Do Businesses Have the Right to Refuse Service Based on Moral/Religious Objections?

rainintothesea · 03-17-2011, 04:29 PM

I'm not trying to stir the pot, here, I'm genuinely curious about something. Flowers are one thing, perhaps, no one's going to bleed out if they don't get their flowers (at least I hope not, wow). But do the folks who side with the business owner in this case also agree with the pharmacist who refused to fill the prescription to stop the woman's uncontrolled uterine bleeding due to her moral objections (she would only fill the script if she knew it hadn't been the result of an abortion)? Where does one draw the line?

On the one hand, if someone has a huge moral objection to doing business with me, that's something I'd like to know so that I can take my business elsewhere. There's the whole, "If we don't have free speech, how else will we know who the assholes are?" sort of argument, there. But I think we might be treading in some dangerous territory, too, if we say it's okay to discriminate for whatever reason you like... what kind of discrimination is okay, then, and who sets those boundaries? And, hey, in turn, quis custodiet ipsos custodes? I'm not so sure I'm comfortable with other people making those decisions for me... and I think that when one decides to run a business, one is agreeing that while it might be okay to refuse service to an individual who is being an unreasonable jerkface (that's how I have always read those signs, myself), it's understood that it's NOT okay to refuse service to POC or other generally-agreed-upon protected classes of characteristics that include whole swaths of society.

View Poll Results: Do Business Owners Have the Right to Refuse Service Due to Moral/Religious Objections?
No	15	25.00%
Yes	38	63.33%
Unsure/Maybe/Other	7	11.67%
Voters: 60. You may not vote on this poll

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03-17-2011, 04:29 PM	#18
rainintothesea Member How Do You Identify?: - Preferred Pronoun?: - Relationship Status: - Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: - Posts: 533 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 1,135 Thanked 801 Times in 314 Posts Rep Power: 4143699	I'm not trying to stir the pot, here, I'm genuinely curious about something. Flowers are one thing, perhaps, no one's going to bleed out if they don't get their flowers (at least I hope not, wow). But do the folks who side with the business owner in this case also agree with the pharmacist who refused to fill the prescription to stop the woman's uncontrolled uterine bleeding due to her moral objections (she would only fill the script if she knew it hadn't been the result of an abortion)? Where does one draw the line? On the one hand, if someone has a huge moral objection to doing business with me, that's something I'd like to know so that I can take my business elsewhere. There's the whole, "If we don't have free speech, how else will we know who the assholes are?" sort of argument, there. But I think we might be treading in some dangerous territory, too, if we say it's okay to discriminate for whatever reason you like... what kind of discrimination is okay, then, and who sets those boundaries? And, hey, in turn, quis custodiet ipsos custodes? I'm not so sure I'm comfortable with other people making those decisions for me... and I think that when one decides to run a business, one is agreeing that while it might be okay to refuse service to an individual who is being an unreasonable jerkface (that's how I have always read those signs, myself), it's understood that it's NOT okay to refuse service to POC or other generally-agreed-upon protected classes of characteristics that include whole swaths of society.