Saturday’s Forum

FILED UNDER: Open Forum
Steven L. Taylor
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog). Follow Steven on Twitter

Comments

  1. CSK says:
  2. OzarkHillbilly says:

    Terrell D. Lewis
    @TerrellDLewis

    If you’re claiming a religious exemption, what the chapter and verse? #p2 #tcot #prolife #Christian #Catholic

    2
  3. Jax says:

    Well, I’ve officially caught the crud. Woke up this morning to a stuffy nose and headache. No cough yet. 😐

    So much for our Tennessee trip.

  4. Sleeping Dog says:

    @Jax:

    Get well. To feeling better in a few days.

    4
  5. Jax says:

    @Sleeping Dog: The worst part is the quarantine. We’re bringing home our first big bunch of cattle from the forest today, I had to call in some reinforcements and make plans for driving in a separate vehicle until we get horseback. Once we get these cows home, I can take a few days off to stay the hell away from everybody.

    1
  6. KM says:

    Reply to yesterday’s thread since I missed it
    @Mu Yixiao:

    I have zero sympathy for gay couples who go into a Christian bakery (or any other business) and expect them to make the “most amazing wedding cake” for people the business owners despise. They’re doing it to stir up shit. There have got to be dozens of businesses in the area that will happily create amazing cakes/dresses/floral arrangements/photos/music/whatever with zero fuss.

    Seriously? Aren’t you the one always scolding us for not understanding rural ways and being elitist in our assumptions of life out there? Exactly how many businesses in a rural area do wedding things? It’s a rather specialized field and you’d be lucky to have multiple dress or cake shops, let alone have a choice of them that are *not* “Christian” and likely to pull this crap. It’s absolutely not fair to expect someone to drive miles upon miles for a damn cake. It’s the same BS logic for BC denial – if there’s only place locally that can handle the need, they don’t get to scream “go somewhere else!!” if there is nowhere else.

    Your opinions are your opinions, your faith your faith. Keep it OUT of business and stop punishing people for being God’s Children the way He made them. It’s not stirring shit to simply ask to be served and unless someone is extremely strident about being a militant fundie, you have no way of knowing they’ll freak out on you. In one instance, the baker was someone who knew the gay couple, was friendly with them and cool serving them for YEARS…. only to suddenly get their back up when the cake order came in. How are you supposed to know unless you straight out ask (which is what they’re doing when they place the order) or they post something saying “We don’t do SSM weddings”; in fact, there was a movement for businesses to post signs saying they won’t object to gay clients and fundies objected since it would clearly mark them and make them lose business. They realized straight people who can’t stand this behavior would not patronize them so they want to be able to hide the bigotry till it’s too late and now it’s lawsuit time.

    Unless assholes are willing to advertise publically ahead of time that you shouldn’t waste your time there if you’re gay, it’s absolutely not shit stirring to assume a business is going to actually act as a business. You cannot know and have an eminently reasonable expectation people will do their jobs.

    19
  7. Mister Bluster says:

    Turned over 200,000 miles on my 2013 Ford Fusion yesterday. Bought the car new in February 2013. Only major repair had to replace the factory 6 speed automatic transmission well after it turned over 100,000 miles. The replacement transmission is from a salvage yard (not rebuilt) and had 50,000 miles on it when installed.
    It would be nice if I could run this car for as many miles as I drove my new 1992 Ford F-150. I finally parked it after 320,000 miles and 14 years. Had to have the automatic transmission on the ’92 rebuilt at around 100,000 miles. It would have likely lasted longer if I would have maintained it properly. After I ran the truck for another 200,000+ on that transmission rebuild I took it back to the Independent repair shop that did the rebuild for inspection. When I told the guy his rebuild job lasted 200,000+ miles he said and showed him the receipts from his work he said: “Really? They don’t usually last that long!”
    I was going to give the shop a plug but apparently they have moved or closed. I can’t find any listing for them anywhere.

  8. Mister Bluster says:

    test to attempt to call up EDIT key

  9. Mister Bluster says:

    test failed even after 100 page reloads

    2
  10. Gustopher says:

    @KM: Going back to Mu’s comment, there is also this gem:

    Business owners who oppose gay marriage are stupid.

    They should accept any and all businesses from gay marriages–and then do an absolute shit job of it.

    What a fucking asshole thing to advocate for.

    It must be nice to not have your very existence — your day to day life and errands — be “political” to a bunch of inbred fuckheads.

    I don’t think Comrade Mu has really thought this out. He wants people to be left alone and not hassled, but it cuts both ways, and that gay couple gets way more hassles.

    8
  11. Gustopher says:

    @Jax:

    The worst part is the quarantine.

    Are there antivaxxers you could hang out with?

    I know, there’s the golden rule to treat people as you would want to be treated, but isn’t it better to treat people how they would like to be treated? I don’t think the COVID enthusiasts would want to be shunned just because they spread disease.

    Feel better.

    3
  12. becca says:

    @Mister Bluster: We still drive a ‘97 Subaru hatchback, standard shift. Runs great, looks fine, so we’re good. I like telling people my car is old enough to vote.

  13. Jen says:

    @KM: I was busy yesterday and missed that. I’m glad I did, as a pretty serious baker (I used to have a business providing baked goods to local businesses, with a state certification of my kitchen and all), I would like to reinforce your statement that wedding cakes are a very specialized skill.

    Anyone who doubts this should peruse the Cake Wrecks site and see how non-specialists do at meeting wedding cake orders. It quite literally isn’t pretty.

    And this?

    Business owners who oppose gay marriage are stupid.

    They should accept any and all businesses from gay marriages–and then do an absolute shit job of it.

    Wow. Just…wow.

    5
  14. becca says:

    @Jen: l had a catering business in Nashville years ago. We specialized in studio and film, but did the occasional wedding. Always sub-contracted cakes and had them delivered and installed by the pros.

    2
  15. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @KM: I was going to note that I’ve actually LIVED in an area near the one that was the subject of the Washington cake dust up (the next small town over, specifically) and about how realistic (or not) the assumptions about the region were, but then I asked myself “who would pay attention that didn’t already have preset biases,” so I passed. Thank you for your comment, You did a better job than I would have anyway.

    4
  16. Kathy says:

    @Gustopher:

    Don’t they say it is better to give than receive?

    1
  17. Stormy Dragon says:

    The ACU has announced that next year’s CPAC is being held in Hungary, because we live in the worst timeline.

  18. JohnSF says:

    @Stormy Dragon:
    I grant it’s close but a united opposition win in the Hungarian elections would be made even more enjoyable if Mr Carlson was reporting it live.

  19. @KM: I noticed that comment, too, but didn’t have time to respond. I was specifically vexed by “There have got to be dozens of businesses in the area” given that Mu always talks from a rural perspective, I found that an odd claim. Most small towns with which I am familiar, including the one I have worked in for over 23 years, do not have dozens of options for much of anything, let alone wedding caterers.

    6
  20. wr says:

    @Jen: “They should accept any and all businesses from gay marriages–and then do an absolute shit job of it.”

    I just want to see the place on Yelp where they get a terrible review — with pictures — for their cake, and they post a reply saying “But I didn’t approve of the client, so I took his money and fucked him over. See, it’s all good!”

    2
  21. Mister Bluster says:

    They should accept any and all businesses from gay marriages–and then do an absolute shit job of it.

    No doubt Jesus would approve.
    “Do unto others before they do it to you.”

    1
  22. KM says:

    @Gustopher:
    It’s actually advocating of discrimination – treating someone different because of who they are and something actionable in court in multiple ways. Deliberately delivering a poor product is not gonna end well for you legally, let alone if it turns out you did it for a hateful reason.

    Can you image if businesses based in cities took jobs for rural folks and then deliberately do an absolute shit job of it? Amazon smashes all your packages by tossing them out a moving vehicle and drugs meant for rural areas tainted or just sugar pills? Internet, cellphones and TV should be spotty if you get a signal at all and any gas not drilled locally can be watered down. I mean, MAGAts or those in MAGA-friendly areas are stirring shit by bothering right-thinking liberals in cities with their expectations of fair service so businesses should take their money and give them a terrible result. They don’t like it, order it from somewhere else – must be plenty of companies nearby that can meet their needs in small town America, right?

    5
  23. Gustopher says:

    What ever happened to the good, Christian reply of “your parody of a marriage is an affront to our Lord, Jesus Christ, but we can probably fit in a wedding-style cake for your heathen celebration of sodomy, and you’ll have to provide your own topper. It will be nice for you and your guests to be able to remember our cake while you’re choking the the sulfurous hellfires for all eternity. We’re going to need a deposit, but you can get it back if you cancel in the next two weeks, perhaps after you have looked at the cakes of that nice bakery across town run by the lapsed Catholic — he was going to hell even before he lapsed, for worshipping the whore of Rome, bless his heart. Does anyone have any allergies we need to be aware of?”

    There are lots of ways to say yes that are basically no.

    3
  24. KM says:

    Questions about anti-vaxxers “busting out” family from the hospital

    Since that’s likely going to render the patient AMA, if the family takes the patient without their express consent (unconscious or altered from the meds for instance) does that put the bill on the patient or the family who authorized it? What if they take someone out AMA but if the patient didn’t agree, can they protest the resulting refusal of payment by insurance? I can imagine someone’s insane family member essentially kidnapping the loved one and should they be lucky enough to live, can they sue the family member for the life-ruining bill?

    If the sick person dies, can they be held legally liable? If a spouse takes the sick person out claiming they’re going to hospice but really it’s back home to breath bleach and get ivermectin, can a sibling or parent sue for wrongful death? If they deceive the sick person that they’re going to be “cured” back home to get that signature for AMA, is there recourse for the rest of the family to punish the anti-vaxxer for the mess they’re causing and debt they’re inflicting?

    2
  25. Mu Yixiao says:

    @KM:

    Seriously? Aren’t you the one always scolding us for not understanding rural ways and being elitist in our assumptions of life out there? Exactly how many businesses in a rural area do wedding things?

    I count 30 wedding photographers in my area. 20 Wedding website designers. The website designers are only those with offices in the area; it’s a job that can be done from anywhere in the world.

    Give me a location, I’ll give you at least a dozen options–in that area. And, again… this lawsuit was about a website. Someone in India can do it for you.

    It’s a rather specialized field

    No. It’s not. Not even close. It’s a $60 billion industry in the US. I used to work in one segment of it. The competition is fierce.

    Your opinions are your opinions, your faith your faith. Keep it OUT of business and stop punishing people for being God’s Children the way He made them.

    I have no faith. I am, at best, an agnostic.

    It’s not stirring shit to simply ask to be served and unless someone is extremely strident about being a militant fundie, you have no way of knowing they’ll freak out on you

    .

    It’s shit-stirring to insist that the militant fundie do what you want rather than go find someone else who will happily do it, put their heart into it, and make it something you absolutely love.

    @Gustopher:

    I don’t think Comrade Mu has really thought this out. He wants people to be left alone and not hassled, but it cuts both ways, and that gay couple gets way more hassles.

    I’ve thought this out far more than you think. I’ve been thinking about this for 40+ years.

    First of all: What’s my sexual orientation? What are my views on sexual orientation?

    You’re making a lot of assumptions right off the bat. You might want to check that.

    “My community” is not only LGBTQ+, it’s kinky. I’m probably deeper in the closet than most of the LGBT people here. I am painfully aware of the hassles that non-straight couples–and individuals–get. And I’m also aware that they are far more accepted than I am.

    I can’t think of any of my community that would sue a bakery/photographer/florist/etc. Because nobody wants someone at their wedding that hates them.

    If we’re talking about coffee shops, housing, jobs, and a bazillion other things, then YES bring on the law suits. There are serious injustices that need to be addressed, and it’s going to take high-profile court cases to bring them to the public attention, and it’s going to take high-court decisions to make them the law of the land.

    That is not going to happen by making a bigotted baker make your wedding cake.

    Y’all don’t get it. The LGBT+ movement needs to get away from the “You disagree with me, so I’m going to hire you just so I can sue you” mentality. Use market forces. Call out the bigots and encourage boycotts. Promote and recommend businesses that support and promote LGBTQ+ issues and events.

    I don’t want to force bigots to do what we want. I want them to go out of business.

    I want a just marketplace. You, it seems, want… something else

    2
  26. Mimai says:

    I’m imagining Joe furiously updating his spreadsheet.

    4
  27. Matt says:

    @KM: My home town had one bakery when I moved out. The next nearest bakery is +30 miles away… I lived in a very red/christian area so good luck…

    2
  28. KM says:

    @Mu Yixiao:

    The LGBT+ movement needs to get away from the “You disagree with me, so I’m going to hire you just so I can sue you” mentality.

    No. That’s a strawman you seem to think exist. People getting married aren’t specifically looking for a “Christian” baker/photographer/ WTFever to celebrate their future life together with a lawsuit. It’s “you’re not going to do your job so you’re getting sued.” If you don’t advertise ahead of time this is a boundary so the customer could find another option (if available), then it’s nut up or shut up. Believe in God but do your damn job – if you can’t, go get another job that doesn’t offer that conflict. Why is it the customer that must give instead of the person having the problem serving a segment of the population?

    It is *NOT* the customer’s job to know your personal beliefs and if they means they will or will not be served. That’s not a reasonable expectation of any kind in any kind of economic system- do you need to know the corporate stance, the owner’s stance as well as every employee’s and how they think about any and all political, cultural or religious issues? How in god’s name you can do your research if that information isn’t available for a customer to make a reasoned choice? It’s madness to expect a person to know someone’s a fundie when looking for a professional, especially as that kind of discriminating mindset is rapidly becoming socially unacceptable.

    Just because you can’t of anyone personally doesn’t mean anything. Gays won’t sue because they don’t want the baker “to hate them”? WTF do they think is happening when they won’t get served because of who they are – “sorry I think you’re gonna burn in hell, it’s not personal but walk on we don’t serve your kind here”? Wow – you’re making a lot of assumptions people are willing to accept that just because you can’t think of anyone who will. It’s their right to sue and part of our legal and economic system to keep this sort of behavior in check..

    Your personal details don’t matter here and if you wanted to tell us, you would have. That’s your business and I shouldn’t have to go sleuthing it to find out if you’ll do business with me. The point is a lawsuit *IS* calling people out and forcing them in a court of law to defend why they thought it was OK to mix personal belief with professional behavior. It is using market forces – which will also cause them to hate you btw – because they will not advertise their beliefs beforehand specifically to avoid protests, boycotts and taking the social hit.

    Quite frankly, you’re just defending the small town “don’t make a fuss” as an acceptable mindset for everyone. Accept the injustice, keep your head down and don’t make a scene – I hated that aspect of small town life. Know your place, that’s just how it is, the person complaining is the troublemaker and for god’s sake, don’t air dirty laundry in public. I don’t miss it at all. It’s funny how when they treat you bad it’s fine but taking action about it is stirring shit.

    I want a system where a person of faith acts exactly like the atheist at work because they are at work and not in church. I don’t want a world where I need to suss out someone’s stance or thoughts on anything before I can do a simple business transaction. I do not want to go back to the time of signs in windows like “No Irish Allowed” or “No Gays will be served” or “Only God-fearing Christians should enter!”…. but honestly, that’s the only way fundies could honestly be able to exercise their 1A rights and still give fair market warning to customers.

    12
  29. KM says:

    @Matt:
    The town I spent a part of my youth was so small it had a single intersection with a stoplight and the nearest pizza place was 15 mins away (it was also the general store, pharmacy and sub shop). Town hall was the library and police station as the fire station was lucky enough to get their own building before I was born. I learned to drive behind big ass tractors that drove down the middle of the street and there were more cows than buildings. There was no wedding anything – you needed to drive over an hour to the “big” city nearby, something that would qualify as part of a suburb anywhere else. We did have a local bakery my cousins owned but they didn’t do wedding cakes because they were so complicated. It closed when when the family moved and nothing else opened up since.

    Tiny, tiny town. The number of businesses I could count on one hand. If even one had refused service to someone, it was a long drive to the next choice. When this sort of thing pops up, I remember that place and think anyone who says there’s plenty of choices in small town America doesn’t really live in small town America. They live somewhere with more nature then skyscrapers and think that’s rural.

    9
  30. CSK says:

    Trump’s on his way to a rally in Georgia tonight. He says that “only a bad call from a doctor” will prevent him from running in 2024.

  31. steve says:

    I still cant figure out how baking a cake is a religious act. I was brought up evangelical and have read the Bible cover to cover several times. Nothing about baking cakes. This was clearly a case where the bake shop decided they could call anything they wanted a religious activity to avoid doing something that offended their cultural sensibilities. That said, I kind of think I agree that suing them was a waste of time. All it did was make the bake shop people heroes and didnt really help gay people.

    Steve

    2
  32. Mu Yixiao says:

    @KM:

    It is *NOT* the customer’s job to know your personal beliefs and if they means they will or will not be served.

    So… If want to have a pulled pork for a party, it’s not my responsibility to check if the caterer is Jewish, Muslim, or vegan?

    You’d be okay if I got a court to order that they serve pulled pork sandwiches at my wedding?

    (Remember: The Jewish and Muslim places can’t claim religious exemption under your rules)

  33. Mu Yixiao says:

    @steve:

    I still cant figure out how baking a cake is a religious act.

    Baking a cake isn’t. And, if I recall, in the original case, the bakery said they would have no problem baking the cake. The problem they had was decorating it in a way that celebrated something they are opposed to. The question is: Can you be forced to promote something you don’t agree with?

    Forget the gay marriage aspect. Can I be forced to decorate a cake that promotes Trump? Can I be forced to decorate a cake that promotes the Pope (religion is a protected class)? Can I be forced to decorate a cake that promotes the Westboro Baptist Church?

    1
  34. Jax says:

    @Gustopher: Ha! The funny part is every single one of the cowboys declared “They ain’t skeered a no freakin Rona virus, hop on in with us!” Then I listed off all the old grannies of cowboys they know that have gotten life-flighted in the last two days thanks to Covid, and I declined to kill their grannies and hopped into my own car.

    I don’t feel too terribly bad. Bad sinuses and what feels like a long, thin, needle coming into the back of my skull where the pieces fuse together. 194 of 486 cows and 9 bulls home, plus we brought a couple dozen home for neighbors that are down with Covid and couldn’t come help. It was a good day. Tomorrow I get to go out on my own and drone cowboy in the wide open.

    2
  35. KM says:

    @Mu Yixiao:
    Correct. You check to see if pulled pork is on the damn menu, you don’t demand to know their faith then ask for pork. Many people of faith will make accommodations for others unless they are very devout. If they are offering pulled pork but just not to *you*, that’s the problem. In ALL of these cases, pulled pork aka wedding stuff was on offer for everyone *BUT* people they don’t want to serve. The word for that isn’t faith, it’s discrimination.

    Any other tired strawmen to offer? This really isn’t hard to understand to anyone not invested in putting their personal beliefs over basic courtesy or business ethics.

    9
  36. KM says:

    @Mu Yixiao:
    That was the dodgy loophole: it was art because it’s decorated and therefore different. However they weren’t able to specify what made a straight decorated wedding cake different from a gay decorated wedding cake and the court let it slide. They opened up Pandora’s Box by doing so. It was a cheap way to let bigotry flourish to the point we now have a website maker preemptively suing over something that has nothing to do with faith.

    But to answer your question, yes to all. Offer cake decoration then honor your word no matter how distasteful you find it as long as it’s legal. I promise you a liberal has decorated a pro-Trump cake because it was their job. They are professionals though so you don’t hear them whining about it.

    5
  37. Kathy says:

    @KM:

    I wonder how I can get the Kool Aid concession at the next CPAC.

    1
  38. Kathy says:

    @Mu Yixiao:

    False analogy is a thin cloak for bigotry.

    A Jewish or Muslim caterer might do pork, but a Kosher or Halal one won’t. In any case, your analogy would be, say, to ask a baker for a durian cake and they refused. It’s not that they won’t serve a same sex, mixed race, black, Hispanic, etc. couple.

  39. Monala says:

    @Mu Yixiao: strawman. The issue is providing a product they already provide to other customers. If a bakery makes wedding cakes, they should make them for whomever orders them, LGBTQ+ or not. They may choose to not make wedding cakes for anyone, as KM noted in her comment about her relatives’ bakery. But if they make them, they need to offer them to everyone who wants one.

    BTW, a restaurant or deli with dietary restrictions, be it vegan, kosher or halal, probably advertises itself as such, which is the standard KM set.

    4
  40. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Stormy Dragon: @JohnSF: And I was so sure that it was a spoof from The Onion when I first read the comment. Boy, am I embarrassed.

  41. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    Most small towns with which I am familiar, including the one I have worked in for over 23 years, do not have dozens of options for much of anything, let alone wedding caterers. Indeed! When my ex wife and I got married near the end of her grad school studies, the local warehouse grocery store “catered” our wedding reception. They did a great job but the choice was easy–they were the only supermarket in town with both a fresh deli counter and an in-store bakery. Even the Safeway chain store didn’t have either one.

    It was a nice 2 layer cake with smaller layer on top of a larger one (no pedestals or support columns available) and we had a choice of chocolate, yellow, or white cake, too! (And I believe we got raspberry filling between the layers on the bottom level.)

    1
  42. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Just nutha ignint cracker: I was positive that I put in a close blockquote after “caterers.” I guess I was wrong. Curse you, dreaded typos!

  43. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    Mu Yixiao: As I asked earlier, “who would pay attention that didn’t already have preset biases?”

  44. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @CSK: Nah. There are plenty of other barriers–car/pedestrian accident, street side robbery/home invasion gone wrong, microbial agent food poisoning (to distinguish from the other kind), the other kind…

    Yeah, lots of other reasons he might not run.

  45. Gustopher says:

    @Mu Yixiao:

    “My community” is not only LGBTQ+, it’s kinky. I’m probably deeper in the closet than most of the LGBT people here.

    Fine, you’re a Leather Daddy Furry BDSM Klingon Puppy Cosplayer or something. Which means you know of the corrosive effects of the closet, but not the daily life as an out queer person and the joys of open bigotry in your face when you are doing mundane acts like ordering a cake.

    I’m bi/pan/whatever* but everyone generally assumes I’m straight. Depending on who I am dating, and how clear that is, the world changes for me. And it shouldn’t. And it shouldn’t be that way for the people who don’t appear to be straight-cis folks.

    I am painfully aware of the hassles that non-straight couples–and individuals–get. And I’m also aware that they are far more accepted than I am.

    I can’t think of any of my community that would sue a bakery/photographer/florist/etc.

    Well, you would have to come out of the closet to sue, if nothing else. And you carefully find “discrete” providers lest someone outside the community see your guests being led on leashes and whipped by people in gorilla suits and bowler hats shouting in Klingon.

    You’ve opted out, and chosen to live a secretive, underground life with the mole people (either literal mole people, or furries who dress like moles, or whatever), which is your choice. And then you choose whether you want a traditional wedding where you have to wear clothes to cover your piercings, or whether you want a wedding in your secretive lair.

    But it’s not a healthy or realistic choice for a lot of people — the less gender-conforming flaming homosexuals and butch lesbians, the trans folks who don’t pass, the gender non-binary folks
. Their rights are important, and should have access to services in their mundane little lives.

    I think the closet is a bad choice. But, it’s your choice, so whatever, dude, tolerance is based on tolerating, not agreeing or endorsing, so knock yourself out. But, just because you and/or your community prefers to avoid being discriminated against by hiding, that doesn’t mean you should be ok with discrimination. Once the garden-variety lesbians down the street can be open without fear of retribution, then even people with your unspeakable perversions will be a little freer.

    And a cake with several tiers supported by columns is not a religious sacrament. Unless it is made with communion wafers.

    ——
    *: I kind of don’t do labels.

    7
  46. Jax says:

    @Gustopher: I just wanna say….all that you wrote up there, was freakin amazing.

    2
  47. CSK says:

    @Just nutha ignint cracker:
    Well, he claimed that that’s all that would stop him.

  48. @Mu Yixiao:

    If want to have a pulled pork for a party, it’s not my responsibility to check if the caterer is Jewish, Muslim, or vegan?

    I will go out on a limb here and guess that those establishments don’t sell pork in the first place. And, further, that the lack of pork in their shops is non-discriminatory (which is to say that they don’t sell pork to anyone whatsoever).

    This is not a comparable situation in the least.

    Not serving gay people when you will serve straight people is discrimination.

    Not serving pork because you don’t sell pork is simply not selling pork.

    2
  49. @Mu Yixiao:

    in that area.

    Serious question: what is your definition of an “area” for this exercise? Is an hour away in the area? Two?

    I also begin the wonder what your definition of “rural” is (and I will readily allow it can be an amorphous notion in casual conversation).

    Look, I take (in part) the notion that suing just to stir up trouble could be considered unnecessary. But then I think of John Lewis’ admonition to getting into “good trouble” and wonder how much human beings ought to eschew confrontation because a business owner wants to function in a discriminatory manner.

    1
  50. Matt says:

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    I also begin the wonder what your definition of “rural” is (and I will readily allow it can be an amorphous notion in casual conversation).

    I too wonder that as my rural home town and the surrounding area doesn’t have dozens of options for anything (including churches which outnumber everything)…

    1