Should venues deny services to people based on their race, sexual orientation, gender, etc.

dusty1


So what things were you forced to do that required you to go against your conscience?

Nothing. But that wasn't what you said. You claimed that being forced to do things you didn't want to amounts to slavery. I did that all the time. Still do. I don't want to do my books or fill in a risk assessment, but to call that slavery is pretty ridiculous.

What many people in this discussion do not understand is that many small business people have everything they own tied up in their business. Their home or other personal property is collateral so they can operate in business. An employee can choose to call in sick, or to take a vacation. A small business person may not have that luxury.

A small business owner carries a great weight to begin with, some know that and take advantage.

Employees have rights.

Consumers have rights.

What are the rights of the small business person?

The right to go out of business.

I am a small businessman and I have no idea what you're talking about. Presumably if I stopped serving black people I'd be more likely to go out of business.

You seem to think that it's someone's 'right' to refuse to sell someone something, and in certain cases that obviously makes sense. But what about a gay person's right to purchase things? In the retail environment enshrining prejudice just because you want to obey some weirdly puritanical interpretation of business ethics seems absurd.

A great man had a dream that people would not be judged by the color of their skin but the content of their character.

Now apparently, you cannot judge the content of ones character without fines and penalties.

I have no idea what you are talking about.

IfI had to guess I would say that you are equating people's right to judge character with others' right to judge on the basis of skin colour or religion. That seems kind of... stupid, to be honest.