Do you have a right to force people to introduce you to other people for romance? According to a Californian in search of love (and her lawyers) the answer is yes: “eHarmony Sued In California For Excluding Gays.” Good grief!
Have They Nothing Better to Do with Their Time?
4 Responses to “Have They Nothing Better to Do with Their Time?”
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Suppose it’s 1950.
And suppose there’s a dating service that excludes you from participating because you’re black and you want to be introduced to women that aren’t black.
You protest, but the owner of the dating service says: “Do you have a right to force me to introduce you to other people for romance? You don’t!”
Would Tom say that the dating service had a legal right to discriminate in this way?
Or can Tom distinguish, somehow, the two cases (the current one and my fictional one from the 1950s)?
I’ll take the challenge. I don’t think that association should be at the point of a gun. People have, under most circumstances, at least, the right to refuse to associate with others. Does David think that people should be banned from listing gender, race, age, or religion in personal ads? If not, why not? Why should people be allowed to discriminate in the allocation of one of the most important of all human goods — love and companionship? I think that there are very good reasons not to use force on people who have not themselves used force. If someone doesn’t want to associate with you, you have no right to force that person to do so.
The history of state involvement was, of course, for much, much longer to use force against people to keep them from associating. Recall that Loving v. Virginia, in which a state ban on interracial marriage was finally struck down, was decided, not in the 1950s, but in 1967. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia) Until then, state power was used to keep peole from associating. If you’re interested in an enlightening and intelligent discussion of the incentives to association and disassociation, I would recommend Thomas Sowell’s “Markets and Minorities.” Everyone who expresses an opinion on the topic should read that book. It’s the difference between an informed opinion and a mere prejudice.
Does David think that people should be banned from listing gender, race, age, or religion in personal ads? If not, why not? Why should people be allowed to discriminate in the allocation of one of the most important of all human goods — love and companionship?
One might say that without being able to discriminate in this sort of case, the good (love and companionship) can’t be provided.
Whereas in the dating service case, no such reason could plausibly be given by the dating service providers.