Posted on 03/29/2007 1:36:10 PM PDT by Jet Jaguar
(Sumter) - A gay couple looking to rent a hotel room say they were turned away because of their sexuality.
"She wasn't discreet about it," said Jason Pickel, referring to a hotel employee. "She was not apologetic. She just said, 'We do not rent to gay people.'"
For the past two and a half years, Pickel and Darren Black Bear have been in a committed relationship. During a search for a temporary home, the couple says it went to Affordable Suites of America, a long-term stay hotel located on Gion Street in Sumter.
"We were inquiring about the price, deposits, extra person fee, and she asked who the room was going to be for, and I said for my partner and I, Pickel said. She said, 'Oh we don't rent to multiple people of the same sex.' I said, so you don't rent to gay couples? She said, 'No, we don't rent to gay people at all.'"
The website for Affordable Suites of America states the company does not allow children or pets in its suites, but there is no mention of same sex couples.
News19 contacted the hotel, posing as a potential renter, and inquired about two men staying in the same room. The receptionist who answered the phone told us the following: Our policy is we dont rent to two people of the same sex if we only have one bed. Is that your policy, we asked. Thats corporate policy because they only have one sleeping area. We then asked, Okay, but they can't share the bed? "I suppose they could, but most men dont want to," she said.
However, when News19 called the owner of the hotel, Carroll Atkisson, he says there had been some confusion. He says any couple can come to the place and they will rent to them, period. Atkisson says the policy was not mean to target homosexuals. He says they were just trying to stop two single people from being in the same bed.
Pickel and Black Bear say they still plan to seek legal action. "Everyone is floored, shocked and outraged," said Pickel. "We have contacted some of our friends who are activists."
Currently, there is no state law preventing a hotel from refusing service to a same-sex couple. However, it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color, national origin, gender, disability, or marital status.
"If they have a policy, it has to be maintained fair and equitably," says Tom Sponseller, President of the Hospitality Association of South Carolina. "At the beach, for example, because there are different bike weekends at the beach, that policy has to be enforced, and consistent."
There is currently a bill in the State Senate that addresses this issue. The measure, proposed by Charleston Democrat Robert Ford, would expand the Lodging Establishment Act to include prohibition of discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity.
Aha!
A pickle used on a black bear!
Sounds like bestiality to me.
You have to be a frustrated attorney.
Maybe they don't want to have to wash the biohazard scene and sheets after these pirates get done with bidness.
Race, color, gender, and disability are off limits (as indicators themselves, not in any correlative or derived senses...). National origin too (but not citizenship). This is the domain of civil rights.
Discrimination based upon ANY action should be fair game. That would include creed...
The problem with your proposal here is that much of the impetus for civil rights law--indeed a basis for the settling and founding of America itself, was freedom of religion. Longtime endemic persecution of Jews (banning ownership by Jews is in many, many deeds, for property titles over 60 years old), or banning Roman Catholic Irish, or Mormons, etc--all of this was a part of pre-civil-rights-law America.
I think it is a very good thing that secular businesses are not allowed to discriminate against religion. Allow "Discrimination based upon ANY action" including "creed", and a lot of evangelical Christians would get fired, as the anti-religious discrimination laws are the only ones that protect them now (if imperfectly) from the homosexual/and liberal atheistic lobby.
We definitely need to keep legal protections prohibiting discrimination based on creed, even though, the increasing number of members of a violent ideology/theocracy/quasi-religion (called ROP here in FReeperland) does make that a challenge. Keeping the current federal civil-rights standards will work--if we can, as conservatives hold back the forces wanting to add (who've already done so on local and state levels) "sexual orientation" to the list. Adding that, functionally nullifies freedom of religion.
If you believe strongly enough in "freedom of association" than logically there should be no discrimination laws at all, be it about non-behavioral or behavioral characteristics.
Unfortunately any state or local laws against sodomy have already been rendered unenforceable by the US Supreme Court decision Lawrence vs. Texas(2001 ?). The NC and SC laws just haven't been enforced (as sodomy laws historically rarely have)...If authorities tried, they would immediately have a federal lawsuit filed by the ACLU--which a Federal court would probably not even hear (rendering summary judgement)--as the laws are currently effectively null and void.
Owner in another article stated, quote, "I ain't cleanin' no fudge of mah sheets".
If their religion prevents them from touching pork, working on Saturday or Sunday, refusing to serve or transport booze, not giving lap dances, dispense condoms, etc etc etc etc etc, then the employer offering a position for which such activities are required should be able to not hire them, or outright terminate them when the refusal to perform the necessary job function becomes evident (ie if initially withheld to obtain the position). Creed should not be used a civil rights shield in such regards. Freedom of religion, not freedom from religion (a distinction carrying weight in both directions - the right of person A to practice their religion does not, or at least should not, impose upon person B the requirement to accommodate it). Sorry that this was not clear above.
Beat me to it.
"For the past two and a half years, Pickel and Darren Black Bear have been in a committed relationship"
I'm guessing that when Black Bear is in a Pickel, he becomes Brown Bear. Ick.....
Hotels in South Carolina got into trouble for treating guests during the Black Bike Week a lot worse than those during the "White" Bike Week. Much higher deposits, requiring people to wear wristbands to get into the hotels, etc. that strangely weren't required the other time.
I think they're going out of their way to say that while they reserve the right to not rent to gay people, they don't approve of that kind of discrimination.
I imagine they were trying to make a point. And why be subtle? They have gay pride. Like the flying Imams, they would probably like to push the envelop.
Guess they'll have to play "hide the Pickel" somewhere else.
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I think they wouldn't rent to them because they claim to be a couple, when they're not - they're homos.
Isn't that other wise known as a "cult"? lol
later pingout.
To you honeymooners: next time why not just check in at the Pork & Pooder Inn, you will be more than welcome!
"Pickel and Black Bear"... you can't make this stuff up.
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