Weddingbee was at one point my one stop shop of how to do wedding related stuff, and I have to say it helped quite a bit. I'm sad to say that I'll no longer be reading it, because Weddingbee was just recently bought by eHarmony.
In case you are unaware, eHarmony does not allow the gay community to use their services. This is discrimination, pure and simple. They hide this discrimination by saying that they are diverse (look at all the colored people on our diversity section!) but that the gay community is simply a market that their business model is not going to pursue. They say that by allowing the gay community to use their services they would have to "tweak" their special scientific formula for matchmaking. They say that their goal is ultimately marriage, and like it or not, homosexual marriage is still illegal for the most part.
This is horseshit.
If eHarmony were a bus service and had this same policy, we would be back to the pre-civil rights years. If it were any other type of business, there would be riots - what if it were a retail store, or a restaurant? How would the people react to "We won't serve you because you're gay"?
Okay, so it isn't a retail store or a restaurant or a bus service. It's a matchmaking service. But then I'll have to throw back that Jdate caters to the Jewish community specifically, but you don't have to be Jewish to join Jdate. In fact there's a growing number of folks on Jdate who specifically announce that they are non-Jews looking for Jewish partners.
This is discrimination.
That coupled with eHarmony's affiliation with Focus on the Family, ugh, don't even get me started on a group that tries to convert homosexuals, insinuating it is a choice.
This is a wedding planning blog, not a politics blog, but while the government still tells me who I can marry and by whom and what rights I get or don't get because I'm married, it will always be political. Forty years ago it would have been illegal for me to marry Dude. Forty years. My parents would have been in their teenage years... that's frighteningly recent.
I'm hoping that (much) sooner than forty years from now, my gay family and friends will be able to have the same rights as I do. Call it marriage, call it civil union, it doesn't matter, a rose by any other name...
New Year, New Blog!
16 years ago
4 comments:
I'm staying anonymous over my continued embarrassment - I met my husband on eHarmony. I say to everyone who knows that I am glad I was so totally ignorant about this subject until AFTER we met, or else I never would have joined. You are right, it is horseshit. Especially since I think their process works at least on some level, and if the people running eHarmony are in it for love, don't they want to make that available to all people, not just straight people?
That being said, I didn't realize they had bought Wedding Bee. I divorced Wedding Bee after they made me feel guilty for "DIY"ing my whole wedding - like it would be completely manufactured and totally impersonal if I didn't make everything myself.
hi anonymous, i don't think you should be embarrassed about meeting your husband on eHarmony. you didn't create their policies and you didn't know about it, and i'm really happy that you and your husband found each other. you know now and you never would have joined, and that means a lot. there are a lot of folks who simply wouldn't care about the policies at all.
and yes, weddingbee totally has that mean streak.
For the most part I completely and utterly agree with your position. But, a civil union is not marriage. It may smell the same, but if you told me that the pile of horse crap and the rose bush had the same smell, I still probably wouldn't go smelling the shit. If you look at the position that the eight couples took in CT, it explains the difference. One of the couples were engaged for over thirty years so that they could be married. Would you settle to not being able to call Dude your "Husband", relegating him to the title "Life Partner"? I doubt it; however comma it can provide the same benefits in most things. I still love you, though!
after i wrote that last paragraph i did think about exactly what you are talking about phillip. civil union is not marriage, and while i don't want to advocate separate but equal, i think it's an important step in the right direction. all i really want, really, is equal rights.
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