Even if you aren’t the type to watch the news (I’m not), I would imagine something has eeked in that tipped you off that Indiana is basically making it warmly welcome for businesses to be as biggoted as they want and the law cannot touch them for doing so.
Basically, a business can choose not to serve someone gay for religious reasons.
No, I didn’t stutter, go ahead and reread it if you need to, I had to. Basically, a business can express their religious views in such a way that they can choose who their clientele is based on that. So if I came in advertising I’m an atheist, they could very vocally show me the door.
This really pissed me off, I wanted the law supporting this removed, the business torn apart and sold off to a drag show specialist, etc.
There have been businesses and neighboring state legislations that are completely boycotting the state of Indiana over it. However, I think they are going about it the wrong way. It isn’t the law that’s the problem.
I remembered once I was equally pissed when state laws decided to stick their nose into local businesses and banned the usage of cigarettes in restaurants/bars. I felt it was none of the government’s business in any form what a local business wanted to allow on their own premises (don’t over-read that, legit illegal activities were not included in this thought). To me, it was out of line and a heavy-handed use of government where it should not be allowed.
I feel the same way about bans on prayer. I think its a violation of civil rights to tell someone who is religious they cannot pray in school. That’s their right and they should have the freedom to do so. If I’m not religious though, I have the right not to.
Basically, if I decided to open a bar and I wanted to allow people to smoke in it, that was my business to allow it. If someone didn’t like that, they could always go to a bar who didn’t allow smoking. That is what I call freedom of choice.
In the same point, if I open a business and decide I’m not going to serve a backwoods racist, bigoted dickhead, that should also be my business.
Which in turn, if I were a racist bigoted dickhead bakery owner and decided I wasn’t going to serve someone gay, that should also be my business.
Kind of the whole freedom of speech thing. I can totally get that seeing it from that perspective. They fully have the right to be an asshole
The nice part is that in this day and age, it won’t take too long before the community at large will find this out. The supportive family who has a gay child is probably not going to use a bakery that is vocal about their animosity to the gay community. The lesbian supplier of gluten-free and organic flours probably won’t want to contend with them either. The bisexual patisserie would probably reject them from coming to their school for further education, and would probably put the word out to their high-power, fellow people in the same industry. It’s forever going to be the only thing they will ever be known for.
This is when peer pressure, not the legal system, becomes the most effective method of changing the world. This bakery has pretty much donned themselves with the proverbial Scarlet Letter and now its the community at large’s turn in ostracizing them, hopefully even eradicating them.
If they manage to stay afloat by being supported by the few members that feel the same way they do, that’s great, it also helps to identify who else to avoid. I truly do not believe it would take terribly long before the store, and the problem, went away.
Hopefully… just hopefully, that would be the point when that little baker might sit down and wonder, “Maybe there is something wrong with how I think. Maybe the rest of the community understands something I don’t. Maybe its me who needs to change.”
Or maybe I’m just secretly too optimistic.
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