Kondor3
Cafeteria Centrist
- Jul 29, 2009
- 33,966
- 9,930
"...It’s worth repeating that the way the law is structured it would be perfectly legal for the black photographer to meet with the client to discuss the contract and the Klan member to tell him to fuck off because he hates blacks and does not think they are intelligent enough to operate the camera and yet if the black photographer said that he is not going to take pictures of a clan rally that wants to see him dead it would be illegal.
This is why I don’t like laws structured in this manner. Freedom should be a 2 way street."
Yes, I agree that most such laws leave the Service Provider an Escape Hatch (an ability to refuse service), to be used as legitimately needed (fortunately)...
However...
In circumstance wherein we are talking about (1) a Wedding [ostensibly non-threatening] and (2) no hostility is manifested during the course of inquiry or negotiations, then...
In at least some settings and jurisdictions, I am guessing that The Law will not allow the Service Provider to USE the Escape Hatch, when there is no legitimate (safety, business detriment, etc.) reason to do so...
Nor, under such non-threatening circumstances, SHOULD the Service Provider be able to use that Escape Hatch...
At least not while OTHERS are FORCED by law to provide service to those whom THEY don't approve-of...
Else prove The Law to be hypocritically selective, as we discussed earlier here...
So-called 'bigots' or other 'disapproving types' are not the ONLY ones required to abide by Equal Access to Services kind of laws...
Even members of so-called 'protected classes' need to be held to the same standards that the rest of the population operates under, when it is THEY who are providing the Service...
And, of course, sometimes, even the best-intentioned Equal Access type of Laws can be spun in such a way so as to have consequences that were not intended when the Laws were first put into force...
It's that whole Goose-and-Gander thing that the OP seems to have had in mind, in launching this thread in the first place...
From that perspective - exercising our brains and putting scenarios on the table and getting folks to own-up to the need for consistency (even when they resist, but then come to the realization that fairness and equal access has its own [worthwhile] price, sometimes)...
The OP and thread were successful, after all...
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