And Maine's Nutters Take us Off and Running! (Greene: lawyers, to live in)

[GreenGene]

Originally Posted by Mark S.

So is "We reserve the right to refuse service" now illegal in this country?

Depends on the circumstances.

Restaurants: Right to Refuse Service | LegalMatch Law Library

When Can a Business Refuse Service? | LegalMatch Law Library

3 Ways You Can Legally Refuse Service to Customers - Free Enterprise

[Mark S.]

Wow. So if the local KKK demands the local Jewish baker make a "Hang all the Jews" cake for their rally, the baker has no right to refuse?

That's messed up.

[bangorme]

Originally Posted by Mark S.

Wow. So if the local KKK demands the local Jewish baker make a "Hang all the Jews" cake for their rally, the baker has no right to refuse?

That's messed up.

Or, even refuse to cater a Nazi convention.

[Mark S.]

That's messed up.

[lrfox]

Originally Posted by Mark S.

Wow. So if the local KKK demands the local Jewish baker make a "Hang all the Jews" cake for their rally, the baker has no right to refuse?

That's messed up.

So you're saying the marriage of two people in love is the same as a message of hate and violence? We can debate politics and religion until we're blue in the face; but can we at least acknowledge the canyon that is the difference between the two? If those two things are "equally offensive" to someone's religion, then to hell with them.

To touch on your specific example, the baker could easily get out of it. A simple call to the police stating that they felt they were in danger because of the violent message from a known terrorist organization. Done. Religion need not be involved. The Ku Klux Klan is responsible for the deaths of more Americans than Al Qaeda, yet when they strike, we avoid words like "terrorist attack." We reserve that for Muslim on American crimes. Last year a Grand Dragon of the KKK shot and killed three people at a Jewish center. It was a "murder." A year before that to the week, there was a "terrorist attack" in Boston that killed the same number of people. So spare us the "Christians are vilified while Muslims are glorified!" rhetoric. There are nut jobs, murderers and hate filled people in every religion and there are non-religious nut jobs, murders, and hate filled people as well.

[Mark S.]

Originally Posted by lrfox

So you're saying the marriage of two people in love is the same as a message of hate and violence?

No. I'm saying "the message" is irrelevant.

If a business owner refuses service to a customer due to religion, race, scent, taste in music, clothing, haircut, political affiliation, ethnicity, etc., etc., etc. that may make the business owner an a-hole, but do we really need laws about this? Does the Nanny State have to legislate every aspect of our lives? If we are going to outlaw a-holes, we are going to need a lot more prisons.

Things like this tend to take care of themselves. A business where I live was run by a guy notorious for being rude to customers. You know what? He's no longer in business. No one had to sue him. No one demanded anti-rudeness legislation. There were no marches or protests or Twitter attacks. People simply stopped going to his business. Problem solved.

[lrfox]

Originally Posted by Mark S.

No. I'm saying "the message" is irrelevant.

If a business owner refuses service to a customer due to religion, race, scent, taste in music, clothing, haircut, political affiliation, ethnicity, etc., etc., etc. that may make the business owner an a-hole, but do we really need laws about this? Does the Nanny State have to legislate every aspect of our lives? If we are going to outlaw a-holes, we are going to need a lot more prisons.

Things like this tend to take care of themselves. A business where I live was run by a guy notorious for being rude to customers. You know what? He's no longer in business. No one had to sue him. No one demanded anti-rudeness legislation. There were no marches or protests or Twitter attacks. People simply stopped going to his business. Problem solved.

It's not outlawing "a-holes," it's outlawing discrimination. It's different. A jerk is a jerk and we all have to deal with them. It's easy to say "it'll work itself out" when you're not part of the group being discriminated against.

And it's not a "new" law. Anti-discrimination is a cornerstone of American life and business. Remember the Civil Rights Act? The South needed to be pressured into desegregation. Sure, it may have eventually "worked itself out" over time, but that's little comfort to the people living during the time when it's an issue. Outlawing discrimination of gays is just adding a minority group to existing legislation. The people who want to discriminate are trying to wiggle around those laws by whining "freedom of religion!" and it's a weak argument (laughable, even) as evidenced by general sentiment nationwide.

There's a difference between a generally rude business owner (if he's rude to everyone, he's not discriminating- he's just an a-hole, as you say) and someone who is selectively rude or discriminatory. A store owner who is rude to everyone is, above all else, a dumb business owner. He's alienating his potential clientele and simple economics will work against him. A business owner who is fine with most people, but alienates a minority population doesn't face the same economic pressures. Even if all gays stopped going to the business, the owner still may have enough business to thrive and continue operating a discriminatory business. Discrimination can continue if unchecked by outside sources (i.e. legislation). It happened in the South in the 1960s. If unchecked, it would happen with gays today.

[Mark S.]

Originally Posted by lrfox

It's not outlawing "a-holes," it's outlawing discrimination.

But where do we draw the line?

And it isn't simply a religious issue. When I wrote "Jewish" before, I meant in the cultural sense, not religious sense. Very few of my Jewish friends are even a little religious, but they are still proudly Jewish. Should they be forced to serve the local neo-Nazi who wants a swastika cake? Should the local atheist restauranteur with a gay partner be forced to cater an event for the local Baptist minister's fundraiser to defeat a gay marriage law? Both of those people should have every right to politely decline to provide the requested service.

Does that mean that the a-holes of the world will take advantage of that freedom? Sadly, yes. It's a sad consequence, just as pornography and hate speech are a sad consequence of free speech.

Liberty for all means that we occasionally have to tolerate liberty for things we don't like. If we start picking sides and saying, "Side A is allowed to discriminate but Side B can't," then let's just throw the whole thing out the window and admit there is no liberty, just legally sanctioned tribalism.

[lrfox]

Originally Posted by Mark S.

But where do we draw the line?

And it isn't simply a religious issue. When I wrote "Jewish" before, I meant in the cultural sense, not religious sense. Very few of my Jewish friends are even a little religious, but they are still proudly Jewish. Should they be forced to serve the local neo-Nazi who wants a swastika cake? Should the local atheist restauranteur with a gay partner be forced to cater an event for the local Baptist minister's fundraiser to defeat a gay marriage law? Both of those people should have every right to politely decline to provide the requested service.

I think discrimination against anyone based on race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, or veteran status is a good place to start (this list is not necessarily complete or all encompassing and could be amended to add more).

As with your KKK example, the neo-Nazis are an organization that promotes hate and violence as well as discrimination. A Jewish business owner could easily decline to do the work (legally) out of fear of violence against them. The Athiest is a different story. For starters, I think the atheist should be open to accepting the business because the catering isn't going to determine the results of the event and well, money is money. I also feel a little less sympathy in that situation because the local Baptist minister is a majority entity supporting legislation to deny equal rights to a minority group. It's also a gray area and wording is important. If the Atheist restaurateur said "I won't serve Christians because it's against my beliefs," They're discriminating against someone based on religious affiliation and that's discriminatory and illegal and they should be punished.

However, if they say, "We won't work for anyone who is trying to deny equal rights to a minority group," then I think they're within their rights. Religion, at that point, is out the window. It becomes about the business supporting equal rights- not denying services to a religious group. It really doesn't matter whether it's a Baptist minister, Neo Nazis, or KKK if you phrase it that way.

The BEST option (and this should apply to the pizza place in Indiana) would be to say, "sorry, we are booked up that day!" At the end of the day, a business is a business and getting involved in controversial issues like this rarely ends up going well. You're either crucified on social media and in the court of public opinion, or you're nailed legally. The expression, "there's no such thing as bad exposure" is no longer true considering how fast these things can go viral.

Keep it simple and keep out of the debate or you're going to get burned (deservedly so).

Liberty for all means that we occasionally have to tolerate liberty for things we don't like. If we start picking sides and saying, "Side A is allowed to discriminate but Side B can't," then let's just throw the whole thing out the window and admit there is no liberty, just legally sanctioned tribalism.

How is not allowing a business discriminate against a same sex couple allowing one side to discriminate and one side not to? That's absurd. A gay couple running a restaurant can't deny service to someone because they're Christian-- that's just as illegal. Why should the Christians be able to do it to the gays? That's the issue here.

[bangorme]

There is no distinction between making a cake for an organization that you find morally reprehensible, or a for the celebration of some act you find morally reprehensible. Trying to make that distinction is just sophistry. It really doesn't matter what YOU think is right and wrong. The making of a cake is a contract between two entities. Both should have the right to chose whether or not they want to enter into a contract. This isn't a debate about the "rightness" of gay marriage, but the RIGHT of someone to have a moral and religious objection to it, and run their business according to that objection.

Furthermore, there is a distinction between not serving someone because they are gay (or making a cake for a gay person), and not making a wedding cake for a gay marriage. Just like there is a distinction between making a cake for a German person and making a cake decorated to honor Adolf Hitler.

In practice, this whole discussion is designed to shove gay marriage down the throat of people that have religious objections to it. Who would eat a cake baked by someone against their will? I wouldn't, and neither would anyone else. It would be funny if is wasn't so obviously authoritarian.