The Church of Anti-Discrimination, most confident of sects, will settle for nothing short of full establishment: under a California court settlement, ChristianMingle.com, which bills itself as the largest online Christian dating site, has agreed to establish search options for men seeking men and women seeking women. Two California men had sued under the state’s expansive Unruh Civil Rights Act. Owner Spark Networks, which admitted no wrongdoing, “agreed to pay each plaintiff $9,000 each and $450,000 in attorneys’ fees to the two men’s lawyers.” [Jacob Gershman and Sara Randazzo, WSJ Law Blog] At Patheos, David Smalley, who describes himself as a pro-gay atheist activist, says the episode is based on too broad a definition of public accommodation; declining to offer a particular service is not the same as offering it to the public but turning down some customers. “Since when can the government tell us what products or services we must offer to future customers? Every atheist, every liberal, and every business owner needs to fight for Christian Mingle’s rights to offer the products or services they choose, even if we disagree with their practices or philosophy behind it all.”
Related: Ontario won’t license grads of conservative Christian law school [Charles Lewis/National Post, earlier]
5 Comments
Yup, I fundamentally agree with David Smalley here. I don’t see the difference between ChristianMingle focusing on straight Christians vs realtors specializing in commercial or residential properties. This ruling is absurd.
Evil and tyrannical is more like it.
The attorneys’ fees were almost 23 times plaintiffs’ recovery. Sounds like the Unruh Civil Rights Act is working as intended – a few crumbs for alleged victims and mega-bucks for major campaign contributors.
Who knows? It might be a hit.
“Since when can the government tell us what products and services we can offer to future customers?”
Hmmmm, Mr. Smalley, did you forget one passed about six years ago….something called the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. “Obamacare” or “404 Care”?