Mormons opposed to Spring dating site

The Salt Lake Temple is shown during opening session of the two-day Mormon church conference Saturday, April 5, 2014, in Salt Lake City. The Salt Lake Temple is shown during opening session of the two-day Mormon church conference Saturday, April 5, 2014, in Salt Lake City. Photo: Rick Bowmer, AP Photo: Rick Bowmer, AP Image 1 of / 53 Caption Close Mormons opposed to Spring dating site 1 / 53 Back to Gallery

Attorneys from Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are trying to stop a Spring man from using the word "Mormon" and pictures of their iconic Salt Lake City temple on a dating website he plans to launch for Mormon singles.

Mormon Match is set to launch at dateamormon.com later this year.

"The point of Mormon Match is to connect faithful Mormons looking to befriend, date and marry other faithful Mormons. There are many other successful faith-based dating sites, and we wish to create a similar forum for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," said 31-year-old Jonathan Eller of Spring, the site's owner.

But Eller faces opposition from those at the very top of his faith, whose lawyers contacted his server provider ordering that the site be shut down.

Lawyers for Intellectual Reserve Inc., who manage trademarks for the Mormon church, say the site has no affiliation with the church and, therefore, no right to use its name or images of its landmarks.

"We believe we are well within our rights to protect both the use of the name of the church and the image of the Salt Lake temple and to make clear that the plaintiff's business has no connection whatsoever to the church," attorney Robert Schick said.

The church's aggressive legal stance shocked Eller.

"I love the church," he said. "I'm hoping we can come to a mutually beneficial arrangement. I don't want to do any harm to the church."

Lawyers for Mormon Match say they were forced to sue the church after it used "clandestine" tactics to subjugate regular trademark proceedings and shut down the dating site.

"The dispute arose in the trademark court when Jon applied for a trademark on the logo for his website," said Eller's New York attorney Sid Rao.

Demanded shutdown

Rao says that just a day before the trademark proceeding was due to go before the board on April 5, the church wrote to the data-hosting company supporting Mormon Match and demanded it be shut down, while simultaneously declining to respond to any correspondence from him or Eller.

"Instead of answering any of our messages, IRI secretly sent a letter to our website hosting company that nearly caused a catastrophe for the company," Rao wrote via email.

The dispute now centers on whether Eller can legally use the word Mormon anywhere on the site, with IRI asserting that the church has total ownership of the word, according to the lawsuit.

Lawyers for the church also declined to comment on whether it is possible to protect such a generic word, one that has already been used in other instances, such as the title of the Broadway musical, "The Book of Mormon."

The use of the word Mormon "is the central issue of this case," said Robert Schick Friday.

Protecting the word Mormon would make it difficult for any organization except the church itself to claim a connection with the faith, including any spinoff church if one were to emerge.

On Facebook

Meanwhile Mormons on Facebook are left in the doldrums waiting for the site to launch, bemoaning the quality of the existing Latter-day Saints dating sites.

"I've never been blatantly propositioned so much as on 'LDS' single sites and it really REALLY makes me mad (and disappointed ... and grossed out)," Daphne Jorgensen, a prospective user, wrote on the Mormon Match page.

"I completely agree! Too many creepers on the other sites that are only looking to take advantage of others," Amber Tilley responded.

Eller says his site will have a special feature that lets people report users with a high "creepy factor."