A US dating website, Christian Mingle, meant for only straight people,
has now been ordered by a judge to accept Gay and lesbian singles to
their website database. This was due to a class-action suit filed in
2013 by two gay men against Sparks Networks Inc., the owner of Christian
Mingle & several other dating sites. The suit alleged that
Christian Mingle violated California’s anti-discrimination law.
Two gay men filed class-actions claimed that the website excluded users
looking to meet singles of the same sex.
ChristianMingle, which is the largest online community for Christian
singles in the US, required new users to specify whether they’re a man
seeking a woman or a woman seeking a man.
The lead plaintiffs, two gay men who tried using it, claimed that the
limited options violated California’s anti-discrimination law.
Known as the Unruh Civil Rights Act, the state law requires “business
establishments” to offer “full and equal accommodations” to people
regardless of their sexual orientation.
The online dating site will now allow gay and lesbian users to look for
same-sex matches after the settlement of discrimination claims approved
by a California judge, who has also asked the company to pay $468,000 to
the two gay men who brought the lawsuit against it.
The settlement applies also to CatholicMingle.com,
AdventistSinglesConnection.com and BlackSingles.com, but not to the
online Jewish matchmaker JDate.com, which was not part of the lawsuit.
Spark Networks will have to adjust searching and profile features in
these websites to include gay and lesbian singles within two years, as
well as pay $9,000 each to the two plaintiffs and reimburse them for
attorney’s fees with $450,000.
“Spark will not change the gateway/home pages to use the ‘man seeking
woman’ and ‘woman seeking man’ prompts in the future unless Spark also
provide similar prompts which allow individuals seeking a same sex match
to enter and use the sites without having to state that they are
seeking a match with someone of the opposite sex. As long as Spark
operates the Mingle Sites, users will continue to have the ability to
search for potential same sex matches using the site’s text searching
and profile building functions,” the settlement reads.
Under the agreement, the gateway homepages now ask just whether a user
is a “man” or a “woman.” Spark Networks agreed that within two years, it
would adjust other searching and profile features to give gay and
lesbian singles a more tailored experience.
Source: The Christian Post/ MSN