Homosexuals' Money Is No Good Here

Some businesses Don't Cater to Gays, Lesbians at a cost to the bottom line.

ByABC News
June 18, 2008, 10:24 AM

June 19, 2008 — -- Some businesses still don't cater to homosexuals, ignoring a potentially lucrative source of revenue, says University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee economist Keith A. Bender.

One of the most well-known examples is eHarmony.com, even as California, the country's most populated state, began performing same-sex marriages this week. The online dating Web site bills itself as a provider of what it calls unique measurements for compatibility that, according to a representative, do not cater to same-sex partnering.

"The research is based on six Ph.D. psychologists and 29 variables for compatibility called the compatibility matching system," said David D., an eHarmony representative who refused to give his full name.

The Pasadena, Calif.-based site, which began in 2000, says it serves about 20 million members across the United States, Canada and Australia.

On the sexual orientation issue, "It is false to say eHarmony discriminates against gays or lesbians," the company said in a statement. "Nothing precludes us from providing same-sex matching in the future. It's just not a service we offer now."

The Web site's measurements for matches were developed by Neil Clark Warren, who says that eHarmony is the first online dating service to use relationship science to pair its singles.

Bender, the Wisconsin economist, believes that the Web site eHarmony and other companies could be more profitable if they offered their services to everyone, regardless of sexual orientation.

"These companies are cutting out a certain segment of the population that they could be getting revenue from," Bender said. "Statistics I've heard say that around 10 percent of the population expresses some homosexual tendencies. One way to think about these businesses is that companies like eHarmony could increase their revenues by about 10 percent, assuming that the same rates of homosexuals as heterosexuals would take advantage of these kinds of dating sites."

There are 417,044 pairs of unmarried male partners and 362,823 pairs of unmarried female partners living together in this country, according to a 2006 American Community Survey from the U.S. Census Bureau. That does not take into account homosexual singles or married couples.

Robert Lee, the owner and editor of aLoveLinksPlus.com -- a dating service directory -- said that while some dating Web sites explicitly exclude homosexual singles, others do not make their policies as obvious.