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

[EnderD_503]

Originally Posted by DomnNC

[B][COLOR="Black"]See Ender and HowSoon that's the crux of the problem, ya'll are coming at people in the US with your laws in Canada which WE do not have in the states for the most part.

This is exactly what my last post was addressing.

From my last post:

Correct me if I’m wrong, but your concern seems to be something like: What do I do if I live in a place that has no LGBT anti-discrimination laws? I want to have the right to deny my services to people looking to fire employees specifically for being LGBT/ to people who can legally exploit or discriminate against LGBT folks.

I then I underwent responding to that concern. For example, responding directly to the above concern I wrote:

My response would be that you shouldn’t worry about any kind of contradiction between your wish to deny your private business's services to people actively discriminating against LGBT folks and your wish not to be denied services from other private businesses on the basis of being LGBT. When it comes down to it no such contradictions exist because if the proper laws protecting LGBT folks from discrimination were in place then they would have no right to fire a gay man solely because he is gay to begin with, and so they wouldn’t be asking you to write this programmed to begin with. They would not be able to legally fire a gay man for being gay any more than they would have the right to fire a black man solely for being black.

The issue then comes down to: lobbying for LGBT anti-discrimination laws, which would effectively solve your problem.

The issue does not comes down to: demanding that private businesses have the right to refuse their services on the basis of their religious/moral inclinations. Demanding that this right exists only legally perpetuates discrimination.

Basically what I'm saying here is, if you live in a place with no anti-discrimination laws for LGBT people (or *insert discriminated against minority group here*) then there is no reason why you shouldn't deny someone service based on actions that would otherwise be illegal if there were anti-discrimination laws for LGBT folks. I'm saying that in that case you should act as though you do live in a country that counts LGBT folks as having the same legal protection as other minority groups, because in such a country you would not be forced to provide service for a client who was actively trying to use your services to discriminate against a protected portion of the population. And meanwhile actively fight to a) gain that protection for LGBT employees/LGBT rights in general and b) gain protection for LGBT consumers who might be denied service simply on the premise of being LGBT.

My argument is also: that you do yourself (or the LGBT community or any other marginalised community) no favours by supporting laws that allow private business owners to refuse service based on their own religious morals/beliefs. I would also argue that supporting those laws would actually be indirectly supporting a government that has yet to adequately address LGBT rights. Because having the right not be evicted/fired just because you're gay goes hand in hand with having the right to not be denied services just because you're gay.

Your examples were to try to show us why you said that businesses should be allowed to refuse anyone service for personal reasons. But those kinds of laws are just as harmful as laws that allow workplace or housing discrimination.