I am a contrarian; I see the other side quite often. It's one thing to have a law forbidding discrimination in public spaces and by corporations who, after all, are on the public dole through the discrimination of the tax codes. It's one thing to regulate business whose services cross state lines. It's quite another thing, as I see it to regulate small-level free enterprises.
"No shirt, no shoes, no service." "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone." These two phrases I've memorized because I have seen them all my life.
A sign that used to hang on the wall of Stubb's Bar-B-Q in Lubbock, Texas read, "There will be no bad talk or loud talk in this place." Who got to decide what was bad talk? Why Stubb did!
Now, I am thinking about small enterprises. There are precious few businesses I can think of that can remain immune to corporate take-overs. The Mom and Pop clothing stores? Gone. An independent grocery store? Not many. But restaurants? Bakeries? Oh, yeah, there will always be a place for creative folks in that realm.
Long story short? I predict that small restaurants and other businesses - even if their owners are left-wing gay pacifists - will be forced to serve open-carrying gun-toting yahoos based upon blanket anti-discrimination laws. Gays and lesbians have a history of hanging out in places where they felt welcome and their enemies rarely wanted to intrude, but the gun-nut lobby is in-your-face. Why trade the right to force someone to bake you a cake for the right to have a nice gun-free restaurant?
And you know what? Why are we so afraid of letting these things play out within the realm of existing laws? Boycotts are legal. If gays and their supporters were to boycott the businesses who discriminate and support those who openly do not, might we not win that way?
"No shirt, no shoes, no service." "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone." These two phrases I've memorized because I have seen them all my life.
A sign that used to hang on the wall of Stubb's Bar-B-Q in Lubbock, Texas read, "There will be no bad talk or loud talk in this place." Who got to decide what was bad talk? Why Stubb did!
Now, I am thinking about small enterprises. There are precious few businesses I can think of that can remain immune to corporate take-overs. The Mom and Pop clothing stores? Gone. An independent grocery store? Not many. But restaurants? Bakeries? Oh, yeah, there will always be a place for creative folks in that realm.
Long story short? I predict that small restaurants and other businesses - even if their owners are left-wing gay pacifists - will be forced to serve open-carrying gun-toting yahoos based upon blanket anti-discrimination laws. Gays and lesbians have a history of hanging out in places where they felt welcome and their enemies rarely wanted to intrude, but the gun-nut lobby is in-your-face. Why trade the right to force someone to bake you a cake for the right to have a nice gun-free restaurant?
And you know what? Why are we so afraid of letting these things play out within the realm of existing laws? Boycotts are legal. If gays and their supporters were to boycott the businesses who discriminate and support those who openly do not, might we not win that way?
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