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CALIFORNIA, July 6, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) — ChristianMingle.com must start facilitating same-sex relationships, a judge ordered after two homosexual men filed a class-action claim against the online dating service. 

Spark Networks Inc., the parent company of ChristianMingle, is based in California. The homosexual men took legal action under the state’s anti-discrimination law, which mandates “full and equal accommodations” to people regardless of their “sexual orientation.”

According to the legal settlement, ChristianMingle and other Spark-owned matchmaking sites — CatholicMingle.com, AdventistSinglesConnection.com and BlackSingles.com — must cease asking users if they are men seeking women or women seeking men. Instead, the sites will only ask users if they are men or women and then allow them to seek heterosexual or homosexual relationships.

The Spark-owned sites cannot return to asking users if they are men seeking women or vice versa unless the site “provides similar prompts which allow individuals seeking a same-sex match partner to enter and use the sites without having to state that they are seeking a match with someone of the opposite sex,” according to the settlement.

“As long as Spark operates the Mingle sites, users will continue to have the ability to search for potential same-sex matches using the sites’ text searching and profile building features,” the settlement decrees.

The settlement ordered Spark to pay $9,000 each to the two homosexual men “as a service reward for their efforts on behalf of the Settlement Class and release of their damages claims.” Spark must also pay $450,000 in their legal opponents’ attorneys’ fees.

In 2008, a judge forced the creator of the matchmaking service eHarmony.com to cater to same-sex couples.