Quote:You are evading the point. I, too, support free association and choice. But if you have a business open to the public then it's open to the public. I'm not trying to shame you. Are you not arguing that you should be able to deny service to Jews, blacks, left-handed people? How is that sarcastic?

 

I think you don't feel comfortable arguing for discrimination - but that's what it is. And no smoke screen of "free association and choice" will cover that. You want that join the Elks or whatever.

 

People discriminate every day.  You do it with the food you eat (why did you go to McDonalds instead of Burger King?  That reason is discriminatory).  You do it with the friends you have and the people you won't be friends with for certain reasons (you think that guy is an idiot because he believes a certain thing, which is discriminatory).  You do it with what roads to take to get to work (avoiding certain roads because of higher traffic is discrimination against the higher trafficked roads).  You do it when you buy a car (choosing one over another for any reason is discrimination against the one you didn't choose).  Discrimination happens every day of your life and you make discriminatory decisions every single day of your life.

 

I am of the mind that a business that is not a tax funded business should be able to do business how they think they should do business.  However, the door swings both ways.  If I own a restaurant and I don't want to cater to your gay wedding because I don't believe in gay marriage, you have the right to go to a competitor of mine and obtain their services instead.  You also have the right to spread through word of mouth that I refused service to you because of your sexual orientation.  I, as the business owner, am making a decision in the interest of my business to not do business with a certain type of person.  This is the true definition of a free society.  A free society has their born right to make their own choices, not to have their choices forced on them by a "higher power".  

 

In my opinion, the civil rights movement and subsequent laws should apply to government funded, tax funded, and tax subsidized businesses and government offices.  Those laws should not apply to privately owned businesses with no government or subsidized support.

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