The dating website ChristianMingle.com will now add options for gay and lesbian seekers after an anti-discrimination lawsuit was filed against the company by two homosexual men, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The plaintiffs filed a class action lawsuit in 2013 against Spark Networks, after they tried to find gay dating partners but realized that only opposite-sex choices are available.
The ruling was based on a California Civil Rights Act, according to which businesses must give "equal accommodations" to everyone, irrespective of their sexual orientation.
The court ordered the company to add features relating to LGBT users over the next two years. Similar changes are to be implemented on other dating sites owned by the company, including Black Singles and Adventist Singles Connection. Spark Network will also pay each plaintiffs $9,000 along with $450,000 attorneys' fees as compensation.
Spark Networks is not a Christian business but has Christian advisors on its board. The CEO of the company, Michael Egan, agreed on all the conditions specified by the court.
"Like all other companies, we must abide by the laws that govern our state and nation," Egan told Christianity Today. "There is no greater agenda at hand here at ChristianMingle than uniting Christian men and women for the sake of finding happy and healthy lifelong relationships."
"I am gratified that we were able to work with Spark to help ensure that people can fully participate in all the diverse market places that make our country so special, regardless of their sexual orientation," said Vineet Dubey, one of the lead plaintiffs' attorneys.
Christian board member Clayton Coates, who is a Southern Baptist pastor, said that he is stepping down from his position, as he wanted the company to heed to the Biblical guidelines of marriage between one man and one woman.
The ruling says that over the next two years, "Spark will ensure that the 'man seeking woman' and 'woman seeking man' options on the gateway/home pages of the Mingle sites ask only whether the user is a 'man' or a 'woman.'"
Although the required time mandated for the business to make changes to its website is two years, the homepage is already altered to show options for only, 'man' and 'woman,' but no results were returned for terms such as 'gay,' 'same-sex,' on the help page.
The settlement states that websites are also not allowed to ask users if they are men seeking women or women seeking men, on homepages, unless the sites "[provide] similar prompts which allow individuals seeking a same-sex match partner to enter and use the sites without having to state that they are seeking a match with someone of the opposite sex."
