Shakedown

I was saddened and a bit disgusted to read this week that eHarmony.com, the phenomenally successful online relationship service, settled a lawsuit brought by a gay man who accused the company of discriminating because its vaunted software only measured heterosexual compatibility. eHarmony agreed to set up an additional service, Compatible Partners, that will be visibly associated with eHarmony and will provide compatibility matching for gays and lesbians.

I was saddened by this news because in the game of chicken that is litigation, by settling before trial the company blinked first and now set a precedent which will be used as a wedge by gay activists to pry open new “rights” (though eHarmony did not admit “fault”). I was disgusted because there is a shakedown going on and I do not like bullying.

Earlier this year I wrote three essays on the import of the California Supreme Court decision to strike down a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriages. I expressed my deep misgivings about this decision and suggested that it would have far-reaching negative social implications. I said that gay activists began by asking society for tolerance, then for acceptance, and now are demanding normalization. I expressed this opinion in the context of my empathy and compassion for gay individuals and the predicament in which they find themselves.

The “shakedown” is in the use of civil-rights language to advance this demand for normalization. When people in California, in response to the Supreme Court’s decision, put together Proposition 8 to permanently amend the state’s constitution to define marriage as man-woman, opponents likened Prop 8 to “hate” and vilified its supporters. If you treat gay people with kindness and dignity and support laws allowing civil unions and its associated protections, but support Prop 8, then you are full of hate, just like whites in the Jim Crow era. See how it works?

Interestingly, black people do not seem to buy into this idea that “gay is the new black.” Seventy-three percent voted in favor of Prop 8, which passed 52-48%. Perhaps blacks are offended by the comparison, which they should be, since no gay people are being forced to sit in the backs of buses or eat at separate restaurants.

But in the aftermath of Prop 8’s passing in California, gay activists in California published on the internet an “Anti-Gay Blacklist” of Prop 8 donors and began recriminations. The artistic director of the California Musical Theatre in Sacramento was forced to resign for his $1000 donation to Prop 8. A Los Angeles restaurant whose manager made a small donation was harassed nightly by groups of protesters. Anti-Prop 8 organizers targeted Mormon, Catholic and evangelical churches for demonstrations and name-calling. All in the name of tolerance, of course.

As the noted columnist Thomas Sowell, a black man, observes, “When the majority of the people become like sheep who will tolerate intolerance rather than make a fuss, then there is no limit to how far any group will go.”

I do not want any of this to sound hateful, but I do not mind if it sounds angry. The Christian faith is personal but not private. We are not politically oriented but we must be socially engaged, “wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16). I am not hateful, and I do not like shakedowns.