Widely advertised dating site eHarmony.com will launch a new dating site for the gay community at the end of March called ‘Compatible Partners’.

The Boston Globe says, “it might be the first dating site whose owners didn’t really want to create it.”

eHarmony claims to have a “scientific method” for matching singles, and initially only offered their matchmaking services to heterosexual couples. The formula used to match customers is based on research of straight, married couples, which is why the site says that membership is limited to heterosexuals.

You may recall that this practice was challenged in 2005 when discrimination lawsuit was filed asking eHarmony to allow gay members. eHarmony fought the lawsuit, but later settled out of court with a compromise to make ‘Compatible Partners’, which eHarmony promised to roll out by March 31. “It’s something we’re going to be fully supporting as a line of business,” says Paul Breton, a spokesman for eHarmony. Yeah, right!

It’s said that members of the LGBT community that are aware of eHarmony’s prior history are not expected to welcome the new gay dating site with open arms. eHarmony’s choice to create a separate but equal dating site in the form of Compatible Partners (rather than opening the doors of eHarmony to everybody) still gives of the appearance of anti gay to many gay and lesbians who are looking for love and know the site’s history. Not to mention the fact that the original site was made to appear not so friendly to same sex couples, and even after probable cause towards discrimination was found.

For those unaware of the ties Compatible Partners has to eHarmony’s discrimination suit, it will be interesting to see if the matchmakers use the same formula for happiness, and how successful their site is at matching compatible partners together. I for one think it’s a crock!