Not a sentiment I disagree with in any way.
But - again - I feel that people have the right to choose who they want to do business with, on whatever grounds they want to. I would hope they choose more … compassionately, more unbiasedly, etc., but ultimately I feel that you and I lack any sort of moral authority to force them to do so against their will.
Well, nobody is forcing them to do business. And why should e.g. a vending machine (or an owner of a vending machine) be allowed to discriminate between customers? If a vending machine could not, why an employee should?
I’m not sure where you’re going with this “Vending machine” argument. Who’s talking about vending machines?
With that one sentence pull quote, you’re sidestepping the fact that federal law covering equal rights in America does cover business owners, and has done so since 1964. Sexual preference is just an excluded group of coverage. You may feel differently, but it was only through passing the Civil Rights Act that things like “Whites Only” lunch counters went away. That law gives protection to the customer in the same way that the federal RFRA protects businesses with genuine claims (most don’t have them).
It’s not a real “religious” claim to say “I refuse to have this class of person in my shop because my religion tells me so.” That’s actually a false claim. There’s nothing in the Bible that says, “Shop owners, you may not provide service to homosexuals.” You don’t get to say, “I find you icky,” because a person has different skin or comes from another country. If a person is basically clean, has money to pay, isn’t drunk or high, and is actually there to do business - you have to let them in.
We’re currently in a really nasty political climate where people who might normally not turn away a homosexual customer (or even care about their sexuality) are being told by those in D.C. to act out in harmful and hurtful ways toward their neighbors. (All in the name of protecting marriage and religion.) This is all just so those people in office can keep their jobs by appearing to be oh-so pious. That’s all an act. We, as a nation, need to be smarter than that.
So, your argument isn’t really sound. You may FEEL that people can turn away clients just because of the class they belong to, but U.S. law hasn’t really said that for 50 years now. Since the country is only 238 years old - that’s 21%, almost a quarter of the time that the U.S. has been around. People aren’t allowed to “selectively choose” who they do business with, anymore than they are allowed to set different pricing for people on new goods. It’s discriminatory. Unfortunately, homosexuals weren’t recognized in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and that’s the only reason people can still pull this kind of *!$?%$ on them.
Actually, the constitution disagrees with your views. This was all decided quite a while ago in the early 1960s. The law bans discrimination in public accomodations. Period. This is constitutionally backed. You might not like it, but it is.
No, it’s not. Brown V. Board was a decision regarding the constitutionality of this sort of discrimination in schooling and several other decisions over the next few years widened the scope of the anti-discrimination interpretation of the constitution, specifically, the reconstruction amendments (13, 14, and 15).
Privately owned businesses are still subject to the law of the land,and that bans explicitly this sort of discrimination. A private place of business that caters to the public can’t discriminate. You might not like that, and find it morally questionable for some odd reason (as if the only real freedom is the ability to make money?), but it’s legally sound reasoning.
Edited to add link: http://www.civilrights.org/judiciary/supreme-court/key-cases.html
yet, you’re defending it? Why? Especially since several people on this thread have challenged you on your argument that private business owners are legally allowed to discriminate?
Yep - the 1964 Civil Rights Act allows some discrimination at “private clubs” (which protected men’s-only clubs which were not open to the public and required membership) or individuals who are selling privately. You just can’t enter into general commerce and discriminate.
That’s the difference here.
A retailer with a business license is claiming that they will generally sell to members of a community. Because most cities have restrictions on the number of retail establishments of a certain type that are allowed in an area (for example: “x” number of groceries can be supported in “y” radius) the law insists that all people living within that area be served by those establishments. It has to do with city planning and with requiring that people in a reasonable distance from retail locations can be served.
Agreed. I think @DerekBalling is confusing private clubs with private businesses and they are not the same thing, as you point out, from a legal point of view. It’s pretty clear and constitutional to me.
Absolutely. Private clubs are membership-based, and they are not designed to cater to the general public. They also aren’t retail establishments. Private clubs frequently have entire lists of laws that are different from standard law for alcohol, smoking, etc.
Except that the Bible isn’t the end-all-be-all of people’s religious beliefs. It’s a starting point from which there is centuries of interpretation. The same way the Jews don’t use the Torah as a basis upon which to stone people.
I’m well aware of what the law says, and if you’ve read the thread this far, that should be obvious. My assertion is that the law is morally void, and the CRA is abominable. Lofty goals and ideals to be certain (goals and ideals that I am 100% in agreement with, I want people to not be discriminated again), but I don’t believe in a state with authority to compel people to act against their wishes, unless those people are actually directly harming someone else (and “not selling you something” isn’t directly harming you in any conventional sense).
Actually, none of that is based on the Constitution, it’s based on the Civil Rights Act, which was found to not violate the Constitution. There is a very subtle - but distinct and important - different between the two.
Brown v Board of Education concerns itself only with State actors. The government has an obligation to treat all citizens equally, and I don’t disagree with that at all. Brown has zero to say on the situation of private actors, which is what this story is about.
I’ve never argued that the current state of the law allows businesses to discriminate. My argument is that the current state of the law is fundamentally flawed, taking away freedom from the individuals who own businesses on a pretext of preserving a freedom for others (a freedom that is manufactured).
No. I think the “private club / private business” distinction is nonsense, and businesses should be able to have the same protections as clubs. In fact, it’s a specious difference, because if I was running, say, a wedding dress store, I could simply on a whim change it to a “wedding dress club”, and only sell to members, and apply whatever criteria I want to membership.
In order to allow them to discriminate, which has been ruled unconstitutional! Does this mean that laws restricting my right to kill people is infringing on my freedoms? Where does this line of argument end?
yet later constitutional decisions, based on reasoning set down by Brown do address private businesses specifically.
I just don’t see how this line of thinking can stand on either constitutional or moral grounds. Sorry.
Wow, that’s just… wow. Please read this book to see why I and probably most people might disagree with you - it deals with the Montomery Bus Boycott and the activism of Rosa parks before those events and the utter degradation of black women in Jim Crow south - THAT system of discrimination was what I would call morally repugnant, not business owners being “forced” to serve people they find morally questionable if not morally repugnant:
Refusing to associate with you doesn’t actually “harm” you. Killing people actually harms them. It’s a pretty easy distinction, to be honest.
Because you believe in the inherent goodness of the state and it’s ability to force people to change who they are to a model that you find attractive. Whether you think of it in those terms or not, that’s what the existing legal model does. It says “you think badly, and the government is going to use force of law to change you so you do not act in a way that is consistent with how you think.”
That sort of thing is the most immoral thing (to me) that a state could do, forcing people to act against their own will. But that’s because I’m an opponent of the tyranny of the majority and you are (apparently) a proponent of it.
Again - a public transit system acts as a State actor. Again - no argument from me that state actors cannot discriminate.
Both are a certain type of morally repugnant, IMHO. And when push comes to shove, I recognize that I don’t have a moral authority to force other people to do what I want them to, so I have to “live with” the business owners’ repugnance.
Wow, thanks for putting words in my mouth. Actually, no I don’t believe in the inherent goodness of the state - the state, as we define it, is morally neutral in this case. I believe that the state can be a tool for a more equal society. Besides, before the CRA, the state was in the active business of discrimination, so no. I’m not arguing that. People changed the laws to end discrimination and it was a knock down fight, that led to much bloodshed.
IN theory, the state should act to protect civil rights, the state should act as a neutral arbiter of that. Of course, historically it hasn’t and continues not to do so. I do believe, that the people who own the bridal are morally and legally wrong. I don’t care what they believe about gay marriage nor do I want to them to change their believes. It’s legally and to my mind, morally irrelevant to the discussion.
Again, you completely glossed over the important bits, and really don’t get the law.
My explanation of WHY these laws apply to retail establishments engaging in commerce as part of an organized society was somehow completely missed by you. Fancy that.
You really don’t seem to be well aware of what the law says or why it says it. The law isn’t written in an effort to “compel people to act against their wishes”. It’s written to neutralize trade among ALL people in a diverse society. No one person is being told “only you must act this way” - every person must deal with every other person in the same fashion.
Not only that, failure to have this type of law actually does result in a social and political atmosphere that encourages the direct harming of specific target groups. This isn’t just about “not selling you something”. This is also about ensuring that people will not be seen as second-class citizens, unwelcome in a society occupied by you.
By only talking about the The Civil Rights Act as a source you’re forgetting a pretty important document. The Civil Rights Act didn’t just appear out of thin air. It’s actually based on the Declaration of Independence, and ensures that equal rights noted in the DoI will be guaranteed through the Constitution - because that hadn’t been happening through the 1950’s. It has been declared Constitutionally sound.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
The “pursuit of Happiness” is where equal trade comes into play. If people cannot live equally through trade in a society, and thus gain equal status, there is no true equality. You’ve created a second class by default.
Civil law requires that any business occupying a space in the grid of possible businesses to do business in a location follow equality laws. I already explained this, but I’ll do it again:
In a limited space, only a certain number of businesses of a certain type will be allowed to operate. Those businesses must cater to the maximum number of people - that’s beneficial for the economy and for the people living within the area. If a person wants to be a serious, commercial business person, they need to understand their decisions affect not just them but: any employees they have, any customers they have, the local economy, the local real estate values, and more. So, the The Civil Rights Act ensures that businesses operating under license will cater to all members of the community surrounding them.
You really don’t know what you’re talking about. Private clubs actually also have other requirements - not just a “for pay” membership. Most private clubs are npf’s. If you’re curious about them, you may want to read this to get started. They are an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT class of business.
I already gave an example where a person who was gay was refused food at an establishment he’d been a regular customer at. He expected to eat.
What if he’d been a diabetic?
Is that harmful enough for you?
This has very little to do with “the inherent goodness of the state” or trying to change anyone (although I already provided an example that shows people will be actively bigoted if allowed, but not if they think they can’t). What it has to do with is equal application of the law. Having a license to operate a business is a legal action, you’re making contracts with customers and affecting local commerce.
Also, go read some Ida B. Wells on lynching laws and commerce:
http://dig.lib.niu.edu/gildedage/idabwells/pamphlets.html
She made the connection between commerce and lynching back when most of mainstream American thought it was about black men’s “out of controll” sexuality and protection of “white womanhood”.
You really need to get some historical perspective. Really.
I just want to say, kudos to all the parties in the lengthy debate for staying civil and away from logical fallacies of various shades. It’s refreshing to see on the intertubes.
Actually, I’m very well aware of what the law says, I just disagree 100% with it.
And yet, that’s exactly what it does.
And that is the “this way” in which people are being told they must act.
First - legally speaking, the Declaration of Independence zero legal stature.
I’ve never said that the CRA wasn’t declared Constitutionally sound.
And if you’re going to just be insulting, I see no need to respond to you further. Good day to you.
I’ve read Ida B. Wells, many times, thanks.
Ah yes, the “you disagree with me, so therefore you’re wrong and need to change”… kinda the crux of this entire story (and this entire debate). Thanks for exemplifying it so perfectly.
