A Question of Rights

In an article entitled “Homosexual Harmony or Violation of Scripture?” the Chicago Tribune posed a question of individual verses corporate rights. Threatened with litigation, eHarmony-an online matchmaking site previously appealing largely to single Christians- created CompatiblePartners.net, a site that matches same-sex individuals. Does eHarmony have the right to gear their service towards a fragmented range of consumers? Do homosexuals have the right to demand that service?
Besides the threat a lawsuit from one offended homosexual customer, potential for eHarmony to actually be charged with discrimination is not made clear in the article. eHarmony is a private business and has the right to discriminate between consumers if for a legitimate reason. One reason provided in the article is that it will be more difficult to pair same-sex couples because eHarmony has not done enough research in this area yet to form a comprehensive and effective customer inventory. Of course the fact that Christian eHarmony users feel as though they have been betrayed with the creation of Compatible Partners was mentioned as well. However, the only source quoted who thought negatively of eHarmony’s expansion was well-known anti-homosexual orator Peter LaBarbera. Christians are generalized throughout the article as sharing the same hurt feelings towards eHarmony, without the sources to back this up.
The article is also very much focused on the Christian eHarmony user’s perspective, with little thought given to the thoughts of users of Compatible Partners. Not a single source is mentioned with a purely positive opinion about the issue, leaving the article leaning unstably to one side.