eHarmony agrees to set up same-sex matching site
(RNS) The online match-making site eHarmony has agreed to launch a same-sex matching service next March after settling allegations that the company violated New Jersey’s anti-discrimination law by excluding gays and lesbians. A New Jersey gay man filed a complaint with the state in 2005, saying that eHarmony violated his rights by not offering a same-sex matching option. For the last three years, eHarmony has battled the allegations, finally settling with the New Jersey Attorney General’s Division on Civil Rights. “Even though we believed that the complaint resulted from an unfair characterization of our business, we ultimately decided it was best to settle this case with the attorney general since litigation outcomes can be unpredictable,” said eHarmony legal counsel Theodore B. Olson. eHarmony matches singles using its trademark Compatibility Matching System that was developed after years of researching opposite-sex couples and their marriages. According to a 2008 eHarmony poll, 236 eHarmony members are married every day in the United States, which accounted for 2.57 percent of new U.S. marriages during the study period. eHarmony founder Neil Clark Warren, a self-professed “passionate” evangelical Christian, had worked closely with Colorado-based Focus on the Family in launching the site. Warren has said the site is open to all faiths, but until the settlement eHarmony declined to take listings for same-sex couples. The new site, Compatible Partners, will be accessible through the eHarmony.com Web site, but will remain separate so members from one will not be matched with members from the other. “With the launch of the Compatible Partners site, our policy is to welcome all single individuals who are genuinely seeking long-term relationships,” said Antone Johnson, eHarmony’s vice president of legal affairs. Registration will be free for the first 10,000 users to join within one year of the Compatible Partners site lunch. Eric McKinley, the man who originally filed the complaint, will receive $5,000 and free membership for a year.
_ Ashley Gipson
Calif. Supreme Court to hear challenge to gay marriage ban
LOS ANGELES (RNS) California’s Supreme Court on Wednesday (Nov. 19) agreed to hear challenges to a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage and will decide next year if the controversial ballot measure was just an amendment or a broader revision to the state constitution. Proposition 8 passed on Nov. 4 with 52 percent of California voters approving a ban on same-sex marriage, effectively overturning the state Supreme Court’s landmark ruling last May that allowed gay and lesbian couples to marry. On Wednesday, the court agreed to hear legal challenges but refused to impose a temporary stay that would allow same-sex couples to continue to obtain marriage licenses. Lawyers representing same-sex couples contend that the measure was not a simple amendment but a much broader revision of the constitution, which under state law can be revised by the legislature or a constitutional convention but not by a ballot measure. The Anti-Defamation League said in a letter supporting the challenges that, “permitting Proposition 8’s supporters to forego the revision process would jeopardize the freedom of all Californian minority groups _ not just gay and lesbian people.” Filing motions in support of Prop 8 were the American Center for Law and Justice and the Alliance Defense Fund, with the ACLJ saying the measure is a “validly enacted amendment to a single provision of the California Constitution.” Also filing a challenge was the California Council of Churches, which was joined by the Episcopal bishops of San Francisco and Los Angeles, the United Church of Christ, Unitarian Universalist Association and the Progressive Jewish Alliance. Rev. William Sinkford, the president of the Boston-based UUA, said in a statement that Prop. 8, “writes discrimination into the California constitution. As people of conscience, we cannot permit legalized bigotry to attack California couples and families.” The state court set a Dec. 19th deadline for submission of further briefs.
_ David Finnigan
Italian Jews cancel interfaith ceremonies with Vatican
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Italian Jewish leaders will not take part in an annual day of interreligious activities with their Catholic counterparts next January, to protest a Catholic prayer seeking their conversion to Christianity. Rabbi Giuseppe Laras, president of the Italian Rabbinical Assembly, made the announcement Tuesday (Nov. 18) during an interfaith roundtable at the Italian Parliament in Rome. The rabbis’ decision reflects lingering tension over the so-called Old Latin Mass, which fell out of use in the 1960s but was revived by Pope Benedict XVI last year. Some Jewish leaders objected to a prayer in the rite’s Good Friday liturgy that calls for the conversion of the Jews. The Vatican published a new version of the prayer last February, removing references to Jews’ “blindness” and a request that God “take the veil from their hearts.” The new prayer calls on God to “enlighten (Jews’) hearts so that they may acknowledge Jesus Christ, the savior of all men” and expresses the hope that “all Israel may be saved.” The revised prayer has continued to draw complaints from Jewish leaders in several countries, including the U.S.-based Rabbinical Assembly of Conservative Rabbis. “The controversy, or rather the question, that emerged last February has not been resolved,” Laras said, though he acknowledged ongoing “dialogue” over the Good Friday prayer. Catholic leaders announced they would go ahead and celebrate the annual “Day of Jewish-Christian Reflection” on Jan. 17, even without the rabbis’ participation. “The day is a bit wounded this year, but it’s a wound that we hope will help to deepen the indispensable link and relationship between Christians and Jews,” Bishop Vincenzo Paglia, head of the Italian bishops’ ecumenical commission, told Vatican Radio on Thursday (Nov. 20). Catholic-Jewish tensions have also risen this year over events commemorating the 50th anniversary of the death of Pope Pius XII. Critics say the wartime pontiff failed to say or do all he could to stop the Nazi genocide of the Jews, but the Vatican is considering him for beatification, one step from sainthood.
_ Francis X. Rocca
Archaeologists sketch out Herod’s desert palace
JERUSALEM (RNS) Archaeologists who have analyzed artifacts discovered at Herodium, an ancient Judean palace built by King Herod, are more convinced than ever that the famed monarch was buried high atop the complex outside Jerusalem. Herod, who served as the king of Judea from 37 to 4 BC, built such monumental structures as the Second Jewish Temple, the mountaintop palace at Masada and the palatial Herodium complex. The vast desert palace, which included a grand residence, a mausoleum, a theater and large pools, baths and gardens, was the largest of its kind in the Roman world of that time, Hebrew University archaeologists said. At a Tuesday (Nov. 18) press conference at the university, researchers said they have been able to determine that the mausoleum where the fragments of Herod’s sarcophagus were discovered was “a lavish two-story structure with a concave-conical roof, about 25 meters high,” a structure consistent with Herod’s tastes and stature. Professor Ehud Netzer, director of the excavations, said his team also recently discovered the remains of two other sarcophagi, a 650-seat theater below the mausoleum and a loggia _ “a VIP viewing and hospitality room” _ located at the top of the theater seats and decorated with Italian-style wall paintings and plaster moldings never before seen in Israel. The Herodium discoveries will be featured in the December 2008 issue of National Geographic magazine, and a documentary, “Herod’s Lost Tomb,” will premiere on Sunday (Nov. 23) on the National Geographic Channel. An exhibition of Herodium’s artifacts is slated for the Israel Museum in Jerusalem in 2010.
_ Michele Chabin
Quote of the Day: Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa
(RNS) “You know, I didn’t live _ and none of us did _ during the time of Jesus. But I like to believe that the Jesus I love, the Jesus I pray to, didn’t just talk about being a shepherd. He knew that the role of the shepherd was to bring the flock in _ all of the flock, every one of us.”
_ Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, speaking at a protest against California’s Proposition 8, which overturned marriage rights for same-sex couples.
KRE/DEA END RNS
