Posted on 12/26/2012 5:30:12 PM PST by Pinkbell
An Annapolis company whose old-fashioned trolleys are iconic in the city's wedding scene has abandoned the nuptial industry rather than serve same-sex couples.
The owner of Discover Annapolis Tours said he decided to walk away from $50,000 in annual revenue instead of compromising his Christian convictions when same-sex marriages become legal in Maryland in less than a week. And he has urged prospective clients to lobby state lawmakers for a religious exemption for wedding vendors.
While most wedding businesses across the country embraced the chance to serve same-sex couples, a small minority has struggled to balance religious beliefs against business interests.
Wedding vendors elsewhere who refused to accommodate same-sex couples have faced discrimination lawsuits — and lost. Legal experts said Discover Annapolis Tours sidesteps legal trouble by avoiding all weddings.
"If they're providing services to the public, they can't discriminate who they provide their services to," said Glendora Hughes, general counsel for the Maryland Commission on Civil Rights. The commission enforces public accommodation laws that prohibit businesses from discriminating on the basis of race, sexual orientation and other characteristics.
The trolley company's decision, publicized by a straight groom offended by what he called "repressive bigotry," offers a snapshot of a local business navigating a new landscape in Maryland's wedding industry, and leaving it behind for a competitor to swoop in.
The head of the Maryland Wedding Professionals Association said the trolley company is the second vendor to refuse business over the state's same-sex marriage law, which voters upheld in November. The Maryland clergyman who led opposition to same-sex marriage called the trolley company's choice to abandon profits on principle "gutsy" and predicted that more businesses would quietly follow suit.
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
I thank him for standing on his principles. Right is right. He should not be forced to do business with those who are abominable to his religious belief.
“Chick-fil-a should stop selling chicken because they might sell to homos?”
If a business is privately owned and a majority of owners all agree, then the business is their’s to operate or liquidate as they see fit.
‘Homosexual activism is not at all about “equal rights” but oppression.’
It’s oppresion done in the name of so-called “equality” a.k.a. communism. The homosexualist movement wants everyone else to be as equally miserable as they are.
What you said.
The whole idea that no-one (business) can “discriminate” is absurd.
Insurance discriminates - single young males pay more than elder married males, etc. No-one has yet proposed a law.
Some small businesses can discriminate against a guy who doesn’t wear a shirt. No laws to keep that from happening?
Yet we can’t behave in business as we would in “real life” where we’re supposed to have freedom of association. If we don’t want to serve certain people, so be it. Tough luck. And it’s easier to see what the values of those people are, too, as a customer.
We lost this battle when the federal government decided, and the courts agreed, that it was government’s power to force white people to provide services to black people.
So many conservatives, rightly repulsed by the notion that a person should be treated differently because of the color of their skin, confused that notion of what was right, with the idea that we needed to force people to be better.
Don’t get me wrong, you can’t go back. We wouldn’t really need those laws anymore, because a vast majority of businesses would not discriminate, and those that would, well people would learn where not to shop (white people know where they can’t travel or walk, and we don’t generally sue over it).
But we never should have legislated tolerance.
That’s one way of going Galt. As far as Christianity being outlawed......it’s coming....it’s coming. The day of testing is drawing near.
I'm thinking that this bureaucrat is wrong, despite the court rulings.
For example, if a wedding shop opened that positioned itself as "The Amish Wedding Place", would it be illegal for them to carve out a market niche?
Likewise, if advertised as "The Traditional Christian Wedding Place", then I see any lower court getting over-turned for the same reason ObamaCare just got told there must be an accommodation for religious concerns.
I agree that a business should not have to accommodate the abomination called same-sex marriage, but Chick-fil-a's not going to have a litmus test to buy a sandwich. Then again, if they wanted to, that is their prerogative.
Discrimination in Public Accommodations
Snip:
Federal law prohibits public accommodations from discriminating on the basis of race, color, religion, or national origin.
----------------------------------------------------
Maybe take the state law to federal court.
Pay attention people. When it comes down to a choice of paying for abortion in order to stay in business then the choice should be to go out of business.
If at any point they chose to pay for abortion services then they are hypocrites. You can’t claim that it violates your religious views and then chose to cave in order to stay in business.
This is another big one. Hobby lobby should hold a press conference, and announce the immediate shutting of the company and the termination of employment of all of its employees.
If enough companies did this then it might make a difference.
You are exactly right. A business relationship is generally simply an economic one and both parties choose to put almost all differences they may have with each other aside in order to mutually benefit. However, some types of business requires a level of personal involvement and different people are willing to allow only a certain level of that before some differences can become material.
For example, if I owned an electric utility, how could it be any of my concern what people did with the power they were using? But since I know what God thinks of two people of the same sex attempting to “marry” (which for them is physiologically impossible) I cannot in any way allow my creative talents to be hired to help them conduct that ceremony.
I see your point.
Most of the comments at the source are disgusting and hateful beyond words.
I know. I could only read a few before I was too disgusted to continue.
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