"trader_4" wrote in message news:a21d1692-

stuff snipped

I said before what my solution is. Get govt out of this altogether.
You should be able to refuse service today to anyone, for any reason.
I can see the need for outlawing discrimination 50 years ago, when
blacks were denied access to most lodging, had separate counters for
food service, had to ride the back of the (public) bus. It was
widespread.
Therefore I can see a valid reason for the govt to step in. Today,
the situation is totally reversed.

I am not sure what kind of enclave you live in, but from what you've written
it sounds like a very large, nice house with a pool in what I suspect to be
a mostly white suburban neighborhood. BTW, if the situation were totally
reversed, white people would be denied food, lodging and the use of the same
facilities. I'll stipulate that things are better, but not fixed.

IMHO, in the real world, the situation is NOT reversed, it's simmering at
perhaps its hottest point in years as evidenced by the Charleston massacre
and the protests concerning the Flag of The Defeated and Surrendered
Anachronistic Slavery-Loving Slightly Atavistic Secessionist South: satire
alert

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/07/19...a-capitol.html

The police made five arrests, and the South Carolina Department of Public
Safety estimated that the State House crowd, including onlookers, had at one
point swelled to about 2,000 people. They chanted - or at least heard -
volleys of incendiary speech and shouts of "white power!" and "black power!"
Bystanders watched people wave flags celebrating Pan-Africanism, the
Confederacy and the Nazi Party. And they watched as black demonstrators
raised clenched fists, and white demonstrators performed Nazi salutes . . .
"Peace is over with," said William Bader, who said he was a Kentucky
resident and the imperial wizard of the Trinity White Knights of the Ku Klux
Klan. "There is no peace." Mr. Bader, who said he planned to wear his Klan
regalia for a cross burning on Saturday night, added, "What do I want to see
happen? White revolution is the only solution."

"Peace is over with" doesn't sound like it echoes your 'it's all in the
past' sentiment.

So, let businesses do what they want. If you want to deny service
to gays, Latinos, blacks, Jews, whatever, I say it's your right.

Fortunately you're not in charge. I've experienced reverse racism where at
3AM in the only eatery open in a mostly black neighborhood I was served
after every other black person had been served first, many of whom came into
the shop after me. It was a very interesting lesson in being the underdog.
The way demographics are going, in 30 years people like us will very likely
be in the minority. So we should be careful what we wish for.

Expect that most of your other customers would evaluate what you're
doing and most of them would probably be offended and take their
business somewhere else. You could also expect the arrival of
protesters disrupting your business, people calling for boycotts,
lots of negative publicity, etc. In other words, very, very few
businesses are going to do it. And those that do, so what.

The "so what" is that shortly after a club puts out a sign "no white bikers"
or "no wetbacks" you can expect they will be getting bricks or worse thrown
through their windows. It's inimical to the public welfare.

What is far worse, is the "solution". In Oregon a couple owns a
bakery. They have gay customers, have sold them cakes, etc. Along
comes a gay couple that wanted them to help cater their wedding,
actually being at the wedding. They declined for religious reasons.
The govt went after them, hit them with a $130K fine.

Not a fine, I reiterate. Those were damages against the couple that was
turned away. A fine would go to the state. However even though that sum
goes to the gay couple I doubt they will ever see a cent of that money. I
expect the bakers will declare bankruptcy rather than pay.

And if that isn't bad enough, the court put a gag order on them.

It was NOT a gag order. I am sure you're familiar enough with the law to
know such restrictions have been legal for decades (centuries?). It was a
cease and desist order telling the bakers not to further injure the gay
couple and telling them while they could discuss the case (some gag order!)
they could NOT recommend to other businesses that they, too, refuse to serve
gay clients.

They came up
with a list of speech from interviews where they voiced their opinions
that they didn't think being gay was moral, etc. The court actually
*banned* them from saying any similar things in the future.

You'll have to show me in the PDF case file where they did that because I
couldn't find it. They were very clear in the conditions they placed on the
bakers. The BOLI was simple trying to prevent the bakers from inflicting
further duress on the gay couple.

The bakers had published their address which caused the couple to move out
of their house because of the death threats. Death threats they got from
wonderful, religiously devout and potentially murderous Christians. And you
wonder why I don't feel that religious rights should trump the law.

Folks, it's getting really, really scary......

Yes, particularly when people twist events to suit their political and
religious viewpoints and the truth gets lost in the noise.

The Amish and other religious groups solved the problem of not interacting
with people they don't care to by forming their own communities. Taken to
the extreme, you get the Branch Davidians, but in general, a lot of
religious communities exist quite peacefully and untroubled by worrying
about whether baking a cake for a gay couple will turn them gay, too. (-:

To be fair to you, Trader, there is some indication that there are other
forces that have come to bear on the question. As you'll recall, Indiana
recently tried to pass a rather odious Religious Freedom Act to insure that
people who wanted to discriminate for religious reasons in public business
could do so. However, industries based in the state weighed in on the
proposed law and got the legislature to change it:

Mr. Dent told his colleagues in a closed-door meeting on Tuesday that they
were risking the same protests from business leaders and other gay rights
supporters that Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana prompted in March when he signed
legislation allowing businesses to refuse services to same-sex couples. The
bill was quickly amended to outlaw discrimination based on sexual
orientation or gender identity.

--
Bobby G.