Michigan court says companies don’t have to serve customers who are gay

[sallybutler]

So I must abandon my values to work?

I guess it depends on what you are willing to sacrifice. Which is more important to you, making money and feeding yourself and family or standing on your values. I actually have a problem when employers are required to make special accommodations for their employees. I don’t really have a problem with them having to do it for their customers, since they are expecting their customers to give them money.

As an employee, if you disagree with your employer’s values, get another job. As a business, if you disagree with your state’s laws, go start your business elsewhere.

I know, pretty hard hearted, but that really is how the world works, Expecting everyone to bend over for someone else and their values is a little over the top. Especially when most of us get rather incensed when we are told we have to bend over for others.

 

[Pattylt]

This is alternative history. The “Negro Motorist Handbook” was created in response to government action, not businesses. It is precisely because of government that there were a shortage of businesses willing or capable to serve black people.

Could you explain this a bit further? How did government create the problem where blacks needed this book?
Thanks in advance…I’m just not seeing a connection and it’s probably me, not you! :hugs:

 

[Suudy]

Jim Crow Laws. The last word is the key.

 

[Pattylt]

Im sorry, I know what the Jim Crow laws were. How did the government that created the Jim Crow laws also create the shortage of businesses willing or capable to serve black people. Are you stating that people were breaking the Jim Crow laws if they served blacks? Thanks again

 

[gam197]

No, it is not about race. This is about electrolysis and whether a man can come into a shop where a woman is attending and be served if she does bikini cuts for women?

That is my take.

There is a similar case in Canada awhile back. This will be decided by the Supreme Court if they ever take up transgender issues or gay issues again.

ROUCH WORLD, LLC, a Michigan Limited
Liability Co, and UPROOTED ELECTROLYSIS,
LLC, a Michigan Limited Liability Co

The second case is Rouch World and whether a gay wedding can take place and I thought was decided when the Catholic family went out of business and closed up shop at least in the wedding area because they would welcome guests at the hotel without an issue but would not partake of gay marriage.

I guess it was never taken up in the courts in 2011…

ACLU: Wildflower Inn Sued Over Refusal to Host Gay Wedding - ABC News

 

[StudentMI]

No, it is not about race.

Yes I am aware of that. I was asking another poster who said companies should be allowed to discriminate in general.

 

[gam197]

gam197:

No, it is not about race.

Yes I am aware of that. I was asking another poster who said companies should be allowed to discriminate in general.

I thought the case on the wedding and private venues had already been solved so I am very surprised to see it come up again.

The one on electrolysis is new…

 

[Theo520]

Hopefully they will never endorse the treatment of Matthew Shepard as “right” for dealing with homosexual people. But, who knows?

Zacc, you need to do better than this.

Shepard was killed by his friend & bi-lover
His death had nothing to do with anti-gay feelings
It was about meth and money
His ‘friends’ robbed him and then tried to cover it up.

Sheppard is a far better poster child for the evils of drug addiction, and what people will do to get their fix.

 

[VanitasVanitatum]

There are good people… on both sides!” There are no “good people” among the skinheads.

It wasn’t skinheads, it was people who didn’t want a statue removed. I assume that as individuals there would be at least one person that did not have a malicious intent, but whatever.

 

[Suudy]

Im sorry, I know what the Jim Crow laws were. How did the government that created the Jim Crow laws also create the shortage of businesses willing or capable to serve black people. Are you stating that people were breaking the Jim Crow laws if they served blacks? Thanks again

Yes. Wikipedia has a good list of example Jim Crow laws. Some include:

• “It shall be unlawful to conduct a restaurant or other place for the serving of food in the city, at which white and colored people are served in the same room unless such white and colored persons are effectually separated by a solid partition extending from the floor upward to a distance of seven feet or higher, and unless a separate entrance from the street is provided for each compartment.”
• “All persons licensed to conduct a restaurant, shall serve either white people exclusively or colored people exclusively and shall not sell to the two races within the same room or serve the two races anywhere under the same license.”
• It was unlawful for whites and blacks to purchase and consume alcohol on the same location. Penalty for this act was a misdemeanor punishable by a fine from $50 to $500 or an imprisonment in the parish prison or jail up to two years.
• No person or businesses were allowed to rent an apartment in an apartment complex or other housing buildings to a person who differs in race from the other occupants.
• “Every person… operating… any public hall, theater, opera house, motion picture show or any place of public entertainment or public assemblage which is attended by both white and colored persons, shall separate the white race and the colored race and shall set apart and designate… certain seats therein to be occupied by white persons and a portion thereof, or certain seats therein, to be occupied by colored persons.”

It was precisely the government that created conditions whereby there would be a shortage of services. When a business is prohibited from serving both colors without significant accommodation, and must choose which race to service, the logical choice is the one with the lowest cost and highest return. On average blacks were poorer than whites, so it made sense that many businesses could not accommodate both (space limitations, cost of construction, compliance issues, etc), they chose white customers. And access to becoming a black-owned businesses were restricted by Jim Crow as well, making it even less likely that a black-only business would be available.

Indeed, a very large portion of the problems suffered by blacks up to the civil rights era were precisely due to government.

 

[Pattylt]

Thanks for the reply! However, I misunderstood…I thought you were referring to the federal government. This was state governments. Yes, due to these state laws any blacks traveling through the area would need to know what places would accommodate them.

Being Jewish, we didn’t have specific books to let us know…mostly just word of mouth plus, no one could usually tell what religion we were unless it was a place that required our last names. It was a hindrance to travel back then when you had no knowledge of who will accommodate you…something white Christians just never had to think about.

Thanks for clearing up your statement!

 

[Suudy]

Thanks for the reply! However, I misunderstood…I thought you were referring to the federal government. This was state governments. Yes, due to these state laws any blacks traveling through the area would need to know what places would accommodate them.

My point was only that so often folk blame businesses themselves, and then reference Jim Crow and the related problems. Such as examples of the “The Negro Motorist Handbook” to suggest that the cases in the OP are to become more likely due to business choice, when in reality it was government introducing such a need. And my ultimate point is that we shouldn’t be too concerned about individual businesses, especially with the ease of which information is shared today, but more about government coercion.