On Saturday, July 4, 2015 at 11:22:07 AM UTC-4, sms wrote:
Why can't retail businesses just do what they are supposed to do: sell
stuff to people that want to buy stuff. Keep politics out of it. Sell to
anyone whose money is green.

A hardware store in Tennessee first put up a sign telling gays that they
weren't allowed, then took that sign down and put up a weasel-worded
sign telling evangelicals that they weren't welcome.

The first sign was pretty blunt, "No Gays Allowed." Not subtle, but gays
would just find another place to shop. The new sign is: "We reserve the
right to refuse service to anyone who would violate our rights of
freedom of speech and freedom of religion." That sign is intended to
keep radical fundamentalist evangelicals out of his store.


I don't see how that could be interpreted as intending to apply
to Christian evangelicals, unless they said something more.
It looks almost certainly targeted at gays following the SC
decision. They just took down the more blatant one and replaced
it with this more subtle one.




I work in San Francisco. I routinely see evangelicals trying to push
their beliefs and religion onto others. Conversely, there are a lot of
gays in San Francisco but they don't harass people and try to convince
them to become gay.

If the owner doesn't want gays in his store then he should have kept the
original sign. Gays would just go to another store. Now he is offending
evangelicals who pride themselves on violating other people's freedom of
speech and freedom of religion.

More likely the gays would be going to court to force him to
take it down. So it's OK to offend gays, but not OK to offend
evangelicals? Go figure. Inquiring minds want to know how
it affects his business or him personally if either come into
his stores. How would he even know if someone is gay, an evangelical
or anything else?