A low point of antidiscrimination?

There's a dating agency here in Victoria called Dinner at Eight. The idea behind the agency is that three men and three women are matched up and have dinner at a restaurant together. The agency recently won an exemption to the Equal Opportunity Act allowing it to discriminate in its advertising.

What was the exemption for? As the Herald Sun reports:

A DATING agency has been given permission to ban married people from using its services in a blow to philandering spouses.

The Dinner at Eight dating agency has won an exemption to the Equal Opportunity Act allowing it to bar wandering husbands from signing up to its singles events.

Under the exemption, Dinner at Eight will be able to "refuse to provide its service to a person who is married and not separated from their spouse".

We ought to say straight out: this isn't normal. It's not normal to expect a dating agency whose purpose is to match single men and women to include married men or women. It's not normal to expect any agency to help along the cause of infidelity. It's not normal for a faceless government tribunal to decide what are essentially moral issues.

For all these reasons, Dinner at Eight should never have been expected to apply for an exemption. It should have been assumed as a matter of course that the agency could limit its advertising to singles.

It's a sign that a society has lost its way when any and every kind of discrimination has to be pleaded before a government tribunal.