Posted on 01/25/2012 8:33:24 AM PST by massmike
New Hampshire business owners could soon have the legal right to decide who they serve.
Lawmakers are debating a bill that would let a business refuse service to any couple, for any reason.
As a business owner, Tim Kierstead believes in the right to run his restaurant the way he sees fit.
“I think each business has the right to do as they choose,” he told WBZ-TV.
But as a gay man, he has a real problem with the new bill being proposed.
It would allow businesses to refuse service to a couple if they didn’t agree with their marriage.
The bill never specifically mentions gay marriage and opponents say it could be used to allow businesses to discriminate against anyone whose marriage they didn’t agree with.
The bill’s co-sponsor Rep. Frank Sapareto, a Republican from Derry, said this is not a gay rights issue, but a religious freedom case.
“We’re certainly taking people’s freedoms away as we make more and more laws that force them to provide occupation or services that violate their beliefs,” Sapareto told WBZ.
And he told me, that could include refusing service to any group.
“I, as a business man, have a right to do business with who I want to.”
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.cbslocal.com ...
homosexual agenda ping
And what would be so wrong with that?
I’m sure the usual trolls will be along soon to tell us.....
They better tighten up the language in that bill.
“Right to refuse any couple for any reason”? Seems like a setup for them to arrange for a black couple to be refused service. The whole thing would become a PR circus before being killed off in Federal court.
That’s what I’m thinking.
Although no sane person is going to refuse a paying customer based on skin color, all it will take is one nut, and all hell will break out.
Wouldn’t this be preempted by Federal civil rights laws?
...Or all it will take is one nut to ACCUSE someone of refusing to serve them based on skin color...
Slippery slope indeed. Like the poster below said, what if a black (normal) couple is refused? This sounds like bad law when it says “for any reason”.
This whole article is pointless.
This bill will never see the light of day. Just about anything can be “debated”. Dennis Kucinich was trying to pass a bill to outlaw CIA Mind Control Beams in the US Congress. But just because a bill can be introduced and debated does not mean it can ever be passed.
Wow, imagine a country that has so much freedom that a person has the right to make his own decisions in his own business.
Nah...
Beginning in the sixties, the left ridiculed and belittled the concept of marriage, never missing an opportunity to tell us how silly and pointless it was. Now, suddenly, it’s a fundamental right? The truth is, marriage and the idea of family threatens the left, hence their fierce effort to destroy it.
I really don’t see how a law that says freedom of association is OK can be a bad thing.
I don’t really see how it is any more moral to force people to associate than to force them not to associate. The excuse for violating freedom of association doesn’t really matter to me.
Now having a government discriminate, I have an issue with. That violates equal treatment. However private individuals should be able to be as obnoxious as they like. They can deal with the consequences of losing business or being shunned.
Further, as described, it gives license to discrimination against so-called interracial marriages.
It's time for folks to get over themselves. Don't want to treat every customer that comes to you equally? Don't get into business serving the public. It's that simple.
Either you believe in individual rights or you don't. If an individual can be compelled by the state to admit anyone the state chooses to his business, then individual rights do not exist -- only the collective rights of groups.
To use your example, what IF a black (normal) couple were refused? So what? Let them go somewhere else. Let the business owner suffer the economic consequences of his bigotry (a substantial reduction in his potential market, the resulting public relations embarrassment, etc.). But do not give the government the right to force business owners to accommodate every group IT chooses ...
Once again, the free marketplace is the solution, NOT government.
“Waste of time. Easily unconstitutional under the Boy Scouts of America SCOTUS decision on public accommodation and other precedents.
Further, as described, it gives license to discrimination against so-called interracial marriages.”
Agreed, although I haven’t read the entire bill, it seems way too general saying the biz can refuse service for “any reason.” Not well thought out.
What it SHOULD say, is that a biz owner can refuse service for a “sincerely held religious belief”, just as in all 50 states, you can refuse a vaccine for this same reason. It should not be, “I don’t like the way you look, so I refuse to serve you”. It has to be for an act that the customer engages in, ie, bringing a cheeseburger into a kosher catering house, etc, that violates a tenet of the biz owner’s religion, or it will never pass constitutional muster.
Business owners have been the victims of religious bigotry, so the bill should be drafted as such.
And just because a business owner “serves the public” does not mean he should be compelled to serve a customer, where that service would violate his own religious beliefs. That my friend is called the first amendment.
The state rep has the right idea, that is is not a homosexual issue, but a religious freedom case. So if it is a religious freedom case, he should state that in the bill.
(montag’s wife)
UPDATE:
House Bill 1264 had a hearing yesterday before the House Judiciary Committee, but Sapareto isn’t expecting it to come out of committee and to a House vote for a couple of weeks.
The bill, House Bill 1264, would put an exemption in state marriage law. The proposed text says “no person, including a business owner or employee, should be required to provide services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods or privileges for wedding services in “violation of the person’s conscience or religious faith.”
text: 1 New Section; Freedom of Religion and Conscience in Marriage. Amend RSA 457 by inserting after section 37 the following new section:
457:37-a Freedom of Religion and Conscience in Marriage. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no person, including a business owner or employee thereof, shall be required to provide services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods, or privileges to an individual if the request is related to the solemnization, celebration, or promotion of a marriage and providing such services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods, or privileges would be a violation of the person’s conscience or religious faith. A person’s refusal to provide services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods, or privileges in accordance with this section shall not create any civil claim or cause of action or result in any state action to penalize or withhold benefits from such person.
The bill also would protect against lawsuits arising from refusal to provide those services.
Sounds like they covered all the bases to protect religious business owners, but you would never know it if you listened to the empty skirt ditz reporter from CBS Boston, as she pointed to a pile of sheets and flat out LIED, as she said that “business owners could refuse service for any reason”. She “is either very sloppy in reporting or purposefully misleading viewers. What a shock. (mongag’s wife)
http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2012/HB1264.html
Say what???
Freepmail wagglebee to subscribe or unsubscribe from the homosexual agenda ping list.
Be sure to click the FreeRepublic homosexual agenda keyword search link for a list of all related articles. We don't ping you to all related articles so be sure to click the previous link to see the latest articles.
Add keywords homosexual agenda to flag FR articles to this ping list.
Excellent. I hope it passes by a huge margin. People should have the right to not offer their services to mentally ill sex perverts.
Exactly. Barring government (which is not private, and really shouldn’t be in the business of doing much, anyway), all businesses, services, etc. should be able to employ, house, serve, sell to, etc. anyone they CHOOSE to, and deny anyone they choose NOT to. I’m tired of this government meddling.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.