It hasn't all been a honeymoon, but after 16 years in the business, Dr. Neil Clark Warren is still committed to helping people find love.

Warren is the 81-year-old cofounder and current CEO of online dating site eHarmony. The site, which bills itself as a place for finding deep love that leads to marriage, first launched in August. Lesbian singles, on average, tend to focus more on personality than looks when considering an LGBT partner. 5 reasons Why eharmony is A good dating site for Lesbians. In this modern dating era, if you’re single and lesbian, a dating app is something you’ve probably tried at least once. Neil Clark Warren, eHarmony Founder, Says Gay Marriage ‘Damaged His Company’. The Christian co-founder of the popular dating site eHarmony is no stranger to sparking controversy in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. Now, however, Neil Clark Warren has gone even further, saying he’s “tired” of the same-sex. The owners of eHarmony had a religious objection to serving the LGBT community, a judge said that was a load of shit and told them to either open eHarmony up to us or create a clone site for us. They opted for the clone site. Before you choose to dive in and join Eharmony I've created a list of 7 of the main reasons I don't like Eharmony which you should read. Eharmony has a longer setup time. When you signup for Eharmony you'll notice the initial setup process is very similar to other dating sites. You'll have load photos, write about yourself, share if you want.

Warren is the 81-year-old cofounder and current CEO of online dating site eHarmony.

The site, which bills itself as a place for finding deep love that leads to marriage, first launched in August 2000. Warren, who retired in 2007, came out of retirement in 2012 to help 'turn around' the company.

Earlier this week, I sat down with Warren -- his wife, Marylyn, of 57 years by his side -- to talk about the rough patches, the competition, and of course, the highlights.

Gay marriage

In 2005, the company was sued for discrimination of same-sex couples. To settle a lawsuit, eHarmony in 2009 launched Compatible Partners, a site for gay and lesbian singles.

When it did so, Warren says 350,000 of its members fled eHarmony out of principle. The company originally started as a Christian dating site and Warren himself is an evangelical.

'We've suffered from the contentiousness of that topic,' Warren said, who added that it wasn't about being anti-gay.

'We didn't want to pretend to be experts on gay and lesbian couples,' said Warren. 'We're not anti-gay at all ...It's a different match.'

Warren says the company -- which uses its patented algorithm to connect people based on 29 dimensions of compatibility -- is now seeing success in matching up gay and lesbian singles on Compatible Partners.

'We've had quite a number of same-sex marriages,' he said.

The company says it has matched 2 million couples that have led to marriages. And according to Warren, they're beating the marriage odds.

A new era for Internet dating

Warren said that a survey of 20,000 of its married couples found that just 3.9% have gotten divorced (compared to 6.9% of U.S. marriages.)

EHarmony has roughly 770,000 active users who are paying anywhere from $9.95 to $59.95 per month depending on the length of the plan. (That doesn't include numbers of its Compatible Partners service.)

But Warren said they're continually trying to improve: 'Our job is becoming harder.'

That's not because there is more competition. In fact, Warren doesn't see the onslaught of dating apps as threats to his business. 'We don't discourage people from Tinder,' he said, adding that apps like Tinder are primarily used for dating and hooking up -- not marriage.

Rather, connecting people is becoming harder because 'people are becoming more complex.'

That's a result of our increasingly wired world, said Warren, who worked as a clinical psychologist for 35 years before starting eHarmony with his son-in-law.

'The more complex you are, the harder it is to find someone with broad-based compatibility,' he said. 'Oh my gosh, we have a team of roughly 20 people working every day to improve our matching algorithm.'

(They're also working on a career site to apply their secret sauce to the job search).

Warren said one of the biggest things he tells people is not to hurry: It could take as many as five years to find 'that person' using his site.

But it'll be worth it: 'We encourage people not to settle.'

Once viewed as unwelcoming to the LGBTQ community, popular online matchmaker eHarmony has gone through a queer-friendly rebranding of late.

The site, which boasts more than 2 million messages a week, began offering same-sex matches in 2019. This winter, it launched its first queer-inclusive commercial, featuring a lesbian couple.

The ad, “I Scream,” is part of eHarmony’s current “Real Love” campaign and opens on a female couple in their kitchen. In between kisses, one woman tastes her partner’s cooking and makes it clear she’s not a fan. The pair wind up on the couch enjoying a pint of ice cream and going in for another peck.

“Being honest with each other,” a voiceover announces. “Saying yes to great ideas. eHarmony — here for real love.”

Gareth Mandel, chief operating officer at eHarmony, told NBC News it was important that “our ad campaigns, our platform, and everything else we do accurately reflect what real love, real dating and real relationships look like both today and always.”

“We’ve spent substantial time recently bringing our entire team together to formalize a company mission and values statement that reflects who we are today,” he said, “Explicitly reflecting a brand and a workplace that strives to be safe, inclusive and welcoming to each and every member of our community.”

The ad, and the “Real Love” campaign in general, are part of a sitewide revamp to move the company away from its conservative origins — but not everyone is on board with the company’s inclusive turn.

Launched in 2000 by Neil Clark Warren and his son-in-law, Greg Forgatch, eHarmony was different from most dating sites: Rather than allow members to pore through hundreds of profiles, it paired them based on a lengthy compatibility quiz.

And, initially, the site only offered heterosexual matches.

Publicly, Warren — a clinical psychologist, seminary professor and devout Christian — claimed that was because he had no expertise when it came to gay dating. But in 2005, before same-sex marriage was recognized in most states, he told USA Today, 'We don't really want to participate in something that's illegal.'

In an interview with the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family in 2004, Warren said he had to be diplomatic about how he discussed the site’s lack of same-sex options.

“Cities like San Francisco, Chicago or New York — they could shut us down so fast. We don't want to make enemies out of them,” Warren said. “But at the same time, I take a real strong stand against same-sex marriage anywhere that I can comment on it.”

In eHarmony’s early years, Warren frequently plugged the site on the radio program of evangelical author James Dobson, who co-founded Focus on the Family. The anti-LGBTQ organization also published several of Warren’s self-help books.

As eHarmony continued to grow, though, Warren distanced himself from the group. In 2005, he ended his appearances on Dobson’s show and bought the publishing rights to his books.

Eharmony Lgbtq Account

After settling a discrimination lawsuit in New Jersey in 2008, eHarmony agreed to launch Compatible Partners, a separate dating site that enabled users to make same-sex matches. It was an imperfect solution the Los Angeles Times referred to as a “shotgun wedding.” There was no link to Compatible Partners on the main eHarmony site, and those interested in both men and women had to buy two subscriptions, according to Mashable. It took another discrimination suit, this one in California, for the two sites to be reciprocal.

Warren retired from running eHarmony in 2007 but returned as chief executive in 2012. In a 2013 interview with CNBC, he lamented that his company was forced to “put up a same-sex site” and said gay marriage “has really damaged our company.”

“We literally had to hire guards to protect our lives, because the people were so hurt and angry with us,” he said at the time, because “Christian people” felt the company’s gay dating site was “a violation to scripture.”

Is Eharmony Lgbt Friendly

Warren also suggested to CNBC that eHarmony invest $10 million to “figure out” homosexuality, which he called “at the very best … a painful way for a lot of people to have to live.”

Warren stepped down as CEO again in 2016 and is no longer involved with the company, according to Mandel. Since 2019, eHarmony has been led by a three-person team — Mandel, Chief Customer Care Officer Carlos Robles and Chief Financial Officer Stefan Schulze.

CompatiblePartners.com started redirecting to the main eHarmony site in November 2019. Mandel said the response has been largely positive, and LGBTQ usership has grown 109 percent year-over-year.

“Over the last couple of years, we’ve taken several actions to become more of the company that we want to be,” he said. “One of our main objectives is to ensure we’re always striving to create a culture that’s diverse, inclusive and welcoming to all of our members and our employees. Our commitment to make sure our platform reflects that is a priority for us as a company.”

eHarmony’s benefits package for 2021 offers coverage for gender-affirming surgery, as well as equal parental leave, regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation, and including adoptive and foster parents.

“While we’re proud of the changes we’ve made to our platform, we recognize that we have work left to do, and are committed to finding ways to be more inclusive to people of all gender identities and sexual orientations across all facets of what we do,” Mandel said.

While many have applauded eHarmony’s “LGBTQ epiphany,” the company’s “Real Love' campaign has put it in the crosshairs of the right-wing Christian group One Million Moms. The group, which is part of the conservative American Family Association, launched a petition Jan. 29 criticizing the “I Scream” commercial as an “attempt to normalize and glorify the LGBTQ lifestyle,” which it calls “unnatural and immoral.”

“This eHarmony ad brainwashes children and adults by desensitizing them and convincing them that homosexuality is natural,” a statement on the One Million Moms website reads, “when in reality it is an unnatural love that is forbidden by Scripture just like love rooted in adultery is forbidden.”

The petition, which calls on eHarmony to pull the spot, received more than 15,300 signatures as of Tuesday afternoon.

Eharmony Lgbt

“I am extremely disappointed that eHarmony is refusing to remain neutral in the cultural war by pushing the LGBTQ agenda on families,” it reads in part.

Eharmony Lgbtq Membership

The organization often opposes LGBTQ-inclusive programming and advertising. In October, it protested an Uber Eats commercial featuring Olympic gymnast Simone Biles and nonbinary “Queer Eye” star Jonathan Van Ness. In 2019, it targeted Disney/Pixar’s “Toy Story 4” for including a scene of two moms dropping their child off at school, and it called on Hallmark Channel to remove an ad for the wedding planning website Zola featuring a same-sex wedding.

The impact of OMM’s campaigns, though, is questionable at best: ”Toy Story 4” earned more than $1 billion worldwide at the box office without removing the offending scene; Uber Eats is still running the Jonathan Van Ness commercial; and after briefly pulling the Zola ad, Hallmark reinstated it and apologized for the “hurt and disappointment it has unintentionally caused.”

Eharmony Lgbt Friendly

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