New Jersey resident Eric McKinley, 46, a self-described homosexual, decided to sign up for the California-based eHarmony.com online dating service in 2005. He says he couldn’t get past the first screen, “because the pull-down menus had categories only for a man seeking a woman or a woman seeking a man.”

So naturally the aggrieved McKinley ignored the plethora of “gay” on-line dating Web sites and filed a complaint with the New Jersey Division of Civil Rights (NJDCR).

The claim makes as much legal sense as if McKinley had sued Victoria’s Secret because it doesn’t sell jockstraps. But after three years of litigation, the Christian-owned dating service caved, announcing on Nov. 20 that it would establish a same-sex dating service early next year. In the face of intimidation litigation, eHarmony chose to settle, rather than defend its rights under the U.S. Constitution or cease doing business in New Jersey.

The surrender followed a finding by the NJDCR of probable cause to believe that McKinley was unlawfully discriminated against because eHarmony didn’t provide same-sex matches. If McKinley’s intimidation litigation continues its trajectory, New Jersey may have the first Victor/Victoria’s Secret.

It wasn’t that eHarmony refused to do business with McKinley because of his homosexual “orientation.” eHarmony founded its business model on traditional man-woman marriage as explained on its Web site:

Based on his 35 years of marriage counseling and studies of thousands of married couples, eHarmony founder Dr. Neil Clark Warren exhaustively researched what makes marriages succeed and fail. His findings? Chemistry is not enough. Almost all marriages start out with good chemistry, yet 3 out of 4 couples end up unhappy or divorced.

Bear in mind that NJDCR never ruled on the actual merits of McKinley’s claim, but here’s the deal:  In addition to paying New Jersey $50,000 and McKinley $5,000, eHarmony will provide same-sex relationship matching services called “Compatible Partners” by March 31, 2009, and give the first 10,000 same-sex registrants a free six-month subscription.

According to a statement issued by eHarmony, “Under the settlement agreement, the company reserves the right to inform those using the new same-sex matching service that the Compatibility Matching System™ developed by eHarmony is solely based on research involving married heterosexual couples.”

Theodore Olsen, attorney for eHarmony, issued a statement claiming that eHarmony “did not agree to offer gay matches willingly. Even though we believed that the complaint resulted from an unfair characterization of our business, we ultimately decided it was best to settle this case with the attorney general since litigation outcomes can be unpredictable.”

Apparently the certainty of losing is more compatible than the possibility of winning. Contrary to some media, eHarmony wasn’t “forced” or “compelled” to comply with McKinley’s demands; eHarmony surrendered to his demands.

Jim Campbell, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, a religious liberty legal organization, told Baptist Press. “Unfortunately, in this case, eHarmony surrendered to their demands. We feel they could have had a valid argument and could have taken a stand against this.”

Since married people are expressly prohibited from using or registering to use eHarmony’s singles service and the (LAD) prohibits discrimination based on marital status, how long will it be before some budding adulterer sues because eHarmony doesn’t facilitate that swinging option? Will it expand its new “Compatible Partners” to include  ménage á trois types, spouse swappers, sadomasochists, cross-dressers and transgenders? Continued...