Do Businesses Have the Right to Refuse Service Based on Moral/Religious Objections?

[betenoire]

Toughy,

I gotta give you mad props for answering. Every other person who was opposed to LGBT folks becoming a protect class who I asked if they thought there should be no protected classes refused to answer. (Not sure why?)

That's what I like about you. Unafraid to say something that could potentially be unpopular or misunderstood takes guts. I like guts. I like your guts.

I'm not going to lie, I don't know a whole hell of a lot about the aftermath of the Civil Rights Act. Because I'm not American, I'm young enough that I wasn't alive when it happened, and because I'm White. Fuck, I'll own that. I've got that very White tendency to not know how things actually are - I try, but when it boils down to it I'm still pretty ignorant.

But, you know, not so ignorant that I don't get that there was backlash and is backlash. I also get that if "sexual orientation" becomes a protected class that there will be backlash to that too - but baby the times are a changin' and I want to believe that the immediate ugly wouldn't be as bad now as it was then.

And to me backlash (or the potential that there will be backlash) isn't reason enough to not want protection for my queer friends in the US.

In Canada sexual orientation was added to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1995, and in 96 we were added to the Human Rights Act. The 90s were wicked-heavy on culture wars issues (which I guess was our backlash) but I can't see any evidence that becoming protected has harmed my community in any way.