I hate to break it to you, but if you're going to correct someone on facts, you should at least get your spelling right. His name is "Ozzy" (Osbourne), not "Ozzie". You're thinking of some old TV show called "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet".
Blue collar work generally pays poorly, unless you start your own business (such as in auto repair), in which case you can do pretty well if you're good at running a business and managing finances.
There's a big problem though: if your kid is a daughter, that advice won't work. Blue collar work never works out well for women. How many female auto mechanics do you know? I've never seen one, ever, or even heard of one. Same goes for plumbers, electricians, etc. Those environments are definitely not hospitable towards women, and that's unlikely to change anytime soon. There's a reason women go for clerical corporate/office work, and it's not just because it's air-conditioned.
My advice to my non-existent kids (though I'm not sure it's good advice, maybe someone with real experience can enlighten me): go ahead and get a STEM degree (preferably engineering), if that's what interests you, then start looking (even before you graduate even, with foreign exchange programs) to get out of the country, probably to Europe. There's lots of engineering jobs in Europe, and you don't have to worry so much about the problems that America is experiencing and which will get much worse in the future here.
Namely, that the rest of the world embraces the careful environmental stewardship that is characteristic of current developed world societies.
That's some seriously wishful thinking. China is belching out pollution as fast as it can; it's so bad the smog is visible inside shopping malls. Even next door to us in Mexico, cars don't even have catalytic converters.
Maybe we'll get lucky, and instead of "Dredd" coming true, it'll be "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1978 version). At least with aliens controlling us, we seem to behave much better and take care of things better.
The fact that we're not heading that way doesn't enter into your reckoning?
Where do you get that idea? Pollution is constantly getting worse (though these days, a lot of it is from China, since we've outsourced a lot of our industry over there, but pollution doesn't respect national boundaries, and travels by air). It's not like we've stopped or even reduced our petroleum consumption. The economy is terrible, and will have a "double dip" before too long. The people for the megacities will come from our rapidly expanding population.
Did you see the movie? (I mean the Karl Urban one, not the old Stallone one. BTW, it's "Dredd", not "Dread".) I don't see how what's predicted there isn't in the cards for us: giant megacities full of crime and pollution, and a fascist government with massive police brutality due to the high crime, excess population, and high unemployment. What you said goes with that; we have a fast-growing population of mostly uneducated immigrants and their kids. You can't support an advanced economy based on technology with people who have no education or skills beyond working in a fast-food kitchen or doing landscaping work. It's not just them either; if you look at the statistics, the children are mostly being born to people below the poverty line, regardless of race or recentness of immigration, and kids raised in poverty don't usually become scientists or engineers, but are more likely that middle-class kids to become criminals. The pollution is certainly getting worse, and global climate change is going to make the situation even worse than that.
The only thing about the movie (probably also in the original stories, not sure as I didn't read those) that I'm not so sure about is the feasability of building such giant buildings in that timeframe, with the economy going down the shitter, and the fact that we don't see any engineering megaprojects in this country any more.
I also recommend the movie "Dredd" (the remake starring Karl Urban). It's not that great a movie overall, but its vision of the future was dead-on: 98% unemployment; fascist cops who act as judge, jury, and executioner; drug gangs run amok, etc.
I recommend the TV show "Terra Nova". Except take out the whole bit about finding a gateway to a prehistoric parallel-Earth, and also take out the bit about those fancy domes, and just concentrate on what the world (of the near future) looked like, with people wearing gas masks outside and no living plants left.
From what I've seen, the numbers of Christian fundamentalists have indeed risen in recent decades. (Sorry, don't have any links handy.) While the number of non-religious has also risen, the number of fundies has also risen; the group that's fallen is mainly the "mainline" Protestants (Episcopals, Presbyterians, Lutherans, etc.). Basically, it seems the younger Protestants have abandoned the traditional churches (which these days are preaching tolerance for homosexuals, some even have female and/or openly gay pastors) and moved to the fundie and evangelical megachurches which are very outspoken on these issues and politically active.
In addition to that, we've had a large influx of Hispanics over the past couple of decades, and most of them are Roman Catholic, though many of them are also converting to evangelical Christianity.
So overall, it does seem to me like things are polarizing more.
How do you know it's fear though? What if someone just doesn't like a group of people?
For instance, Muslim extremists/fundamentalists. I'm not particularly afraid of them, but I really don't like them, because I don't like their principles and actions: they abuse and oppress women, they push their crappy religion and Sharia Law, etc. Am I an "Islamophobe" because I don't like Islamic fundamentalists?
Or how about Christian fundamentalists: I'm not particularly afraid of them, but I really don't like them, because I don't like their principles and actions. They seek to oppress women and homosexuals, they push their crappy religion and creationist and young-earth ideas, even in public schools, etc. Am I a "Christianophobe" because I don't like Christian fundamentalists?
I'm not saying I agree with the anti-gay people of course (remember, I'm anti-Christian-fundamentalism as I stated above), but what if they just don't like homosexuals? What if they want to live in a society where there's no visible homosexuality and it's not tolerated, so they dislike gay people because they've come out of the closet and are threatening that? I'm sure you'll say something about progress or freedom or whatever, but let's turn it around: Suppose I want to live in a society where homosexuals and others are tolerated and accepted and no one cares about that stuff and there's no protests with people holding signs saying "kill the gays!" etc. Christian fundamentalists (including Westboro people) are actively working against this society I'd like to live in, so I dislike them for it. That doesn't mean I'm afraid of them, but I definitely do actively dislike them. I should hope that homosexuals would dislike such people too, since those people actively seek to oppress them. Why would you not dislike someone who wants to oppress you, and tries constantly to do so and have this oppression encoded in law through their voting?
Illegal aliens do not pursue STEM jobs. They have no education. They do minimum-wage (or less) service jobs, or work under-the-table for things like landscaping and other contracting jobs.
Your average blue-collar citizen who has no education and no real skills (which includes lots of people who are new to the workforce, i.e. new high-school grads who aren't college material and whose normal career path is to work their way up) is competing against these people for the few such jobs available.
The law makes sense because of other cases, not the wedding photographer instance. What if you're gay (or black) and need a vital medication, and there's only one pharmacy in your town (or the town you happen to be traveling through) and they refuse to serve gay (or black) people? You just get to die? What if you need gas and you're at the one gas station within 100 miles and they don't like you? What if you need medical treatment and the medivac people don't want to transport you or the ER trauma team doesn't want to treat you? This is why these laws (specifically the Civil Rights Act) exist, not because of some stupid wedding cakes or photos.
If you're a business open to the public, you have to serve all the of public, or none of it. You can't pick and choose (well you can, just not for protected classes; refusing people for not wearing a shirt and shoes is usually OK). These silly-seeming cases are only being done to reinforce the law.
As for the photographer, it's easy: if he has a business that's open to the public, he has an obligation to serve the public, regardless of his personal views. It's no different than if he ran a restaurant; he can't refuse to serve blacks. However, that's an obligation only for his business. If he, personally, doesn't want to do the photography, he doesn't have to. He can refuse outright, and be sued (and lose). Or, he can hire someone else to do the photography so he doesn't have to do it. The company (which he might be the sole owner of) is the one responsible, and obligated to perform the service, since the company is open to the public. He, the employee (though he may also be the owner), is not.
Because not everything is worth protecting, or there's other issues.
Should a business be allowed to discriminate against people for not wearing shirts and shoes? Most people would agree they should. Wearing clothing is an accepted part of our society. A blanket law against all discrimination would disallow this, which is rather stupid. What if a customer wants to wear Neo-Nazi attire into your business? Why should you not be able to kick him out (so your other customers aren't made uncomfortable and forced to leave)? What about the guy shitting on the floor, as the other poster said? Yes, it's a public health issue, but a badly-worded law saying "no discrimination of any kind" would arguably override the public health laws, since you'd be discriminating based on behavior. (Things like this is why laws can frequently be very wordy and complicated, so you don't wind up with dumb situations where good intentions create a worse situation.) Even for fat people, there's good reasons to discriminate. What if some 600 pound guy feels he's been discriminated against because he can't sit in a standard airline seat? Do we now need to make all seats large enough for 600lb people? (Yes, it'd be nicer to have bigger seats, but that's just excessive, plus I'd rather deal with current-size seats and $200 tickets rather than mega-size seats and $1000 tickets because the plane can now only hold a fraction as many people.) What if the 600lb guy sues because the door is too small for him? Now every business across the country needs to undergo major renovations to have 5-foot-wide doors installed everywhere? This stuff can get absurd fast, but that's what you'll get with a blanket law that disallows any kind of discrimination of any kind at all.
You even mention the word "irrelevant"; but you can't write that into a law (e.g. "no discrimination for irrelevant factors"). That's so vague that it'll result in tons of lawsuits because no one can agree on what is or isn't relevant. You probably think it's "common sense" what is and isn't relevant (like the 600lb guy and airline seats), but to have common sense applied in a legal matter, you have to see a judge, because lots of people don't have any common sense.
So basically the bakery can be forced by law to produce a cake for gay people, but the baker working there (as an employee) cannot be compelled to. So the bakery can fire him if they choose (unless he's also the owner), get someone else to make it, or get a different bakery to make it for them.
However, by the same logic, the government is discriminating by not allowing 3-or-more-person groups of people to marry. Why shouldn't 3 or 4 people get the same protections and benefits as two people? Plural marriages existed even in ancient times in some societies, so it's similarly discriminatory for the government to not offer this service to groupings of more than 2 people.
CA has a law called Hughes Act which essentially extends the CRA to hippies:X
Citation? I tried looking this up out of curiosity and all I could find was a "Hughes Bill" which had something to do with special-ed students in public schools.
I think the big difference, legally speaking, between the porn actor/actress and the hardware store and wedding cake store, is the idea of being "open to the public". (Any lawyers want to help me out on the legal terms?) A porn actor is not a place of business, and certainly not a place of business open to the public. They're a performer, and usually operate on a contractual basis. Employees and contractors have very wide latitude to refuse assignments, quit jobs, etc. if they decide they don't like the terms. For instance, as a contractor in software development, if I get an offer from two companies, I can choose either one (or none at all), and I don't have to justify myself in any way. One of those companies can't sue me because I "discriminated" against them by refusing their offer. It's the same for porn actors; they can accept an assignment, or not. They can walk off the job if they want (subject to contract terms; this may trigger a lawsuit based on contract violation or whatever). They cannot be forced to do something they don't want to do.
A business with a storefront, which is "open to the public", isn't like this at all. There's a lot of rules they have to follow that are unique to them, precisely because they're "open to the public". They might need wheelchair ramps or other ADA provisions, they might require certain signage, they have to show their business license, they can't post incorrect prices, and finally, they can't discriminate against customers (according to certain protected classes; they can usually discriminate for some things like not wearing a shirt or shoes). The wedding cake store, like the hardware store, is "open to the public", so they probably can't discriminate in many places against black customers, or gay customers. (A wedding cake business which has no storefront and operates more on a contractual basis, delivering the product to the customer after a contract is signed for "custom work", however, might be able to get away with it. After all, wedding cakes are not like hammers, they're all unique and made on a one-by-one basis, so a business making them might be able to pursue this angle if they want to discriminate.)
Back to porn; if the porn star decided to open up a brothel (in a state that allowed this, hypothetically speaking), I think this is much more like the hardware store example. Services here arguable aren't all that personalized: handjobs $50, BJs $150, missionary sex $500, etc. So a brothel that turns away customers for discriminatory reasons might be able to be sued for this. Anyone know what the law is in Nevada? It's really no different from a message parlor after all, and I'm pretty sure those can't turn away customers arbitrarily.
Is it really homophobia? "-phobia" means there's a fear of something, which is different from a dislike.
If I openly state that I do not like Justin Bieber music and will not accept Bieber as a customer, does that mean I'm Bieber-phobic?
What if I state that I disapprove of the Scientology cult, er scam, er "religion" and that I will not accept Scientologists as customers. Does that make me Scientologophobic?
What if I state that I disapprove of Arizona legislators and think they're a bunch of assholes, and that I refuse to serve them in my place of business. Does that make me AZlegislatorphobic?
The Federal government has no Constitutional authority to tell you who you can marry and who you cannot. The "Defense of Marriage Act" was blatantly unconstitutional.
That didn't stop Obama from trying to defend it for many years.
It's very hard to prove anything with hiring, as you point out.
However, with customers, it's an entirely different matter. It's pretty hard to justify turning away customers who have cash and are willing to pay. If you run a quik-e-mart, how are you going to justify that you refused service to black people who just want to buy some coffee and donuts? "I thought he would not be a good fit" isn't an excuse here.
The religionists are extremely hypocritical (big surprise): they get "offended" just seeing homosexuals holding hands in public, however they think it's perfectly OK to knock on my door and interrupt me so they can try to convert me.
That's really unfortunate. The last thing homosexuals need is some powerful sociopath giving them a bad reputation. I guess it's not so bad, it shows that they're no different from the rest of us, warts and all.
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I hate to break it to you, but if you're going to correct someone on facts, you should at least get your spelling right. His name is "Ozzy" (Osbourne), not "Ozzie". You're thinking of some old TV show called "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet".
Blue collar work generally pays poorly, unless you start your own business (such as in auto repair), in which case you can do pretty well if you're good at running a business and managing finances.
There's a big problem though: if your kid is a daughter, that advice won't work. Blue collar work never works out well for women. How many female auto mechanics do you know? I've never seen one, ever, or even heard of one. Same goes for plumbers, electricians, etc. Those environments are definitely not hospitable towards women, and that's unlikely to change anytime soon. There's a reason women go for clerical corporate/office work, and it's not just because it's air-conditioned.
My advice to my non-existent kids (though I'm not sure it's good advice, maybe someone with real experience can enlighten me): go ahead and get a STEM degree (preferably engineering), if that's what interests you, then start looking (even before you graduate even, with foreign exchange programs) to get out of the country, probably to Europe. There's lots of engineering jobs in Europe, and you don't have to worry so much about the problems that America is experiencing and which will get much worse in the future here.
Namely, that the rest of the world embraces the careful environmental stewardship that is characteristic of current developed world societies.
That's some seriously wishful thinking. China is belching out pollution as fast as it can; it's so bad the smog is visible inside shopping malls. Even next door to us in Mexico, cars don't even have catalytic converters.
Maybe we'll get lucky, and instead of "Dredd" coming true, it'll be "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1978 version). At least with aliens controlling us, we seem to behave much better and take care of things better.
The fact that we're not heading that way doesn't enter into your reckoning?
Where do you get that idea? Pollution is constantly getting worse (though these days, a lot of it is from China, since we've outsourced a lot of our industry over there, but pollution doesn't respect national boundaries, and travels by air). It's not like we've stopped or even reduced our petroleum consumption. The economy is terrible, and will have a "double dip" before too long. The people for the megacities will come from our rapidly expanding population.
Did you see the movie? (I mean the Karl Urban one, not the old Stallone one. BTW, it's "Dredd", not "Dread".) I don't see how what's predicted there isn't in the cards for us: giant megacities full of crime and pollution, and a fascist government with massive police brutality due to the high crime, excess population, and high unemployment. What you said goes with that; we have a fast-growing population of mostly uneducated immigrants and their kids. You can't support an advanced economy based on technology with people who have no education or skills beyond working in a fast-food kitchen or doing landscaping work. It's not just them either; if you look at the statistics, the children are mostly being born to people below the poverty line, regardless of race or recentness of immigration, and kids raised in poverty don't usually become scientists or engineers, but are more likely that middle-class kids to become criminals. The pollution is certainly getting worse, and global climate change is going to make the situation even worse than that.
The only thing about the movie (probably also in the original stories, not sure as I didn't read those) that I'm not so sure about is the feasability of building such giant buildings in that timeframe, with the economy going down the shitter, and the fact that we don't see any engineering megaprojects in this country any more.
Dead-on to the future here, not the preset here or anywhere else. What does present-day China have to do with anything?
I also recommend the movie "Dredd" (the remake starring Karl Urban). It's not that great a movie overall, but its vision of the future was dead-on: 98% unemployment; fascist cops who act as judge, jury, and executioner; drug gangs run amok, etc.
I recommend the TV show "Terra Nova". Except take out the whole bit about finding a gateway to a prehistoric parallel-Earth, and also take out the bit about those fancy domes, and just concentrate on what the world (of the near future) looked like, with people wearing gas masks outside and no living plants left.
From what I've seen, the numbers of Christian fundamentalists have indeed risen in recent decades. (Sorry, don't have any links handy.) While the number of non-religious has also risen, the number of fundies has also risen; the group that's fallen is mainly the "mainline" Protestants (Episcopals, Presbyterians, Lutherans, etc.). Basically, it seems the younger Protestants have abandoned the traditional churches (which these days are preaching tolerance for homosexuals, some even have female and/or openly gay pastors) and moved to the fundie and evangelical megachurches which are very outspoken on these issues and politically active.
In addition to that, we've had a large influx of Hispanics over the past couple of decades, and most of them are Roman Catholic, though many of them are also converting to evangelical Christianity.
So overall, it does seem to me like things are polarizing more.
How do you know it's fear though? What if someone just doesn't like a group of people?
For instance, Muslim extremists/fundamentalists. I'm not particularly afraid of them, but I really don't like them, because I don't like their principles and actions: they abuse and oppress women, they push their crappy religion and Sharia Law, etc. Am I an "Islamophobe" because I don't like Islamic fundamentalists?
Or how about Christian fundamentalists: I'm not particularly afraid of them, but I really don't like them, because I don't like their principles and actions. They seek to oppress women and homosexuals, they push their crappy religion and creationist and young-earth ideas, even in public schools, etc. Am I a "Christianophobe" because I don't like Christian fundamentalists?
I'm not saying I agree with the anti-gay people of course (remember, I'm anti-Christian-fundamentalism as I stated above), but what if they just don't like homosexuals? What if they want to live in a society where there's no visible homosexuality and it's not tolerated, so they dislike gay people because they've come out of the closet and are threatening that? I'm sure you'll say something about progress or freedom or whatever, but let's turn it around: Suppose I want to live in a society where homosexuals and others are tolerated and accepted and no one cares about that stuff and there's no protests with people holding signs saying "kill the gays!" etc. Christian fundamentalists (including Westboro people) are actively working against this society I'd like to live in, so I dislike them for it. That doesn't mean I'm afraid of them, but I definitely do actively dislike them. I should hope that homosexuals would dislike such people too, since those people actively seek to oppress them. Why would you not dislike someone who wants to oppress you, and tries constantly to do so and have this oppression encoded in law through their voting?
Illegal aliens do not pursue STEM jobs. They have no education. They do minimum-wage (or less) service jobs, or work under-the-table for things like landscaping and other contracting jobs.
Your average blue-collar citizen who has no education and no real skills (which includes lots of people who are new to the workforce, i.e. new high-school grads who aren't college material and whose normal career path is to work their way up) is competing against these people for the few such jobs available.
The law makes sense because of other cases, not the wedding photographer instance. What if you're gay (or black) and need a vital medication, and there's only one pharmacy in your town (or the town you happen to be traveling through) and they refuse to serve gay (or black) people? You just get to die? What if you need gas and you're at the one gas station within 100 miles and they don't like you? What if you need medical treatment and the medivac people don't want to transport you or the ER trauma team doesn't want to treat you? This is why these laws (specifically the Civil Rights Act) exist, not because of some stupid wedding cakes or photos.
If you're a business open to the public, you have to serve all the of public, or none of it. You can't pick and choose (well you can, just not for protected classes; refusing people for not wearing a shirt and shoes is usually OK). These silly-seeming cases are only being done to reinforce the law.
As for the photographer, it's easy: if he has a business that's open to the public, he has an obligation to serve the public, regardless of his personal views. It's no different than if he ran a restaurant; he can't refuse to serve blacks. However, that's an obligation only for his business. If he, personally, doesn't want to do the photography, he doesn't have to. He can refuse outright, and be sued (and lose). Or, he can hire someone else to do the photography so he doesn't have to do it. The company (which he might be the sole owner of) is the one responsible, and obligated to perform the service, since the company is open to the public. He, the employee (though he may also be the owner), is not.
Because not everything is worth protecting, or there's other issues.
Should a business be allowed to discriminate against people for not wearing shirts and shoes? Most people would agree they should. Wearing clothing is an accepted part of our society. A blanket law against all discrimination would disallow this, which is rather stupid. What if a customer wants to wear Neo-Nazi attire into your business? Why should you not be able to kick him out (so your other customers aren't made uncomfortable and forced to leave)? What about the guy shitting on the floor, as the other poster said? Yes, it's a public health issue, but a badly-worded law saying "no discrimination of any kind" would arguably override the public health laws, since you'd be discriminating based on behavior. (Things like this is why laws can frequently be very wordy and complicated, so you don't wind up with dumb situations where good intentions create a worse situation.) Even for fat people, there's good reasons to discriminate. What if some 600 pound guy feels he's been discriminated against because he can't sit in a standard airline seat? Do we now need to make all seats large enough for 600lb people? (Yes, it'd be nicer to have bigger seats, but that's just excessive, plus I'd rather deal with current-size seats and $200 tickets rather than mega-size seats and $1000 tickets because the plane can now only hold a fraction as many people.) What if the 600lb guy sues because the door is too small for him? Now every business across the country needs to undergo major renovations to have 5-foot-wide doors installed everywhere? This stuff can get absurd fast, but that's what you'll get with a blanket law that disallows any kind of discrimination of any kind at all.
You even mention the word "irrelevant"; but you can't write that into a law (e.g. "no discrimination for irrelevant factors"). That's so vague that it'll result in tons of lawsuits because no one can agree on what is or isn't relevant. You probably think it's "common sense" what is and isn't relevant (like the 600lb guy and airline seats), but to have common sense applied in a legal matter, you have to see a judge, because lots of people don't have any common sense.
So basically the bakery can be forced by law to produce a cake for gay people, but the baker working there (as an employee) cannot be compelled to. So the bakery can fire him if they choose (unless he's also the owner), get someone else to make it, or get a different bakery to make it for them.
And who really thinks a christian variant of sharia law is a good idea in a modern civilized democratic republic?
A very large portion of American citizens, unfortunately.
However, by the same logic, the government is discriminating by not allowing 3-or-more-person groups of people to marry. Why shouldn't 3 or 4 people get the same protections and benefits as two people? Plural marriages existed even in ancient times in some societies, so it's similarly discriminatory for the government to not offer this service to groupings of more than 2 people.
CA has a law called Hughes Act which essentially extends the CRA to hippies :X
Citation? I tried looking this up out of curiosity and all I could find was a "Hughes Bill" which had something to do with special-ed students in public schools.
I think the big difference, legally speaking, between the porn actor/actress and the hardware store and wedding cake store, is the idea of being "open to the public". (Any lawyers want to help me out on the legal terms?) A porn actor is not a place of business, and certainly not a place of business open to the public. They're a performer, and usually operate on a contractual basis. Employees and contractors have very wide latitude to refuse assignments, quit jobs, etc. if they decide they don't like the terms. For instance, as a contractor in software development, if I get an offer from two companies, I can choose either one (or none at all), and I don't have to justify myself in any way. One of those companies can't sue me because I "discriminated" against them by refusing their offer. It's the same for porn actors; they can accept an assignment, or not. They can walk off the job if they want (subject to contract terms; this may trigger a lawsuit based on contract violation or whatever). They cannot be forced to do something they don't want to do.
A business with a storefront, which is "open to the public", isn't like this at all. There's a lot of rules they have to follow that are unique to them, precisely because they're "open to the public". They might need wheelchair ramps or other ADA provisions, they might require certain signage, they have to show their business license, they can't post incorrect prices, and finally, they can't discriminate against customers (according to certain protected classes; they can usually discriminate for some things like not wearing a shirt or shoes). The wedding cake store, like the hardware store, is "open to the public", so they probably can't discriminate in many places against black customers, or gay customers. (A wedding cake business which has no storefront and operates more on a contractual basis, delivering the product to the customer after a contract is signed for "custom work", however, might be able to get away with it. After all, wedding cakes are not like hammers, they're all unique and made on a one-by-one basis, so a business making them might be able to pursue this angle if they want to discriminate.)
Back to porn; if the porn star decided to open up a brothel (in a state that allowed this, hypothetically speaking), I think this is much more like the hardware store example. Services here arguable aren't all that personalized: handjobs $50, BJs $150, missionary sex $500, etc. So a brothel that turns away customers for discriminatory reasons might be able to be sued for this. Anyone know what the law is in Nevada? It's really no different from a message parlor after all, and I'm pretty sure those can't turn away customers arbitrarily.
Is it really homophobia? "-phobia" means there's a fear of something, which is different from a dislike.
If I openly state that I do not like Justin Bieber music and will not accept Bieber as a customer, does that mean I'm Bieber-phobic?
What if I state that I disapprove of the Scientology cult, er scam, er "religion" and that I will not accept Scientologists as customers. Does that make me Scientologophobic?
What if I state that I disapprove of Arizona legislators and think they're a bunch of assholes, and that I refuse to serve them in my place of business. Does that make me AZlegislatorphobic?
The Federal government has no Constitutional authority to tell you who you can marry and who you cannot. The "Defense of Marriage Act" was blatantly unconstitutional.
That didn't stop Obama from trying to defend it for many years.
It's very hard to prove anything with hiring, as you point out.
However, with customers, it's an entirely different matter. It's pretty hard to justify turning away customers who have cash and are willing to pay. If you run a quik-e-mart, how are you going to justify that you refused service to black people who just want to buy some coffee and donuts? "I thought he would not be a good fit" isn't an excuse here.
The religionists are extremely hypocritical (big surprise): they get "offended" just seeing homosexuals holding hands in public, however they think it's perfectly OK to knock on my door and interrupt me so they can try to convert me.
That's really unfortunate. The last thing homosexuals need is some powerful sociopath giving them a bad reputation. I guess it's not so bad, it shows that they're no different from the rest of us, warts and all.
Nope, not quite. Good guesses though. This place is definitely not the bees' knees.