The Christian co-founder of the popular dating site
eHarmony is no stranger to sparking controversy in the lesbian, gay, bisexual
and transgender (LGBT) community.
Neil Clark Warren has gone even further, saying he's
"tired" of the same-sex marriage debate and what he perceives as its
negative impact on eHarmony.
"I think this issue of same-sex marriage within
the next five to 15 years will be no issue anymore," Warren told Yahoo! Finance.
"We’ve made too much of it. I’m tired of it. It has really damaged our
company.”
It seems his company's decision to launch a separate service
for gay and lesbian singles called Compatible
Partners in response to a lawsuit filed against eHarmony in
2008 for not offering LGBT matchmaking brought along its own set of challenges.
"When the attorney general of the state of New
Jersey decided that we had to put up a same-sex site and we did it out of
counsel that if we didn’t do it we were not going to have any business in New
Jersey — we literally had to hire guards to protect our lives because the
people were so hurt and angry with us, were Christian people, who feel that
it’s a violation to scripture," Warren, who deemed himself a
"passionate follower of Jesus" in the interview, added.
"I have said that eHarmony really ought to put
up $10 million and ask other companies to put up money and do a really first class
job of figuring out homosexuality," he also noted. "At the very best,
it's been a painful way for a lot of people to have to live."
In 2010, the company settled a separate California
lawsuit claiming it discriminated against LGBT people by linking Compatible
Partners with eHarmony and allowing users to use both sites without paying a
separate fee for each, the Associated Press reported.
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