Brainfade Posted March 12, 2014 Posted March 12, 2014 Recently, conservative Az Governor Jan Brewer vetoed a bill that would have allowed businesses to use religious beliefs as a reason to deny services to gay and lesbian customers. At the centre of this discussion was a bakery that refused to bake a cake for a gay wedding. But Gov Brewer's veto will force them to accept the order and bake the cake. Should private businesses be able to deny services to anyone based on their religious or other beliefs, or should the law prevent them from doing so? Should a bakery owned by gays be allowed to refuse to do business with a Baptist minister and asked for a cake with the inscription "Gays must rot in hell."? Should a Muslim barber be allowed to refuse to cut a lesbian's hair (already happened in Toronto, Canada)? I am torn on the issue. On the one hand, I oppose the law (and support the veto) because I know it is a slippery slope that could lead to severe civil rights violations in the name of privacy. A software company can decide it won't do business with black folks. A restaurant can decide it won't allow Muslims. And so on. On the other hand, I can see how this infringes upon people's right to choose who they will do business with. Do you all have any thoughts?
Ram Posted March 12, 2014 Posted March 12, 2014 No, the govt should not be ordering who private businesses can and cannot serve. We have something more powerful that does that perfectly well - free market. If the homophobic owners of a bakery refuse to serve gay clientele, despite the obvious risk that it is going to turn off 100s and 100s of decent minded customers who prefer that this sort of discrimination does not exist, they can absolutely go ahead. Laws dont enforce human decency. Fear of isolation and public retribution does.
zen Posted March 12, 2014 Posted March 12, 2014 At the end of the day, both the consumers and companies have the right to pick whom to do business with. All these laws are gimmicks. For many, money is everything, whether in form savings for consumers or profits for companies, so they are not going to be guided by any other beliefs. Also there is a lot of competition, so if a company refuses to serve, the consumer can easily find someone else to serve them
hhunaeh Posted March 12, 2014 Posted March 12, 2014 Govt should crackdown on people refusing available services to customers, no matter what sentiments are being hurt. Remember what happened in ireland to the pregnant indian lady.
Brainfade Posted March 12, 2014 Author Posted March 12, 2014 No, the govt should not be ordering who private businesses can and cannot serve. We have something more powerful that does that perfectly well - free market. If the homophobic owners of a bakery refuse to serve gay clientele, despite the obvious risk that it is going to turn off 100s and 100s of decent minded customers who prefer that this sort of discrimination does not exist, they can absolutely go ahead. Laws dont enforce human decency. Fear of isolation and public retribution does. Are you saying that the government should not have intervened when private restaurants refused to serve black people in the '40s and '50s?
zen Posted March 12, 2014 Posted March 12, 2014 If laws were to be based/implemented on social ethics, there is more ground to cover. For e.g. in countries such as India, it is not uncommon to see people drive away despite seeing someone hurt on the road. There is a thread on this forum where some shady characters tried to strip a girl on a busy road and most of the people did not help the girl until someone knocked down one of the guys Such attitude in the society is far more dangerous ....
Ram Posted March 12, 2014 Posted March 12, 2014 Are you saying that the government should not have intervened when private restaurants refused to serve black people in the '40s and '50s? In principle, yes. In general, I am extremely torn about the civil rights act. On one hand, I do agree that it accelerated the pace of the reintegration and emancipation of black people in America. On the other hand, I am opposed to the govt. forcefully imposing any kind of artificial regulations on private institutions. Peoples’ pockets are the ultimate enforcers of ethical behavior from private institutions.
hhunaeh Posted March 12, 2014 Posted March 12, 2014 One more thing, it will be false and misleading advertising if the place of business does not put out clearly visible disclaimers on every form of advertisement clearly mentioning who it will not do business with. Tomorrow i don't want the trouble of visiting a place of business with hopes of being provided service only to find out brown guys are not welcome. I don't want to be traumatized just because some fool practices discrimination but pretends to be a nice guy to attract other customers.
Brainfade Posted March 12, 2014 Author Posted March 12, 2014 In principle, yes. In general, I am extremely torn about the civil rights act. On one hand, I do agree that it accelerated the pace of the reintegration and emancipation of black people in America. On the other hand, I am opposed to the govt. forcefully imposing any kind of artificial regulations on private institutions. Peoples’ pockets are the ultimate enforcers of ethical behavior from private institutions. Whoa! Where is the real Sriram and who stole his ICF identity?
Brainfade Posted March 12, 2014 Author Posted March 12, 2014 One more thing' date=' it will be false and misleading advertising if the place of business does not put out clearly visible disclaimers on every form of advertisement clearly mentioning who it will not do business with. Tomorrow i don't want the trouble of visiting a place of business with hopes of being provided service only to find out brown guys are not welcome. I don't want to be traumatized just because some fool practices discrimination but pretends to be a nice guy to attract other customers.[/quote'] Like this?
Crookbond Posted March 12, 2014 Posted March 12, 2014 I can't believe some people support discriminatory practices in the name of "free market" principles. There is no guarantee that a free market would cater to people who are discriminated against. I see no reason why anyone should allow any kind of discrimination.
Brainfade Posted March 12, 2014 Author Posted March 12, 2014 Dexter, in that case, should a bakery owned by gays have to bake a cake for a Baptist ministry that says "Gays must rot in hell?"
Brainfade Posted March 12, 2014 Author Posted March 12, 2014 Yes I like the consistency! Under what circumstances can someone refuse to do business or enter into a contract with someone else? By your standards, would marriages within caste be illegal? After all, if I insisted on marrying a Kshatriya, am I not discriminating against all other castes? Or does your rule apply only to economic transactions, and not civil/social ones?
hhunaeh Posted March 12, 2014 Posted March 12, 2014 Like this? If you make up some willy nilly reason, then there is nothing i can do about it and you don't need a law to do that don't you,? That's what the "anyone" part is for i suppose. But if you are using a discriminatory law, race, religion, country of origin as an excuse then you better mention it before hand and not mislead people by false advertising. Something very specific explaining what discrimination will be done should be mentioned everywhere. And it should be present in all advertisements, boards etc. Like if you print the name of your establishment anywhere, then you mention whom you will not cater to in the next line in large print.
Crookbond Posted March 12, 2014 Posted March 12, 2014 I like the consistency! Under what circumstances can someone refuse to do business or enter into a contract with someone else? By your standards, would marriages within caste be illegal? After all, if I insisted on marrying a Kshatriya, am I not discriminating against all other castes? Or does your rule apply only to economic transactions, and not civil/social ones? It has to be a case-to-case scenario with the use of common sense. You can decide to marry whom you want but if you are providing a business to everyone but X where X = LGBT, Kshatriyas etc. in that case it is discrimination. We don't need a 320-page legalese document to tell us what is discrimination and what is not. Of course, there will be situations where there are grey areas but like in all aspects of life - normal distribution follows.
hhunaeh Posted March 12, 2014 Posted March 12, 2014 Think about you drive your partner to a hospital or clinic for an emergency and they refuse to help you because of sexual orientation, race religion or country of origin and they use a law as a shield. If they make up some reason like we have no beds, the doctors are busy, then there is nothing you can do, but if they are crackpots using some mumbo jumbo law to back their actions then they better let everyone know before hand what patients they will treat and what they will not.
maniac Posted March 12, 2014 Posted March 12, 2014 Sad that in the year 2014,these things are still up for debate
Brainfade Posted March 12, 2014 Author Posted March 12, 2014 Sad that in the year 2014' date='these things are still up for debate[/quote'] In what way is it sad?
Ram Posted March 12, 2014 Posted March 12, 2014 Whoa! Where is the real Sriram and who stole his ICF identity? Of course, there are limits to everything. An hospital cannot say they wont take in black or brown patients. But if a private restaurant says it is simply too expensive for them to build a wheelchair ramp or a disabled friendly restrooms in their establishments, that should be ok.
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