So now Christians can't mingle?

A court in California has approved a settlement of a discrimination case brought by two homosexual men against a Christian dating site. The owner of the dating site, Christian Mingle, has agreed that the site will no longer ask users to click either "man seeking woman" or "woman seeking man". The website will now only ask users to click on whether they are male or female, not which sex they are seeking.

The case demonstrates clearly how liberal claims to tolerance and neutrality simply don't work in practice. Christians and homosexuals aren't left each to their own under the terms of liberalism - Christians are being required to cease being orthodox Christians.

You can see as well what a liberal society is going to require from its citizens. The future liberal citizen, in order to function in the public square, will have to hold to no substantive identity or moral code, but be committed to neutral attitudes and functions, such as market activity and consumption. There is a process by which individuals are squeezed toward this outcome, because that is what is required of them by the rules of the society they live in.

A future "Christian" for instance, to avoid social marginalisation, is going to have to believe that all forms of sexual expression are equally worthy/valid, which then becomes a positive belief that sexuality is contentless in the moral sense, merely whatever the individual makes of it. Christians are going to have to move toward the "empty world" assumptions that liberalism is based on.

And it won't stop with sexuality. Surely it will only take a transsexual to complain about people being given the options of "male" and "female" at a dating site and this too will be considered discriminatory.

Christians should stop trying to fit in with liberalism, and recognise how incompatible liberalism is with a belief in anything substantive.

P.S. I've just read another news item on this story. It includes a statement from the homosexual men's lawyers which illustrates the kind of mentality that fits within a liberal society:

“I am gratified that we were able to work with Spark to help ensure that people can fully participate in all the diverse market places that make our country so special, regardless of their sexual orientation,” Vineet Dubey, one of the plaintiff’s attorneys, said in a statement to the Journal.

Liberal America is special because people "can fully participate in all the diverse market places"? I don't think so, but it might be true that participating in diverse market places is one of the few things that fits in well with the liberal framework of society, i.e. that is sufficiently contentless.