Demanding to Be Served: Gay Activists and Religious Freedom

By Chuck Colson
5/13/2009

eHarmony is a popular online dating service designed by Neil Clark Warren, an evangelical Christian psychologist. The site claims that, on average, 236 eHarmony members marry every day. That’s good news.

The bad news is that, in 2005, a man claimed the company violated his rights by not offering a matchmaking service to homosexuals. He lodged a complaint with the New Jersey attorney general, who found probable cause that eHarmony had violated state anti-discrimination laws. eHarmony vigorously disagreed.

Nevertheless, last year, eHarmony agreed to develop a matchmaking service for same-sex couples—and pay $55,000 in fines.

As I said yesterday on BreakPoint, we’ve seen this scenario over and over again. Christians or Orthodox Jews open up a business, ministry, or school, and sooner or later, a same-sex couple shows up demanding services that conflict with the sincerely held religious convictions of those they confront. When the same-sex couple is turned down, they promptly sue—even if others offer to accommodate them for the same services. And too often, they are winning their cases.

It’s as if the First Amendment no longer exists. I can’t help but suspect that radical gays deliberately target outfits run by religious believers in order to force them to accommodate their political agenda—or go out of business. the rest