Fury amongst gay rights groups as Arizona passes bill allowing people to refuse service to anyone under religious beliefs

[Peikko 1,575]

I am always torn by laws like this. There just is no perfect answer

On one hand a person should be able to open a business and serve whomever he wishes. If he wants a restaurant full of smokers, so be it, but I will not eat there. Freedom is important, no matter how disgusting we think it is. As Larry Flynt said, "If the First Amendment will protect a scumbag like me, it will protect all of you."

On the flip side, we can not have business that operate in the public realm that discriminate.Once it starts where will it end. Blacks, Jews, white People etc. It's a step backward to the Jim Crow days

Real tough issue. Personal liberty to exercise your beliefs or legal discrimination in our society.

I would have to under protest error on the side of not allowing them to discriminate.

Certain behaviors yes. Say they ban all PDA by anyone. That applies to all evenly. They require everyone to wear long pants, or no saggy pants. Those kind of things, while stupid, don't discriminate against any one certain group.

What beliefs are they in fact exercising? It's been tucked under the skirts of religious freedom but seriously, what religious freedoms are being infringed by enforcing laws that refuse to allow business to discriminate based on sexual orientation? I can't think of one religious freedom that's being denied before this law was inflicted on AZ- unless bigotry is in fact a religious freedom. Is it? should it be?

[Darnell 8,478]

I believe that bigotry and hatred should be free of government regulation.”

well, the government does regulate institutionalized racism,

and i always thought 'to be a bigot' was a form of non-institutionalized racism.

When enough bigoted people amass, well, things get messy.

Edited February 23, 2014 by Darnell