EHarmony dating service has been bullied into offering their services to gay people. You know how it starts. A lawsuit is filed or a state commission opens an investigation and then comes the threat. The threat is that the persecution will persist and you’ll go broke fighting us so you might as well give us what we want.

According to World Net Daily:

Internet dating service eHarmony has officially agreed to begin matching homosexual couples, beginning next year.

The popular California-based service has been known for focusing on long-term relationships, especially marriage, which has been said to align with founder Clark Warren’s early work with Focus on the Family’s evangelical Christian base and perspective.

Warren, a psychologist with a divinity degree, has had three of his 10 books on love and dating published by Focus on the Family. It was an appearance on James Dobson’s radio program, in 2001, that triggered a response of 90,000 new referrals to the website, starting a climb of registered participants on the site from 4,000 to today’s 20 million clients.

As WND reported, the company originally said it was “based on the Christian principles of Focus on the Family author Dr. Neil Clark Warren.” It stood firm on its decision to reject homosexuals from its profiling and matching services. Its entire compatibility system is based on research of married heterosexual couples.

In 2005, Warren told USA Today the company’s goal is marriage and that same-sex marriage is illegal in most states.

“We don’t really want to participate in something that’s illegal,” he said.

But now the company has been compelled to changed its nationwide policy as part of a New Jersey lawsuit settlement.

On March 14, 2005, Eric McKinley filed a lawsuit against eHarmony, claiming the company discriminated against him when it refused to accept his advertisement for a “gay” partner.

McKinley’s complaint triggered a state investigation into the dating service.

Last week, eHarmony agreed to begin providing an eHarmony-affiliated “Compatible Partners” service to gays and lesbians, with listings labeled “male seeking male” and “female seeking female” by March 31, 2009.

For complying, the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights has dismissed the complaint against eHarmony, and Warren is considered “absolved of liability.” Also, the dating site has been ordered to pay the division $50,000 for investigation-related administrative costs and give McKinley $5,000. It has agreed to provide a free one-year membership to its “gay” service to McKinley, plus free six-month memberships to “the first 10,000 users registering for same-sex matching within one year of the initiation on the same-sex matching service,” according to the settlement.

You’ve got to love it. The bullies kick the company around so much until the company starts apologizing for getting blood on the bully’s kicking boots. And then the bullies kick a little more until the company offers to pay for new kicking boots. It’s a disgrace.

The moral of this is that morals are disallowed from the public sphere and if you don’t like it, say something. They dare you. Because you might be next.