Arizona Senate Passes Religious Discrimination Bill

[Drolefille]

In practical application, how would this have jived with existing discrimination laws?

I'm quite okay with the fact that bill was vetoed. But, I'm still trying to wrap my brain around how people would have gotten away with "no homosexual" signs in windows and blatant discrimination, given current discrimination law. That perplexes me. Perhaps someone with greater insight as to how law works can explain things to me.

There is no federal anti-discrimination law for sexual orientation. Thus far, the courts do not consider sexual orientation discrimination to be an off-shoot of gender discrimination (which could be argued in a way.) So it is a state by state issue whether non-hetero people are a "protected class" or not.

There's nothing illegal about a "No gays" sign in many states. Now if that person is sued, they could possibly be found liable depending on the state laws, but most discrimination isn't that blatant anymore either.

Business owners are generally required to provide service to the public (I'm being concise here, there are details and complications and whatever.) They can choose to refuse service to an individual but they CANNOT legally refuse service because someone is of a protected class (gender, race, religion...). That's considered discrimination. Likely the AZ law would have been overturned in court if it permitted people to discriminate against protected classes. I don't know if it did or not. So basically gay people are fair game in AZ, but they could get sued, there's just not a law prohibiting the discrimination AFAIK.

And you know what, there are plenty of people who discriminate, but are good enough not to get caught. I had a situation where I had someone dumb enough to explicitly state WHY he wouldn't complete a business transaction with me. Because he did that, I had a case against him.

To me, you should do your job. If you make cakes, you're being paid to make a cake, not endorse a ceremony. And if the complaint only occurs with gay people and not with bisexual people, 2nd marriages, and all the other stuff you find sinful, then hiding behind "belief" is only excusing bigotry. If you rent rooms, you don't get to refuse to rent to a gay couple because you don't condone them sleeping together. If you're a pharmacist/tech you don't get to refuse to provide Plan B because you disagree with it. If you're a nurse you don't get to refuse to assist with a blood transfusion because you disagree with it (for non medical reasons.)

People are scared because the world is changing... but it always has and will change. IF you cannot follow the business law then you cannot operate the business. That's my opinion.

 

[tytlyf]

Sorry for using fox as a link. Bernie Goldberg gets cut off in the middle of the interview for stating the truth about this anti-gay bill to the host. She's curious as to why this bill is a bad thing.

[youtube]33n2StTDCKA[/youtube]

 

[Dirty Penguin]

Sorry for using fox as a link. Bernie Goldberg gets cut off in the middle of the interview for stating the truth about this anti-gay bill to the host. She's curious as to why this bill is a bad thing.

[youtube]33n2StTDCKA[/youtube]

He made a good point. And let's face it...if she came into a Muslim establishment and the owner said she needed to be with a man and cited his religious beliefs..she wouldn't have simply gone to another shop. She would have put up a fuss and then got on a bully pulpit to state her objections. We would hear it all over social media and yelp etc.