The right to refuse service

Growing up in Texas during the 60's and 70's, back when America was largely free, I remembered seeing signs in businesses that read: "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason."

But the government says you can't do that anymore.

This is the same government that does everything possible to impede the birth, development  and growth of an independent business. Ask anyone who has started up a small brick and mortar business in the past ten to twenty years how much "help" the government gave them versus the myriad of paperwork, "Mother may I," rules, regulations, ordinances, permits, hearings, unanswered phone calls/e-mails/inquiries and other such nebulous nuances of bureaucracy they had to endure.

Then, once open, comes the monthly filing of state sales taxes, quarterly filing of federal taxes, surprise inspections, visits and audits by any one of six-dozen different alphabet-soup government, state, county and municipal agencies (all of whom can close you down at the drop of a hat for any infraction, implied real or otherwise).

If you have employees other than your wife, children, cousins and family dog, you have the EEOC to deal with, Social Security Administration, Health & Human Services (gotta pay that Medicare/Medicaid tax)--not to mention state workman's compensation personnel and if you aren't in a right-to-work state, you might have the union showing up to discuss becoming a signatory.

And so if you've been able to endure all of that and still open your doors, wouldn't you think you would have the right to serve whoever you damn well please and refuse service to those you don't want in your business?

In the U.S., you could do that. In today's U.S.S.A. you cannot.

At issue is a Christian-owned bakery whose owners disagreed with the idea of a gay wedding ceremony and politely declined to bake a wedding cake for the couple. The couple sued. Similarly in another part of the country, a gay couple wanted to get married and asked a photographer to document their wedding. Again, the photographer declined on religious grounds. The gay couple sued.

Discrimination is the rallying cry of the professional victim.

Whatever happened to choice?

Liberals are vocal and screeching about choice when it involves killing unborn babies, but not so vocal when it comes the choice of deciding who a privately owned business will or will not choose to do business with.

For the record, I could pretty much care less what consenting adults do behind closed doors. I have no problem with gay couples adopting children. God knows Himself that heterosexual couples have created more dysfunctional and screwed up kids than homosexual couples have. I support anyone being able to name anyone else to their life insurance or health insurance policies, etc etc. What I do not support is in-your-face militants.

I'm pretty sure there were a number of different bakeries in the town where the gay couple was refused service by the bakery in question. Likewise, it's a safe bet there was more than one wedding photographer available for the gay couple who wanted their wedding photographed.

But rather than exercising their choice to choose another service provider, they chose to sue--and in doing so they upset the apple cart and further divided the gulf between heterosexuals and homosexuals, much like Obama and Holder have widened the gulf between the races.

In doing so, some pretty stunning ignorance has come to the limelight.

For one, I thought the gay community was pretty organized and had their own shopping and service-provider networks. That would mean they had their own cake-makers and picture-takers who, ostensibly, should have no problem baking a cake and taking pictures of the happy couple. So why wouldn't a gay couple go there first? I mean, all the time and money and energy spent creating a "support your own" kind of network would dictate using it, right?

But where the real question is emerging is in the Land Of Opportunity, wouldn't there be someone who would jump at the chance to fill a void? If there are all these gay couples wanting to get married but they're having to sue to get their cakes made and their pictures taken, wouldn't that mean that there is a dire shortage of bakers and picture-takers?

Shouldn't there be an army of entrepreneurs storming City Hall for permits to open bakeries and photography studios?

Why haven't we seen that happening? I think we all know why.

Bottom line is that when an American entrepreneur puts their money, their sweat, their backbone and their future on the line to open a business, the government has no damn business telling them that they have to leave their  morals, ethics and values at the curb. The business world is brutally Darwinistic and if a business gets the reputation of doing bad work or wantonly discriminating against everyone except for ice-cream white blue-eyed males of the human species, they simply are not going to prosper, and probably not going to stay open all that long.

And so what if they do? It's your money. Spend it where and with who you want.

Or. . . perhaps we need a law that dictates where you must do business. . . just to keep things fair. I think the following cartoon says it all.

I'll be waiting on the lawsuit to make the news.