No, they’re not. The shop owner gets to pick what they sell, they can’t pick who they sell to. I can’t recommend Tom Ashbrook’s show “On Point” enough, and here’s the show he did regarding Arizona’s attempt to allow businesses to discriminate–I think it’s a good one.
Selling a product or service does not equate condoning the practices in which people might use that product or service. It’s discrimination, and poorly veiled discrimination at that.
And these tend to be the same fucking idiots who clutch their pearls when someone wants to build a mosque in their town. They wail and moan about Sharia law–which is what I think this bridal shop stupidity is.
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Class of '97 here 
Loads of people around here defending them… “go shop somewhere else if you don’t like it, but the public shaming is uncalled for, etc etc”
…so they have the right to refuse service, but people who don’t like it don’t have the right to bitch about it? Problem with this happening in Bloomsburg is that there aren’t a lot of choices when it comes to bridal shops, so they can probably look forward to making multiple long drives to visit other shops (or possibly just be turned away again).
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Spoken like someone who has never suffered systematic discrimination.
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consider that a bridal shop justifies its existence on the basis of consultation-- it promises the ideal dress for the bride that fits the budget. Now, if there are two bridal gowns in the ceremony, neither one can upstage the other. If the two go in there separately, they’d lose the opportunity to make sure that this didn’t happen. A triviality to some, but such trivialities are what keep bridal shops in business,
They don’t have to move. They make a determination for themselves what things they value.
Life isn’t about getting everything you want, where you want it, and how you want it. Other participants in this game of life have the right to decide for themselves if they want to work with you or not.
I would hope that people would do the right thing and treat everyone equally. But my hopes aren’t enough justification to force someone to do so.
I would argue as an atheist, I suffer systematic discrimination every day of my life. Is it to the scale of some of these other minorities? No, not at all. But it’s discrimination nonetheless. My ability to feel welcome in my own country is diminished every day when the United States Congress opens their session with a prayer to a deity I don’t believe in. The chance of any significant political success in this country approaches zero for atheists.
For my own part - I’m all in favor of public shaming. And if I lived in the area and there was going to be a picket-line, I’d happily join in the public shaming “face to face”.
Here’s the rub: What if the local economy (or community) doesn’t pay them back in a negative way? What if the local people are all, “Hell yeah, those jews african americans pollacks irish italians muslims women fags can go die in a fire, we don’t want them shopping in our town anyway! And hey, while we’re at it, they can’t go to our schools either, because our fairy ghost told us they’re dirty and they smell!”
It’s discrimination, plain and simple, and deserves to be eradicated with the proper laws/protections.
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So should that discrimination be stopped, or should you be forced to moved to a proper secular country like France?
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Yep, and they have the right to exclude black people from their lunch counters, too.
Oh wait, no they don’t.
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Who said anything about forcing them to do anything? All that would happen is that they would be required not to discriminate if they wanted to run a shop there. They could always move their shop someplace more in line with their bigotry.
So they make a determination for themselves what things they value. Because saying “life isn’t about getting everything you want, where you want, and how you want it” applies to them too, right? How can anyone who thinks not being discriminated against isn’t a right possibly think running a business however you want is?
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I wondered about this too. This drives us to create ‘gay cities’. It can be very difficult to be a minority in some places. Ultimately we end up distancing ourselves from each other and slowing understanding. It’s easy for me to say; I’m not on the front lines.
I imagine we could identify ‘gay friendly’ establishments. We can do that even with anti-discrimination laws. A pride sticker on the door affects my purchasing decision.
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“Should” is a wishy-washy word. It “should” stop, but nobody has a moral authority to force it to stop. If you’re unhappy with the way your neighbors treat you, and your other neighbors aren’t willing to stand with you on it, maybe it’s time to go find a place with new neighbors.
But they should, legally. As happy as I am with the long-term outcome of that sort of civil rights jurisprudence, you won’t hear me argue that it had any basis in legality.
It’s their property, they can operate the business they choose to on it. If you don’t like the business your neighbor is running, buy the property from them and kick them to the curb.
Hold it. This isn’t going to be one of those “laws to ensure people have freedom and opportunity are wrong since government means force and I refuse to acknowledge anything else that might happen as so harmful” arguments, is it?
Because people are regularly limited in how they use property when it impacts others. There are all sorts of ways running a business is regulated in the interest of the public good, and we all actually have a great deal more freedom to do what we want with our own lives and property because of it.
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You can’t invent “freedom and opportunity” by taking it away from other people.
You may feel warmer and fuzzier, personally, about your perception of “freedom” when other people have their property rights oppressed, but make no mistake, you’ve simply stolen their freedom to do what they want with the thing they own and converted into some benefit for yourself.
This is starting to sound like a freedom to vs freedom from argument.
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Okay, so you’re going to continue to dodge the fact that not everyone has the privilege of being able to change where they live, because, according to you, it’s all about priorities. Since you put being able to be treated like everyone else on the same level as food and shopping options doesn’t say much for your priorities. Of course educational standards are important, but there are means for changing the educational standards in a community if that’s your priority.
What I’m still not clear about is why exactly the customer should be forced to evaluate where they live and shop because you don’t think the business owner should be forced to evaluate whether turning away a minority is a good or bad business decision. I don’t think business owners should have the sole advantage, but I guess we have to agree to disagree. If only we could test this by going back in time and allowing societal pressure, rather than legislative action, to take care of Jim Crow laws we could see if your method really is better.
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The freedom taken here is the freedom for a property owner to choose to run a business but discriminate against certain people. The freedom given here is the freedom for everyone to choose to live the life they want without having it be restricted by commercial discrimination.
I don’t see why you would ever consider the former more important, unless you consider property rights more valuable than human rights, or as daneel says are imposing the whole freedom-from-counts-freedom-to-doesn’t nonsense. As someone who values freedom in general, this is a trade-off with great gain and little cost.
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No. Just, no. Fuck the Invisible Hand wagging it’s goddamn finger at them. They deserve a charlie horse from the fist of the Law.
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