Cecilie1200
Diamond Member
Unless your religion is into human sacrifice, I have trouble coming up with any "compelling government interest" that overrides the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion. Maybe that's just me.
If you run a store where you just sell point of sale items, and you let people on the premises, I can see they can tell you you have to serve or sell to people and can't refuse based on race, sex, orientation, etc. Selling a pack of gum or a pre-made cupcake does not imply endorsement as a custom made item does.
Same goes with hotels, if you offer rooms to people off the Street, you offer rooms to anyone off the street who has the $$.
I think you SHOULD do business with everyone on an equal basis in point-of-sale. I don't necessarily think that equates to "the government should force you to". I think people also have the right to be ignorant, short-sighted assholes if that's what they want to do (I'd be obliged if people would stop feeling the necessity of exercising this right quite so much). Personally, I don't want to give my money to someone who hates me, just because the government is forcing them to lie about it. I'd rather they be honest, I know who they are, and then I take my money to someone who's doing business with me because he WANTS to do so.
I also wouldn't deny service on the basis they want to. My concern is where to draw the line. I don't see contracted services that are non-timely, easily replaceable and non nessasary as Public Accommodations.
I can see the government's interest in compelling equal treatment at the countertop and the hotel room, but that's about it.
For some people, it's not about the transaction, it's about forcing acceptance, not tolerance.
I define public accommodation as "things that are funded by public money (taxes)". If the government is not actually funding it and running it, I have very hard limits to how much business I think the government has telling those who DO fund and run it how to do so.
I see no compelling government interest whatsoever at the countertop or in the hotel room, and I'd be curious to have you tell me what you think that is.
That is a public authority, commons, agency, or space. A public accomodation is a business that opens itself to the public for commerce.
For a hotel room, if a person is travelling, them being denied can be seen as a harm. it can be a time sensitive, not easily replaceable service (only hotel for 20 miles)
For a countertop transaction to me it's that the burden on the person selling the item's religious freedom isn't there compared to say a SSM wedding and having to make a custom cake. When you invite the public on your property to do commerce, the government can regulate that commerce, to a point.
I understand the government defines it that way. I disagree with them. And either way, I still disagree that the government has a compelling interest to force businesses to serve everyone.
I can marginally see an area of concern for the government in your scenario with the hotel, assuming that there is, in fact, a hotel situated like that which would refuse to serve certain segments of the population for whatever reason. I still don't necessarily agree that the solution is for the government, which hasn't contributed a damned thing to the whole "Hey, let's open a hotel out in the middle of nowhere" concept, to barge in and start issuing orders and directives.
The government can regulate commerce up to a point, but we disagree where that point is. I think, for example, that the local government has every right to inspect your business on a regular basis to make sure your restaurant isn't giving people food poisoning or your stock room doesn't have black mold growing in it, or the building isn't a fire hazard, for example. I simply don't extend it as far as "We're going to tell you who to do business with."