “No Muslims”. That’s a pretty good analogy, D-KW

But it is discrimination. If by advertising that a site is available to the general public, using the general public’s broadcast medium, and then you slam the door shut on sectors of the general public, that’s not false advertising.

That’s discrimination.

As for the financing, said financing is provided by the general public, because clearly eHarmony is running a for-profit enterprise.

Too, we’re discussing this all in a vacuum, because this might be a statuatory issue in California, where discrimination laws might specifically dictate the terms under which this lawsuit was filed.

No one’s doubting that a private organization has the right to discriminate. The SCOTUS decided that in 2000 regarding the Boy Scouts.

What is in doubt is whether a for-profit publicly advertised dating service can truly be considered a “private organization”?

The legal rights of marriage are a totally different product than a convenient, effective matchmaking service for hetero or homosexuals only.

Y’see after the word “for” you discriminate. Magic Shaving Powder, made for black men, would lose a significant amount of business if white folks were not actually allowed to purchase it.

Is this the new justification for Prop 8?

Marriage, in terms of civil rights, is only important in that it’s a product consisting of tax structure and legal conveniences. The government believes the inherent stabilities of a partnership between two people has an overall stabilizing effect on society and so they’ve created this product. The argument against Prop 8 is that sexual orientation has little no relevance to that product — that the stabilizing (yeah, I know…relationships are often not stable in micro terms) effects remain the same whether a couple is same or opposite sex.

The legal rights of marriage are a totally different product than a convenient, effective matchmaking service for hetero or homosexuals only. Differing sexual orientation is relevant to one and not to the other.

Nah, I’m just shitting you. I don’t hate the Mexicans – they are a quaint and curious people with very fast talking mice. Who could hate that? It’s just that I hate Ayn Rand.

Anyways, you’re saying it’s okay to discriminate against gays on matters relating to sex/relationships. Is this the new justification for Prop 8?

Look, if eHarmony was actually soc.christians.looking.for.marriage.but.no.gays then sure you’ve got a point. But they aren’t. They are a multi-million dollar business that has decided that there is a class of people that they won’t sell to. Also, the cowardly fucks don’t have the guts to say “No Gays”. If I were Preznit Obama, it’d be fucking Gay Marxist Abortions for all those eHarmonizers.

I’ve read the men-only and/or whites only country club arguments, too. But again, golf and cocktails are products that don’t have anything to do with gender, race…or sexual orientation. And golf and cocktails are what country clubs are in the business of providing — that it’s a forum for communication of perhaps like-minded people is incidental.

Now, in the case of eHarmony, they are offering a service – a matchmaking service based on proprietary methods, and which they claim has significant value. They charge a fee for this service and apparently, plenty of people pay this fee – demonstrating that yes, the service they offer has some value…but No Gays.

Which of your two scenarios does the eHarmony case fall closer to?

But if the sole topic of a site is people of the opposite sex looking for companionship

DKW noted that it wasn’t.

then you effectively moderate out homosexuals seeking other homos. Why offer a sign up in the first place?

At this point I confess to n00bility: each and every forum post at eHarmony and at your place has to be concerned with a sexual act?

But yeah, in general, people don’t sign up at sites that offer little utility to them. That doesn’t mean that locking them outside the gates is your first step.

The reason why the majority can’t just take away all the rights

My rights aren’t being taken away by the existence of privately owned forums for communication on a topic that’s specific to people only interested in finding those of the opposite sex for companionship.

My rights would be violated if ISPs or hosting companies decided that I couldn’t start and access (manage) a place for people to meet for a shared, legal interest simply because I’m a homosexual.

Sure, moderate away according to your policy.

But if the sole topic of a site is people of the opposite sex looking for companionship with those of the opposite sex then you effectively moderate out homosexuals seeking other homos. Why offer a sign up in the first place?

I don’t know what type of drugs they feed you in 724 land. The thing that differentiates democracy from mob rule is society’s institutions. The reason why the majority can’t just take away all the rights of any minority they please (except folks who look kinda Islamic) are these protections built into the system. Stuff like the Bill of Rights and the Civil Rights Act. Publicly offering a service for sale, and then saying “No Blacks” is illegal. In California, where the class-action suit is filed “No Gays” is also a verbotten sign. You got a problem with protecting the rights of homosexuals – then go make that argument.

Private forum. Pffft. Here’s an example that might help you see things a little more clearly – imagine that I somehow found a way to circumvent the Second Law of Thermodynamics and can now mass produce units that will provide unlimited, cheap, clean energy. But I don’t – not until I get a promise from the world that my invention won’t be used to help out those fucking lazy Mexicans. Dirty, smelly, fucking lazy amigos will never see a milliwatt of magic energy. See any problems with that?

Moderating. It keeps communication on-topic

Wait a minute. You’re talking about forum communications and I’m talking about who can sign up. Sure, moderate away according to your policy.

I’m simply not understanding why a privately owned communication forum must accommodate all people and topics.

Topics are your own business, people are everybody’s business. Again, it’s about who can sign up.

So, if as you say, why not simply state up front: If you’re gay, don’t bother.

If it’s an issue of false advertising then I get it. The complaints seem to be that this is discrimination issue though. And sure it is. But again, it’s discriminating over basis of communication in a space financed by their own resources. What’s wrong with the ability to do that?