Posted on 07/01/2015 6:33:37 PM PDT by Kaslin
On a slow news day, it was either this or the fact that Twitter’s blowing up right now over the NYT’s suggestion that peas would make a fine addition to guacamole. Since only one of those stories has seeped into other major newspapers (so far), that’s the one I’m blogging. Although, for the record, I like peas and think they’d be an intriguing, if not necessarily triumphant, ingredient in guac from a textural perspective. Let’s not wet ourselves over experimental recipes after we, as a people, just got done spending two weeks debating the pros and cons of pizza with cocktail weenies in place of the crust, okay?
As for this guy and his sign, he’s a lefty dream come true insofar as he’s threatening to refuse service to gays as a rule, not just in the specific context of a wedding. Other businesses, like Memories Pizza in Indiana, made a point of stressing that their problem with gay marriage is specific to marriage. Their faith says it’s reserved for one man and one woman so they can’t in good conscience participate in a ceremony celebrating another form, but it doesn’t say they can’t do business with gays in other contexts. Not this guy. He cleaned up his message a bit after the media started dialing him up — now his sign says he refuses the right to serve people who don’t recognize his freedom of religion — but if you’re a gay-rights activist eager to argue that letting people refuse service to gay marriages will lead to service being refused to gays generally, here you go. I’m curious to see how much grassroots support he gets if/when the now familiar cycle of media coverage followed by nasty threats followed by his business closing for a few days followed by a Kickstarter to help him offset the costs of lost revenue plays out. If you’re a libertarian who opposes antidiscrimination laws in principle, because you feel market solutions are a better way to punish prejudice than handing the government power to tinker with freedom of association, you’re on his side. If you aren’t, you (probably) aren’t.
The most perennially interesting thing to me about these “random person not down with gay marriage” news stories is how they subtly undercut the argument against religious exemptions to antidiscrimination laws within the narrow context of gay marriage. Antidiscrimination laws are most valuable when there’s widespread prejudice in local public accommodations; if the entire city’s willing to refuse service to you if you’re black or gay, you may have no convenient alternatives for the services you seek. You’re frozen out comprehensively and no one thinks much of anything about it. The fact, though, that local news outlets now treat the mere possibility that a gay customer might be refused service by a local business as newsworthy suggests that that wider see-no-evil attitude isn’t operating here. The media’s helping bring to bear public pressure on holdouts, just as the libertarian model for fighting discrimination imagines. Maybe that would change if you created an exemption for religious conscience; maybe there are huge numbers of religious business owners who want to refuse service to gays but are afraid of the law right now, and who would indulge themselves if the law looked the other way. In that case, there’d be too many holdouts for the media to highlight all of them. As far as I know, though, outside of Tennessee’s major cities, it’s legal in that state to discriminate gays just as this guy is doing. If the law is the only thing holding most religious business owners back from discriminating, how to explain the fact that this guy is so evidently so much of an outlier that merely posting a sign is worthy of 6 p.m. coverage?
I wish I lived closer...I’d shop there.
There is always the internet.
I wonder if the idea entered into his head that in very many cases you can’t tell if someone is gay...?
A brave man.
yeah, this seems like a lame way to fight back......
That's the valid argument. We SHOULDN'T have to know or give a damn. It's none of our business and when they ask us to participate (in any fashion, weddings or gay cupcakes), we should be able to say no. If they shut the hell up and leave us alone, we do too. Nobody gives one damn if they are gay, we just want left out of the debauchery.
Unfortunately, he’s going to make a Pinata target out of himself and his business. There is nothing most victim-identity groups like more than pouring out the hate , costly vandalism and threats of aggression onto a target they consider a direct threat.
As a public business openly denying service based on presumed sexuality, he’s leaving himself open to nuisance lawsuits from people who would never think of shopping there in the first place. There are smarter ways to do this. We conservatives will have to learn as we go. Most of us never, ever thought we would have to defend our core beliefs, therefore our debating skills may not be top notch just yet. Give us time.
A brave man
Maybe, but not a very smart business man.
I don’t care if you have 3 peckers, and paint yourself fuchsia, your money’s still green, I have business to run.
Not to mention the hurricane of vandalism headed his way.
Instead quietly turning away a queer marriage, he painted a giant target on himself.
You have a right to refuse any business, but there are consequences, the black robed tyrants said they are ok, and there’s very little recourse for the business owner.
My thought exactly!
the homonazis are driving people to do this with their hostile attitude towards dissent.
“... but not a very smart business man.”
Hmmm.. don’t be so sure. Free advertising. This is in TN, not New Yawk. He’s inviting a whirlwind, but there are plenty of folks tired of the overreach of the lavendar mafia.
Yep!
I wonder if we’ll be hearing about his pleas for help (contributions) to bail him out of financial distress?
This situation is quite different from the other cases we’ve seen. In the cases of wedding florists, photographers, bakers, caterers, etc, those people are being forced to participate in the celebration of a sinful act.
This hardware store owner is not being asked to do anything of the sort. Painting a house or fixing floorboards doesn’t become sinful just because a gay or lesbian is doing it!
This guy’s stupid sign will hurt the cause of religious freedom because it will be seen as “proof” that Christians just want to discriminate against homosexuals for no good reason.
An absurd irrelevancy.
The problem is entirely the perverts'. Unless they are allowed to emphasize the fact they are gay, their existence is threatened.
They are not about their special view of "equality."
The are ALL about taking what belongs to others, even if it's only a word.
Makes for the only way the pro-sodomy crowd and their supporters can feel the are enjoying a normal worthwhile existence.
One might think that the ones who are “gay” might complain. He would find out quick enough.
Don’t refuse service just tell them how much you oppose them VERY LOUDLY in front of everyone
An odd point for one of the members of the problem to bring up...
But maybe not so odd, they tend to be arrogant, creative and, well, militantly "end justifies the means..."
Not by looking at them, but by listening to them how they talk.
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