Harmony... And Peace.

Just for the record, I don't think Michelle Malkin is homophobic. She seems smarter than that, and surely more aware. She's too attractive - as with the other conservative gals on her circuit - not to have exposure, at some level, to some serious styling. And that just can't all be straight.

As I touched on yesterday, I think it's conservative women of the younger set who have the toughest road to walk on the Prop 8 anger, as they have on Gay Marriage generally; they're too young, and too much a part of the world to fall, as their elders have, for arguments about homosexuality as a disease, or a simple choice easily put off and on. They may buy into easy stereotypes - you can see it in the way Malkin ignores the many examples of loving gay couples, and families, to focus on the lives of the single and promiscuous... or the way Ann Coulter falls back on cheap stereotypical notions of effeminacy in gay men and mannishness in lesbians (Laura Ingraham, with a gay brother, tends, as many would, to just sidestep much of this entirely). For the truly muddled edge of this, you have to spend more time than I plan to trying to unpack Maggie Gallagher's near fanatical insistence on the "love the sinner, hate the sin" Catholicism to justify her passion for the marriage issue.

Still, armed with a new theory - crazed gay rage - Malkin has made "analysis" of gay issues her latest bete noir, following up her "gay rage" column with a sideswipe at eHarmony's decision to settle on a lawsuit over its "straight only" approach to dating services. And though she labors mightily... ultimately, this avenue of conservative attack is likely to have little payoff; and I suspect Malkin will see that soon enough.

As a matter of background - which Malkin provides little of - eHarmony, founded by Neil Warren, boasts a "compatibility measure" which is supposed to provide great success at identifying good matches.  For people seeking long term relationships, this has generated a lot of interest, and eHarmony has been quite successful, one of the top dating sites on the web.

Warren, though, is also a born-again Christian, and interested gay men and lesbians soon discovered that there was no service for matching same sex couples, something most of the big dating sites offer (such as lavalife, Chemistry and others). And Warren made no bones about it: he was quite clear, in interviews, that it was disapproval for the "homosexual lifestyle" that kept eHarmony from offering similar services to interested gay people.

Malkin also ignores the fact that the stance has been a PR disaster for eHarmony; Chemistry.com, for one, has made an entire marketing strategy out of eHarmony's refusal, and their willingness to take up the slack. eHarmony has been fighting a series of lawsuits, by individuals and class actions, alleging dsicrimination. The settled suit, in New Jersey, was fairly far along, and had cleared the hurdles to go to trial.

Malkin accepts at face value lawyer Ted Olsen's (yes, that Ted Olsen) explanation that “litigation outcomes can be unpredictable. " And that's just silly - if the lawyers felt they could prevail, they'd have dragged it out as long as needed. That they settled says mostly that they knew both a) this was no hill worth defending and b) the case was a loser.

And it is - though Malkin asks whether gay sites will now have to offer straight services (it's interesting to ask, anyway), the fact is most dating sites would happily expand their business if the market's there for it. J-Date, the service for young Jewish singles, which Malkin mentions as somehow affected by this, already offers services for gays and lesbians. It's a sillly, and moot, point.

Part of the fear, naturally, driving this is that with an option to search for a same sex experience, some "curious" folks will give it a try. That's not new; it's the allure of gay bars, it was the allure of classifieds back in the old days, and it's a lot of the anonymous hookup market of Craigslist.  Malkin's kidding herself, and no one else, to think that "online dating" isn't, often, a euphemistic way to hook up, for gay and straight. What she's suggesting, and what I think she's more ignoring than purposefully saying, is that those who look for long time love, can't possibly gay. Because all we want is more of "teh hot sex."

Of course that's just stupidly prejudiced and stereotyping of the worst sort; it's where Neil Warren pretty much came down too. And it's coldly satisfying - in that angry way - to know that, under its settlement, eHarmony will have to offer, advertise, and seriously support matchmaking services for interested gay men and women. We all love, Michelle. Let it be.