UPDATE: Spark Networks has now announced that they will no longer advertise on Glenn Beck. Angelo Carusone reports:
As with other advertisers, participants in the StopBeck effort reached out to Spark Networks. We kindly requested that they follow the responsible action of hundreds of other advertisers and refrain from advertising on Glenn Beck's show. Given Glenn Beck's recent string of antisemitic smears, we also reached out JDate. We asked JDate to urge their parent company to take the responsible by ceasing its financial support of Glenn Beck's reckless vitriol.
[...]
A representative of Spark Networks advised the StopBeck effort that ChristianMingle.com ads “have not been running since Friday (2/18).”
We pressed for clarification and confirmation, asking: “Are you saying Spark Networks has since ceased advertising on Glenn Beck's show and will refrain from doing so going forward?”
Spark Networks replied: “You're correct.” Later adding, “We do not have any future advertising planned. Thank you.”
Original Post:
Ever since Glenn Beck said in 2009 that President Obama is a “racist” with a “deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture,” most mainstream companies have refused to advertise on his Fox News show.
Beck's recent forays into anti-Semitic stereotypes and conspiracy theories haven't helped the situation. After all, what company would want to be publicly linked to a TV host whose rhetoric was just condemned by 400 rabbis?
Apparently Spark Networks, Inc., does.
Spark Networks, which describes itself as “a leading provider of online personals services,” has been running ads for its ChristianMingle website on Beck's Fox show.
Spark Networks also operates JDate, a high-profile website that calls itself “the premier Jewish singles community online.”
It's hard to imagine that many of JDate's customers will be happy about Beck's latest controversy.
Yesterday, Beck attacked the Reform movement of Judaism. He said that Reform Judaism is “more about politics” than about faith and likened Reform Judaism to “radicalized Islam.”
Today, the Anti-Defamation League denounced Beck's comments as “bigoted ignorance” and “highly offensive and outrageous.”
Jonathan S. Tobin, writing for the conservative Commentary magazine, called Beck's statement “as untrue as it is obnoxious.”
The Reform movement is the largest religious denomination of American Jews, accounting for more than a third of the U.S. Jewish population.
Reform Jews presumably make up a large portion of JDate's membership, as well.
It's time for JDate to sever its ties with Glenn Beck.