Does a business owner have the right to refuse service to someone based on a difference in beliefs, or is such a refusal morally wrong, discriminatory, and unconstitutional?
Current Events
In June, conservatives jumped for joy when a bakery refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. However, these same conservatives were up in arms over the weekend when a restaurant refused to serve a Donald Trump employee. How is a business owner right to refuse service to a gay couple because it goes against their “religious” beliefs, but wrong to refuse service to a Trump employee because it goes against their “political” beliefs?
Last month, the Supreme Court ruled that the Masterpiece Cakeshop in Denver had the right to deny service to a gay couple — a ruling the Trump White House, conservatives, and evangelicals all trumpeted and celebrated as a moral victory.
“This cake is a specific cake, a wedding cake is an inherently religious event and the cake is definitely a specific message,” business owner Jack Phillips explained in his objection to making the wedding cake for the same-sex couple. “Cakes have a message and this is one I can’t create.”
However, this past weekend, Donald Trump and his followers threw a hissy fit when White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave the Red Hen Restaurant near Washington because of her affiliation with Trump and his political beliefs.
“I explained that the restaurant has certain standards that I feel it has to uphold, such as honesty, and compassion, and cooperation,” business owner Stephanie Wilkinson recalled in her confrontation with Sanders. “I said, ‘I’d like to ask you to leave.'”
Since then, “The Donald” and his “Trumpies” have taken to social media to trash the restaurant business owner for daring to dismiss a Donald Trump appointee.
“It’s sick. It’s desperately sick,” Sanders’ father, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said while calling the business owner a bigot. “And, there’s all these people who are trying to say, ‘Oh, well, they deserve it.’ Nobody deserves to be treated like this,” he continued.
“The Red Hen Restaurant should focus more on cleaning its filthy canopies, doors and windows rather than refusing to serve a fine person like Sarah Huckabee Sanders,” Trump tweeted on Monday.
The Red Hen Restaurant should focus more on cleaning its filthy canopies, doors and windows (badly needs a paint job) rather than refusing to serve a fine person like Sarah Huckabee Sanders. I always had a rule, if a restaurant is dirty on the outside, it is dirty on the inside!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 25, 2018
Current Events
Although Trump is notorious for always wanting to have his cake and eat it too, his mixed message has sparked an interesting debate. How can Trump applaud a business owner for denying to serve a gay couple, but criticize a business owner for denying to serve a Trump employee?
More importantly, should businesses be allowed to refuse to serve anyone they don’t agree with or like, or is such a practice teetering toward a slippery slope of bigotry and discrimination? If gays can be legally turned away, how far behind are Blacks and Hispanics?
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How is a business owner right to refuse service to a gay couple because it goes against their “religious” beliefs, but wrong to refuse service to a Trump employee because it goes against their “political” beliefs? […] -DJ
These incidents, IMO, are pretty much the same. But then we know that Trump and his supporters are nothing if not Notorious. Hypocrites.
Trump is also quite cynical in all this because he really couldn’t give a fig about how Sanders, or anyone else for that matter is treated…Ever. But he seized on the opportunity, yet again, to play the role of a “Bull Connor”-ish like character because he knows it feeds his supporters the “red meat” they constantly crave, incites them further uncivil and hateful acts -and most of all..it serves Trump, and only Trump, very well. That said.