Time Lists eHarmony Among 'Five Worst Websites', Laments It Is Anti-Gay

Photo of Ken Shepherd.

There are millions of Web sites floating around the Internet on any given day, so finding five ones to label as the "worst" in the world is risible on its face. And if you did, wouldn't you think that NAMBLA, the Westboro Baptist Church, the KKK, pedophile sites and the like would constitute the absolute worst? I mean, MySpace is annoying, but it's not as bad as jihadist Web sites by any stretch.

But aside from the inanity of the undertaking, what caught my eye with Time magazine's "Five Worst Websites" list was eHarmony.com's inclusion.

"Our main beef with this online dating site is its power to cause utter despair," lament the writers at Time.

Really? I mean, hey, I find the commercials annoying as heck too, but is it really worse than say AdultFriendFinder.com, which is designed to set consenting adults up with casual, often times kinky sexual dalliances? What's more desperate than the false delusions and cheap affection of fleeting one-night stands?

At least eHarmony, even if misguided or overly optimistic in its "scientific" approach is geared towards finding lovelorn people a lifelong love

But of course, that's not Time's real beef with eHarmony. For that you have to read through to the last line. "The site also discriminates against gays," Time complains.

That charge is utterly ridiculous. Dating sites are free to be as restricted or as open as they desire. The competitive nature of the Internet dating marketplace serves almost every imaginable dating/relationship preference. Heck, there's even a site for people looking to date and marry polygamists (SoulfulHarmony).

I'm not holding my breath for Time to complain about specialty dating sites that "discriminate" against heterosexuals (any number of gay dating sites), goyim (JDate.com), or religious folks in general (AtheistPassions).

 

—Ken Shepherd is Managing Editor of NewsBusters


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And if you did, wouldn't

And if you did, wouldn't you think that NAMBLA, the Westboro Baptist Church, the KKK, pedophile sites and the like would constitute the absolute worst?

Why would you think that, Ken? ;-)

 

Not a problem to them

To them there is no bias in this. It's just that the people who don't side with them, who they think are just a couple of rural hicks, as total bigots and "everyone" agrees with them. Unreal. What a bunch of post-modern hacks.


Saddam Hussein and terrorism. The rest of the story...

http://www.regimeoft...

 

I'm upset and may sue

I'm upset and may sue because Time magazine isn't devoted to news about beer.

"Time website- voted 'excellent' by Islamofascists worldwide." - - - Wouldn't be surprised

not FAIR

We need a site for ugly people, beside Huffington post and the Kos I mean.

As it happens...

...eHarmony.com has the very best record of subscriber couples getting married of any dating site on the Internet. You would think that Time could find something positive to say about that. Oh, wait, I'm sorry. I forgot that there is nothing inherently special about marriage, unless it is "gay marriage."

I somehow wound up getting a subscription to Time, I have no idea how, and I can't get them to stop sending it. They make me crazy.

The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left. ~~ Ecclesiastes 10:1-2

Time subscription from hell

TIME will continue to send you free mags just so they can count you as one of their subscribers however dwindling those number may be.  Alll the major MSSM outlets are going down the toilet, and they STILL can't figure out why. 

 

What the MSSM doesn't report can kill you.

So what

Their are matchmaking websites for gays,  so why the lament if their is a match making website that "discriminates" against gays? I have seen web advertising for these sites on the net, much to my distress and offence. Their is no reason that their can't be a website(s) that carter to a specific group, and their are. Time calling eHarmony one of the worst is whiny childish PC crap. Time has gone down the liberal crap hole, I'll never read or buy that rag.

Someone please correct me if

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but my impression of this flap was that e-harmony does not think their proprietary heterosexual relationship-science would extend reliably to homosexual relationships. If I were them, I'd probably just create a category and take the homosexuals' money along with the rest, but clearly I'm not them, and the NYT would probably be just as critical of my 'greedy-capitalist' attitude as they are of e-harmony's 'stickler for science' attitude, if my guess is right. And yes, the Westboro GodHatesFags-nutcases are either the worst site on the web, or else they're the  most fun to mock.
JMR

Yeah, I believe eHarmony

Yeah, I believe eHarmony said they are working on adding homosexual couple-matching to their site but that the data for making those personality matches isn't reliable yet.

 

This means the homosexual

This means the homosexual side is (eventually) getting exactly what they want, and if anything the other side should be bitching about e-harmony's policies. Does anyone else find it ironic that the NYT apparently would not object to my unvarnished (but at least I admit it) greed, yet does object to e-harmony's science-stickling? Don't they agree/assert, after all, that homosexual relationships are different?? What's wrong, especially amid a plethora of gay-specialist competition, with doing it right??
JMR

eHarmony's "Discrimination"

I followed the "discriminates against gays" link and found this:

"Warren, a psychologist, told NPR's Terry Gross a couple of years ago that "I don't know exactly what the dynamics are [with gay couples]...We've done a deep amount of research on about 5,000 married people, but never on people who are same-sex. So we don't know how to do that, and we think the principles probably are different, and so we've never chosen to do it." He noted later in the interview that "same-sex marriage in this country is largely illegal at this time, and we do try to match people for marriage."

"Warren seems like a sweet guy in those ads, but this line of reasoning is transparently convenient: gays are just such an exotic and curious people, why, I could never understand them! And anyway their relationships are illegal — so best to ignore them completely"

I don't know Dr. Warren from a hole in the wall, but from their commercials, I know that eHarmony is trying to create a scientific method to find people its customers are likely to be compatible with.  If you don't have research on same-sex compatibility, it's kind of difficult to come up with a compatibility model for same-sex matchmaking.  Why is that so hard for the gay lobby to understand?

And "their relationships" are not illegal, they just can't get married.

"Which is silly: of course it discriminates, in the most basic sense of the term — it doesn't allow gays to use its site!"

Why would gays want to use a site that can't offer the same research-backed compatibility matching for same-sex couples that it does for heterosexual couples?  How exactly is eHarmony supposed to match gay couples?  And doesn't eHarmony have the right to decide who it's target customers are?  Oh wait, we're talking about liberals here.  Of course they don't understand or recognize the right of free association.  Silly me.

"There are also many gay sites like gay.com and connexion.org, some of which could easily be charged with reverse discrimination. For instance, please visit manhunt.net for a second. I just did, and the main page says there are "OVER 21,739 MEN ONLINE NOW!" Manhunt offers nothing for straight men. Maybe my heterosexual brother should file a class-action lawsuit."

My point exactly.

If you're not outraged at the media, you haven't been paying attention.

Yeah, that's what gets to

Yeah, that's what gets to me. I wonder if gays would have been just as outraged if e-harmony had done what I'd have done, which is create a "gay" category and start taking their money as fast as I can based solely on heterosexuals' data? I'll admit, in this case, "my way" would have been the stereotypical greedy-businessman-capitalist way of responding to demand, and e-harmony's way is the un-typical and honest "let's do this right or not do it at all" approach, but the situation we see is that I would not be rebuked for my greed, and further they're not being rewarded for being nice guys. It's truly bizarro-world, and I know there are some articulate homosexual advocates out there, but I doubt they can explain this one to me...
JMR

Considering it is in the

Considering it is in the company of SecondLife and MySpace Time's "worst" should be considered a stamp of approval.

Jealousy

Time is just jealous that these sites get more hits than theirs.

 

Our real problem, then, is not our strength today; it is rather the vital necessity of action today to ensure our strength tomorrow. Dwight Eisenhower

You guys ever heard to this

You guys ever heard to this site:

http://web1.hannity....

I like Sean, but he really needs to stick to his day job.

 

 

 

Everything's free (and seems

Everything's free (and seems 100% worth-it) so I'm kinda dubious of his revenue model...
JMR

Time found its audience. 

Time found its audience.  The gay community.  Good for them.  Someone needs to keep that piece of crap maganize going.  Next week I understand they will start offering a review of San Francisco bath houses and a rating program for each of them.

Plum assignment

I'll bet all the reporters at Time mag are lining up to be the one to review the bath houses of S.F. This is the assignment of the year. Maybe the decade.

 

Our real problem, then, is not our strength today; it is rather the vital necessity of action today to ensure our strength tomorrow. Dwight Eisenhower

Eh, another rag which will

Eh, another rag which will be free in my lifetime. 

I don't believe that

I don't believe that e-harmony should have to match gays if they don't want to. Having said that, the ads for e-harmony give me the creeps. It's like they're running a breeding program or a supermarket for the lonely.

The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.

- Arabian Proverb

If you have been divorced

If you have been divorced or a child of divorce, sites like this greatly help in weeding out unsuitable people and those who are predators.  eHarmony fills a need for some people who want to avoid the basic causes of divorce.   I don't blame them, being a divorced person I can understand their wanting to find the right person for a lifetime committment. Just because someone wants to be married doesn't mean they are cut out for married life, and sparing someone, i.e. the other person, from getting stuck with someone who is not marriage material.

 

“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane"

Gays....

I don't walk into a gay bar and ask why they don't have any straight people.  WTF is wrong with these people?  Do they just sit around waiting to be pissed off?  good grief.  Go find/create your own friggin web site.  YOu've already ruined my saint patty's day parade.  Isn't that enough for you?  Eharmony has a specific formula that works fro heterosexuals.  Let's be honest here, gays haven't even figured THEMSELVES out.  They can't hardly decide if they want to be make or female.  How the hell is somebody else supposed to figure them out?   

 

What the MSSM doesn't report can kill you.

Gays....

I don't walk into a gay bar and ask why they don't have any straight people.  WTF is wrong with these people?  Do they just sit around waiting to be pissed off?  good grief.  Go find/create your own friggin web site.  YOu've already ruined my saint patty's day parade.  Isn't that enough for you?  Eharmony has a specific formula that works fro heterosexuals.  Let's be honest here, gays haven't even figured THEMSELVES out.  They can't hardly decide if they want to be make or female.  How the hell is somebody else supposed to figure them out?   

 

What the MSSM doesn't report can kill you.

Do they just sit around

Do they just sit around waiting to be pissed off?

Yes, exactly. That's one of the main features of the liberal mind.

Lee T.

U.S. Navy (ret.) / Vancouver, Washington

The history of the race, and each individual's experience, are thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal.-- Mark Twain

No Terrorist sites on the Times List

and no terrorist sites make the Times list. Can not have those dangerous normal couples having happy lives, working, paying taxes and raising America's next generation but we can have terrorists on nuclear terror binges.

Makes perfect liberal sense.

 

 

*HIC IACET ARTORIVS REX QVONDAM REXQVE FVTVRVS

If they started including

If they started including terrorist sites on the list they would have to include their own!

"Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana!" Groucho

You have to qualify 'worst'

Sure, those sites you mention are bad, but they aren't popular.  The 5 they note are very popular sites, and are not good sites--most buckling under their sheer growth.  I agree with the 5, though, NYT.com should have receive honorable--um, dishonorable mention. 

-gordy.

Time never makes a penny

Time never makes a penny from me and hasn't for years.  This kind of lunacy is the reason.  I hope e-harmony sets records in income.  THERE IS NOTHING WRONG with straight hetero relationships. 

Liberalism is a convenient lie.