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

[EnderD_503]

Originally Posted by Toughy

The problem with having protected classes is every time a new group gets added to the protected classes, a huge ass long nasty hateful debate occurs prior to adding them. Lines are drawn and folks are shoved in various boxes. The government finally adds them or doesn't add them and the nasty crap continues for at least 50 years.

It's not safe in parts of many states for a POC to be walking around....same goes for queers, muslims, jews, and _____ . It's been close to 60 years since the Civil Rights Act was passed. In many places the effect of that has been violence moving underground and folks still not safe.

In hind sight, one could argue that the Civil Rights Act has in some ways made it worse for the black community. Once integration passed and white businesses were forced to allow blacks in their businesses, thousands of black businesses went bankrupt. A booming black middle class came to a screeching halt as black business owners lost customers by the hundreds and had to close go bankrupt.

It's a hella big conundrum. What would have happened if instead of forced integration and decimation of black businesses, the government had allowed whites only business to continue, and had taken away every single tax deduction those white business were allowed? What if it had hurt the bottom line for those business?

These are just some thoughts that run through my head.

I had some thoughts to this post that I'm gonna throw out here. Adorable wrote on the decline of the KKK over the years, and that kind of started my train of thought here. It also makes me wonder if the strong presence of racism in some states is moreso because of the fact that the government hasn’t taken stronger measures to suppress it entirely. I know that Nazi Germany is a more extreme case, however, given where the States sits with racism/minority rights compared with modern Germany and other European nations that suffered dictatorships, I wonder why the US seems to be one of the only ones that has not remedied the effects of its past.

I decided not to use Canada as an example on this one because, even though we possess many similar laws and policies as Western Europe (primarily laws referred to in this thread: not permitting business owners to refuse service), we do not have a history of extreme xenophobia to the extent of the US, Nazi Germany or Spain under Franco. That isn’t to say we haven’t had our share in the past, because we have, however, I’m not sure that it’s comparable to the US.

When Nazi Germany fell, Germany took measures (and continues to take measures) to assure that it would never be easy for a group like the Nazis to come into power again. Today these measures continue: the swastika is still banned, Neo-Nazi organisations and media are illegal (and this is taken very seriously, despite that some groups still exist) and, perhaps most importantly, the German government has hate speech laws in place that make it illegal for anyone to publicly insult, defame or generally incite hatred toward any minority group. It is also illegal to refuse service on the basis of race/ethnicity.

But the US government hasn’t really taken such drastic measures. Freedom of speech laws continue to protect bigots who would, given the chance, eradicate any group that does not conform to their world view. I do not understand the need to allow free speech for people who specifically incite hatred for other groups. That kind of "freedom" does not benefit society in any way whatsoever, and instead threatens social progress. In fact, I think this is a huge reason why the US is so behind when it comes to minority/human rights compared with other Western nations, and why European neo-nazi groups are able to expand online through American domains/"free speech" laws. I understand the need to protect speech, however, that speech should only extend as far as there is no desire to eradicate or discriminate against groups based on inherent, unchangeable traits (the person themselves vs. actions committed).

Same goes with making it illegal to allow business owners to refuse service to protected classes, including LGBT. And I do wonder whether the strong racism/homophobia etc. in certain areas of the US are not due to the US government’s negligence on actually cracking down on all avenues of racism (or all forms of bigotry for that matter), rather than the Civil Rights Act (I think progress would have been even slower without it) as you suggest.