Online dating for specialty groups of singles has exploded in recent years, especially for gay, lesbian, and bisexual singles. One of the biggest online dating services, eHarmony.com, however, was accused of discriminating against this group of singles and faced a series of lawsuits over their practices. These lawsuits were recently settled and now eHarmony is more openly welcoming gays, lesbians, and bisexual singles to their services.

The lawsuits alleged that eHarmony.com did not do enough to provide visible and appropriate dating services to this large and diverse group of singles, and in fact suggested eHarmony.com actively discriminated against gay, lesbian, and bisexual singles who attempted to join the eHarmony.com community. After a little over two years of negotiating, though, eHarmony.com has agreed to be more proactive about serving this audience of singles and also be more forthright about displaying and providing easy access to their gay, lesbian, and bisexual dating services.

So what does this really mean? The most readily apparent change is that eHarmony.com will make links to their gay, lesbian, and bisexual dating services more visible and accessible from the main eHarmony.com web site. For instance, on the eHarmony.com home page there are currently links to other specialty dating services for seniors, Christians, Hispanics, African Americans, etc.; under the terms of the lawsuit settlement the home page will now display an equally prominent link to a specialty dating service (actually an entirely separate site called Compatibile Partners) for gay, lesbian, and bisexual singles.

This is a big win for singles of all types, as it means even the largest online dating sites cannot use their size and influence to discriminate against specialty groups of singles. Now everyone can expect to receive equal treatment and equally convenient access to the online dating services best suited to their needs.

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Just as many of us weren’t picked for the basketball team on the playground when we were kids, it looks like some online daters are getting picked last, if at all because of certain relationship persuasions.

Okay, they’re not getting put into the vast dating pool of sites like eHarmony.com because these daters are homosexual. ‘Rejected’ is the term that Chemistry.com is using to their advertising advantage. But what is the real issue here?

The truth is that there is a dating site for everyone – Christians, gay men, lesbians, transgendered, etc. So the question becomes why some daters are getting upset over the fact that one dating site isn’t ‘letting’ them use their services? Couldn’t they simply go somewhere else to meet the kind of date they want to meet?

The ‘heterosexuals only’ policy is pretty clear when it comes to eHarmony. Run by a conservative Christian founder, it’s not explicitly Christian, but it certainly isn’t accepting gay applicants and that’s nothing new.

So do these people that have been rejected by eHarmony have something viable to complain about?

There is some discussion over whether or not all dating sites should accept everyone. Since many of these online daters may have felt rejected in the current local dating pool, doesn’t it make sense to make sure they aren’t rejected anywhere online?

This is a good point, but then again, it brings up the idea again of if you want to meet a certain type of person, why not save yourself a lot of trouble and simply only use sites that cater to that kind of person and relationship?

It just makes sense to go to where the boys and girls are that you want to meet, right? Why head to a dog show when you want to look at cats?

But this is a hot topic that is bound to ruffle a few feathers, pardon the pun, even if the answer seems clear – go to the sites that cater to your needs, avoid those that don’t.

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