Houston landscapers refuse gay couple’s job

[estesbob]

Personally I would say, yes you do. I think the equal opportunity laws would say other wise, however.

you cannot deny service to anyone because of their race, creed, gender, country of national origin or disability. You most certainly can deny service to somebody because of their behavior -sexual or otherwise.

 

[WenckebachCath]

you cannot deny service to anyone because of their race, creed, gender, country of national origin or disability. You most certainly can deny service to somebody because of their behavior -sexual or otherwise.

OK, so let’s say I have a housecleaning service. Would I be obligated to go into the home of anyone who called? Let’s say I was a Jew, and I felt a big discomfort dealing with a Muslim. Would the law force me to go to clean their home? Wouldn’t working in their garden be equivalent to that? Does the law really force people to go into the home of anyone who calls?

I can understand if you open up shop somewhere, open to the public at large. But, it seems that providing service in someone’s home would be in a different catagory.

 

[estesbob]

OK, so let’s say I have a housecleaning service. Would I be obligated to go into the home of anyone who called? Let’s say I was a Jew, and I felt a big discomfort dealing with a Muslim. Would the law force me to go to clean their home? Wouldn’t working in their garden be equivalent to that? Does the law really force people to go into the home of anyone who calls?

I can understand if you open up shop somewhere, open to the public at large. But, it seems that providing service in someone’s home would be in a different catagory.

To be honest I don’t know how the anti-discrimination laws would be applied to that.

 

[Karin]

OK, so let’s say I have a housecleaning service. Would I be obligated to go into the home of anyone who called? Let’s say I was a Jew, and I felt a big discomfort dealing with a Muslim. Would the law force me to go to clean their home? Wouldn’t working in their garden be equivalent to that? Does the law really force people to go into the home of anyone who calls?

I can understand if you open up shop somewhere, open to the public at large. But, it seems that providing service in someone’s home would be in a different catagory.

the same law applies but, as I know from personal experience, it is harder to enforcein this case as you ahve outlined

 

[WenckebachCath]

the same law applies but, as I know from personal experience, it is harder to enforce in this case as you have outlined

Therefore, as I said previously, discretion on the part of the landscaping company would have avoided all this hullabaloo. Although, I’ll bet that this whole controversy was actually a boon to their business.

I was always taught that when saying no to someone’s request, that it’s better not to give any detailed explanation. I use use the standard “Oh, I’m so sorry, I won’t be able to help out with that” or “Looks as if that won’t fit into my schedule on that day”. They don’t need to know that my schedule included curling up with a good book in front of a warm fire.

 

[Karin]

Therefore, as I said previously, discretion on the part of the landscaping company would have avoided all this hullabaloo. Although, I’ll bet that this whole controversy was actually a boon to their business.

I was always taught that when saying no to someone’s request, that it’s better not to give any detailed explanation. I use use the standard “Oh, I’m so sorry, I won’t be able to help out with that” or “Looks as if that won’t fit into my schedule on that day”. They don’t need to know that my schedule included curling up with a good book in front of a warm fire.

EXACTLY:thumbsup:

 

[KathleenElsie]

My daughter and I discussed this in the van on the way to the Pennsylvania Catholic Homeschooling meeting this morning.

What we decided was that if the people doing the job are not exposed to immoral actions or situations (such as being outside of the house and the people that live there not being sexual toward one another gay, heterosexual or other) then the anti-discrimination laws would prevail. On the other hand if you were asked to do the landscaping or yard work at a business that promotes an immoral life style you should have the privilege of saying no thank you for the job.

But if it was cleaning inside of a home or office then you have other considerations. Do you clean up after them physically? Are you exposed to their lifestyle with items eg. pictures and personal items? Do they act out in front of you? Then it should be up to you if you provide the service to them or not. This includes all situations single, married, gay, divorced etc. It is my decision to go into a home or not.

I would never clean up an office or home were I was exposed to occult items, sexual innuendo or other morally offensive (to me personally) situations.

 

[Corki]

What we decided was that if the people doing the job are not exposed to immoral actions or situations (such as being outside of the house and the people that live there not being sexual toward one another gay, heterosexual or other) then the anti-discrimination laws would prevail. .

But there are NO antidiscrimination laws in Houston that cover sexual preference. You can’t break a law that doesn’t exist.

So we are back to whether it was prudent to give a reason - probably not.

Texas is in the “Bible” belt and they don’t mean the NAB. There are many businesses, especially Evangelical Christian ones, in this area that freely admit that they do bussiness only with those of a like faith. Entering into a business contract with them involves signing a “Statement of Faith” that generally includes some kind of Sola Scriptura language. This effectively excludes Catholics. Again, I am not talking about businesses with walk-in business.

 

[HoppityRedux]

I think many folks are missing a key factor in this story. The gay couple issued an INVITATION TO BID. A person sends these to several companies, the companies that are interested in the job submit a bid, and the owner awards a contract to the company he chooses. There is no legal obligation to submit a bid.

A company can bid or not bid for any reason it chooses.

The invitation to bid carries no more weight than an ad in the newspaper. In fact, some invitations to bid are exactly that - they are ads in the paper announcing that bids will be accepted for a particular scope of work. Who feels at all obligated to answer ads in the paper?

However, aside from the legal and economic aspects, it’s a wonderful bit of posturing by all involved. With any luck we will see them all on Good Morning America or Oprah.

 

[Catholig]

My daughter and I discussed this in the van on the way to the Pennsylvania Catholic Homeschooling meeting this morning.

What we decided was that if the people doing the job are not exposed to immoral actions or situations (such as being outside of the house and the people that live there not being sexual toward one another gay, heterosexual or other) then the anti-discrimination laws would prevail. On the other hand if you were asked to do the landscaping or yard work at a business that promotes an immoral life style you should have the privilege of saying no thank you for the job.

But if it was cleaning inside of a home or office then you have other considerations. Do you clean up after them physically? Are you exposed to their lifestyle with items eg. pictures and personal items? Do they act out in front of you? Then it should be up to you if you provide the service to them or not. This includes all situations single, married, gay, divorced etc. It is my decision to go into a home or not.

I would never clean up an office or home were I was exposed to occult items, sexual innuendo or other morally offensive (to me personally) situations.

Well again I see nothing wrong with what they did and would do the same, even if I wasn’t exposed to them being sexual together. Even if they weren’t both home at the time. I’d still say “I’m sorry but I can’t do any land scaping for you”.

Catholig

 

[bekalc]

porthos11,

The GardenGuys didn’t provide a bad and false witness that Christians hate gays. They wrote an honest email stating that they didn’t feel that they could accept a job because the couple were gay. It wasn’t hate speech by any stretch of the imagination.

And as for it being alright to preform land scaping services because it wouldn’t be confirming the couple in their sins simply I would have done the same thing as the land scapers did. I don’t like to sin, and I don’t like to be around sin especially mortal sin. And I don’t think the CC condemns not providing services to those in a state of mortal sin.

Also the constitution doesn’t guaranty the right to force someone to work for you for any amount of time. There is no amendment which states that everyone is entitle to a nice garden or whatever.

Catholig

Didn’t Jesus hang out with a lot of people in mortal sin? In fact he spent more time with the tax collectors and the prostitutes it seems than he did with the religious people.

If Christians refuse having anything to do with gay couples, than we are in a situation where how can we reach them with Christ’s love?

 

[HoppityRedux]

I would be very surprised if these landscapers didn’t do lots of business with gays. If they provide plants and flowers, they probably get them from nurseries. I doubt they have screened out all nurseries with gay ownership.

 

[rpp]

Didn’t Jesus hang out with a lot of people in mortal sin? In fact he spent more time with the tax collectors and the prostitutes it seems than he did with the religious people.

If Christians refuse having anything to do with gay couples, than we are in a situation where how can we reach them with Christ’s love?

Jesus didn’t just “hang-out” with sinners, he was spending time with them to preach to them. That is different than providing a service to a sinner and accepting money from an unrepentant sinner.

What these business owners did was correct.

Comparing homosexual behavior to any racial group is invalid. You do not choose to be a ethnically Jewish or Asian or Hispanic. Engaging in homosexual behavior, living a homosexual lifestyle, those are choices which the Catholic Catechism describes as “grave matter” and “disordered”.

 

[HoppityRedux]

Jesus didn’t just “hang-out” with sinners, he was spending time with them to preach to them. That is different than providing a service to a sinner and accepting money from an unrepentant sinner.

What these business owners did was correct.

Comparing homosexual behavior to any racial group is invalid. You do not choose to be a ethnically Jewish or Asian or Hispanic. Engaging in homosexual behavior, living a homosexual lifestyle, those are choices which the Catholic Catechism describes as “grave matter” and “disordered”.

Well, if Jesus was a carpenter, I wonder if he regularly refused business from sinners? I wonder if he actually sold things to sinners? Anyone know?

Anyone here do business with sinners? Anyone do business with folks who do things prohibited in the Catholic Catechism?

 

[Exalt]

Well, if Jesus was a carpenter, I wonder if he regularly refused business from sinners? I wonder if he actually sold things to sinners? Anyone know?

Anyone here do business with sinners? Anyone do business with folks who do things prohibited in the Catholic Catechism?

Don’t you get it?

These people aren’t going to listen to reason or empathy. They are so wound up in thier prejudice and religious convictions that they can’t possibly see the other viewpoint.

Our words are wasted. They are incapable of seeing your points. We might as well be arguing against a brick wall.

 

[Jeffrey]

:yawn:

Don’t you get it?
These people aren’t going to listen to reason or empathy. They are so wound up in thier prejudice and religious convictions that they can’t possibly see the other viewpoint.

Our words are wasted. They are incapable of seeing your points. We might as well be arguing against a brick wall.