Under a proposed settlement filed Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, eHarmony will link its straight and gay Web sites and allow people to use both without paying double fees. Compatible Partners was created last year after a gay man sued to have access to eHarmony’s patented matching technology.

Plaintiff’s attorney Todd Schneider says the company also agreed to pay about $500,000 to an estimated 150 Californians to settle the class-action suit, plus around $1.5 million in court and attorney’s fees.

The company didn’t admit any wrongdoing.

A judge must approve the settlement. A court date is scheduled for Feb. 3.

Under a proposed settlement filed Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, eHarmony will link its straight and gay Web sites and allow people to use both without paying double fees.

Plaintiff’s attorney Todd Schneider says the company also agreed to pay about $500,000 to an estimated 150 Californians to settle the class-action suit, plus around $1.5 million in court and attorney’s fees.

The company didn’t admit any wrongdoing.

A judge must approve the settlement. A court date is scheduled for Feb. 3.

I read a report of a statement from more than 1,000 retired military officers opposed to repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell.” The statement said allowing gays to serve openly in the Armed Forces “would undermine recruiting and retention, impact leadership at all levels, have adverse effects on the willingness of parents who lend their sons and daughters to military service, and eventually break the All-Volunteer Force.”

Am I still dreaming? I thought.

They seriously think allowing gays to serve openly in the military will break the all-volunteer force?

Britain must be doomed.

I read more news.

A 365gay.com headline announced, “eHarmony now loves gay people. Really,” and the story informed me that a November 2008 court settlement paved the way for eHarmony to come out — literally – with a website to match gays and lesbians.

Maybe, I thought, I read too fast in my morning haze, maybe it’s not enough simply to smell the coffee brewing. Perhaps I missed the sentence that stated that the adamantly hetero eHarmony, with its Compatible Partners site, intends to help gay men partner with lesbians, sort of an ex-gay, reparative therapy online dating service.

I looked more closely at the date on the page.

At the date in the corner of my MacBook desktop.

At the date on my cellphone.

Aha.

April Fool’s Day.

I laughed.

Got me.

Ha, ha.

But the news on April 1 turned out to be news — the truth be stranger than fiction or April Fool’s Day pranks.

More than 1,000 retired military officers really did sign an absurd statement implying that if gays and lesbians could come out in the U.S. Armed Forces, mothers and fathers would not let their sons or daughters go into the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines or Coast Guard.

Of course, the signature-collecting campaign is just another empty effort by the Center for Military Readiness to stir right-wing opposition to repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell.” The center is getting locked and loaded for the battle in Congress and with the Obama Administration. In the process, the Michigan-based group made fools of some career, high-ranking officers.

And yes, matchmaker eHarmony really is offering an alternative site for gays and lesbians looking for romance, with the first 10,000 people to register to get free memberships.

Of course, eHarmony’s relationship with the gay community is not exactly characterized as blissful — no love at first sight. Compatible Partners is the product of a lawsuit, not a lovefest.

A gay man denied the services of eHarmony, founded by born-again Christian Dr. Neil Clark Warren and closely connected in its early years with the anti-gay Focus on the Family and James Dobson, lodged a complaint with the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office. The NJAG found probable cause for the complaint to go forward. The matchmaking service settled, agreeing to create Compatible Partners, a “gay dating service for relationship-minded gay and lesbian singles.”

The dating service, as spelled out in the terms of agreement at compatiblepartners.net, is not available to married people, or those involved in civil unions or domestic partnerships.

Will Compatible Partners successfully pair gays?

The website contains a warning: “The Company’s patented Compatibility Matching System was developed on the basis of research involving married heterosexual couples. The company has not conducted similar research on same-sex relationships.”

But who knows, maybe a Chuck and a Joe or a Sara and an Amy will find the happiness that Brent and Laura — engaged last September after meeting through eHarmony — found, or the joy that Paul and Stephanie — engaged last October after meeting through eHarmony — found.

To the singles who test the system: Do kiss, do tell. And I hope the joke is not on you.

Since the news, the blogosphere has reacted with signature snark: After nine years of being told to take their business elsewhere, gay folks are skeptical. Likewise, conservablogs are accusing eHarmony of succumbing to government bullying and caving in to the gay agenda.

And in a move that took that gay agenda and draped it in 1960s game show dressing, a recent episode of the Ellen Degeneres Show unveiled the set of the Game Show Network’s new Newlywed Game, sponsored by eHarmony – not exactly a paragon of gay pride – as the affable host brought her wife Portia De Rossi on to play.

A segment of the Ellen show sponsored by eHarmony? How did it come to this?

Back in 2005, New Jersey man Eric McKinley wanted to experience eHarmony’s much ballyhooed matching methodology. The problem for McKinley was that he was a man looking for a man. And eHarmony’s services are strictly for heterosexual matches. So Eric lodged a complaint with the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General, Division of Civil Rights.

After two years of “back and forth, back and forth,” says McKinley, the attorney general found probable cause. At that point, the parties agreed to negotiate toward a settlement. One of the conditions? That eHarmony would agree to provide an option for same-sex connections (McKinley and the first 10,000 to join up get free memberships).

Why would a company, so heaven-bent on promoting traditional marriage, “cave in” to the “gay agenda,” as so many conservative bloggers have alleged? Why didn’t they fight?

“We chose to settle ultimately because litigation outcomes are unpredictable,” says CEO and founding investor Greg Waldorf. “We were at it with New Jersey between 2005-2008 and said, ‘This is a real burden for the company.’ We’re just moving forward with a business that we hope turns out to be successful. ”

Compatible Partners is the settlement’s lovechild – a “what’s good for business” compromise negotiated between a gay partner-seeker and a company not known for its gay-friendliness. What’s unclear is if this unholy alliance is an arranged marriage or shotgun wedding.

It’s no secret that the company’s founder, psychologist Dr. Neil Clark Warren is a born-again Christian. National ad campaigns introduced the grandfatherly Warren boasting of the company’s exclusive ‘29 Dimensions of Compatibility’ to demographics larger than their original Christian following.

From the company’s emergence in 2000, when they first marketed their matchmaking services primarily to fellow Christian websites, Warren credited much of their early ascent to his relationship with evangelical group Focus on the Family and its founder James Dobson.

Inevitably, eHarmony’s growing pains put strain on that relationship, and in 2005, Warren broke from Dobson and Focus on the Family. The break, however, did not signal any change in the company’s policy of exclusively heterosexual match-ups.

While Warren was active in the company, whenever the topic of homosexual clients arose, he would insist that the results gleaned from his compatibility matching system were based solely on research of heterosexual couples. Competitor Chemistry.com launched their own ad campaign, “Rejected by eHarmony,” poking fun at the Christian matchmaker’s rejection of all types of folks.

Warren, 74, retired from active management in 2006 yet still sits on the board, today. Interestingly, under his watch, the company began offering spouse and domestic partnership benefits to their employees back in 2004. It took the threat of a lawsuit, however, for the company to offer the “benefits” of their patented algorithms to the general public.

After so many years of claiming that their 29 Dimensions were not compatible with homosexuality, how will the company convince people that suddenly, their system will work?

Current CEO Waldorf is “very hopeful that this will work just as well in the gay community. I think that anyone who says that they’re interested in a serious relationship,” he says, “will benefit from [our] deep compatibility matching.”

Next page: Working out the quirks

In 2005 New Jersey resident Eric McKinley filed a formal complaint with the state Division on Civil Rights. For more than three years, eHarmony vigorously contested the allegations of the complaint.

On July 23, 2007, however, the Director of the DCR issued a Finding of Probable Cause that eHarmony had violated New Jersey’s Law Against Discrimination.

The company then filed a Motion for Reconsideration of the finding.

Although the state has not issued a ruling on the motion, eHarmony said Tuesday it had reached a settlement with the Attorney General’s Office.

Under the settlement in which eHarmony admits no wrongdoing the company agrees to create a new service for same-sex matching by March 31, 2009.

The company said it would call the new service Compatible Partners.

It also agreed to pay the Division on Civil Rights $50,000 to cover administrative costs and to pay McKinley $5,000 plus give him a free one-year membership to its new service.

eHarmony uses a computerized matching algorithm to put people together. It claims that among its opposite-sex matchings more than 236 members are married each day in the US. It does not say how long those marriages last.

Under the settlement agreement, the company said it reserves the right to inform those using the new same-sex matching service that the Compatibility Matching System it developed is solely based on research involving married heterosexual couples.

“Even though we believed that the complaint resulted from an unfair characterization of our business, we ultimately decided it was best to settle this case with the Attorney General since litigation outcomes can be unpredictable,” said eHarmony, Inc. legal counsel Theodore B. Olson in a statement.

The company said that the two sites will maintain their own matching pools, registration information, and subscriptions. The separate matching pools are based on whether the user chooses to seek an opposite- or same-sex relationship. As a result, users of the Compatible Partners site and eHarmony.com cannot be matched with each other.