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Legal Discrimination against Trump supporters

MrWonka

MrWonka

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Libertarian - Left
http://thehill.com/homenews/state-w...a-bar-was-allowed-to-kick-out-trump-supporter

I am a bit surprised by this. Seems like it might be going too far. I could maybe see how the Bar would be within it's right to ask the man to take off his hat, but it seems like you'd have to argue that the hat could be considered disparaging to others. I mean obviously the hat is, but I'm not sure a court of law could or should rule that way at present time. If it was a hat with a swastika on it, that would be obvious, and in the future I expect this slogan to be considered a symbol of hate right up there with the swastika, but right now it's just the slogan of the current president.

Either way, I don't think the bar should have been able to kick the guy out or refuse service entirely so long as he was willing to remove the hat while inside. The article didn't say anything about that.

Would the bar have to have a general policy against any political apparel or could it selectively choose a side?
 
Political affiliation isn't protected. So it falls under the right to refuse service to anyone.
 
MrWonka said:
http://thehill.com/homenews/state-w...a-bar-was-allowed-to-kick-out-trump-supporter

I am a bit surprised by this. Seems like it might be going too far. I could maybe see how the Bar would be within it's right to ask the man to take off his hat, but it seems like you'd have to argue that the hat could be considered disparaging to others. I mean obviously the hat is, but I'm not sure a court of law could or should rule that way at present time. If it was a hat with a swastika on it, that would be obvious, and in the future I expect this slogan to be considered a symbol of hate right up there with the swastika, but right now it's just the slogan of the current president.

Either way, I don't think the bar should have been able to kick the guy out or refuse service entirely so long as he was willing to remove the hat while inside. The article didn't say anything about that.

Would the bar have to have a general policy against any political apparel or could it selectively choose a side?
Click to expand...

A thread was already started regarding this very subject. But from my perspective, I think this is the correct decision, because I believe a business owner should have the right to put any conditions on his/her serve that he/she wishes and to refuse service to absolutely anyone for any reason whatsoever (or no reason, because in my view, it should not be the government's business to ask). If a person does not want to serve Trump supporters, or Hillary Supporters, or Bernie Sanders supporters, or whoever, I believe that is their absolute right.
 
MrWonka said:
http://thehill.com/homenews/state-w...a-bar-was-allowed-to-kick-out-trump-supporter

I am a bit surprised by this. Seems like it might be going too far. I could maybe see how the Bar would be within it's right to ask the man to take off his hat, but it seems like you'd have to argue that the hat could be considered disparaging to others. I mean obviously the hat is, but I'm not sure a court of law could or should rule that way at present time. If it was a hat with a swastika on it, that would be obvious, and in the future I expect this slogan to be considered a symbol of hate right up there with the swastika, but right now it's just the slogan of the current president.

Either way, I don't think the bar should have been able to kick the guy out or refuse service entirely so long as he was willing to remove the hat while inside. The article didn't say anything about that.

Would the bar have to have a general policy against any political apparel or could it selectively choose a side?
Click to expand...

They can discriminate for any reason other than for being in a protected class. It was the right ruling based on current law.
 
ThoughtEx. said:
Political affiliation isn't protected. So it falls under the right to refuse service to anyone.
Click to expand...

So could you be fired from your job if your boss saw that you had a Hillary 2016 bumper sticker on your car in the parking lot?
 
Felis Leo said:
I believe a business owner should have the right to put any conditions on his/her serve that he/she wishes and to refuse service to absolutely anyone for any reason whatsoever
Click to expand...

So if all the hospitals and doctors in a town are Christian, they're allowed to just let an Atheist or an Arab man with a turban on his head bleed to death? You don't see that as a potential problem?
 
MrWonka said:
So could you be fired from your job if your boss saw that you had a Hillary 2016 bumper sticker on your car in the parking lot?
Click to expand...

Ask Lynne Gobbell, she was fired by a Bush supporter for having a Kerry sticker on her car.
Lynne Gobbell was fired because her boss didn't like the bumper sticker on her car.

During the 2004 presidential election, Gobbell put a "Kerry for President" sticker on her bumper. When her boss saw it, he said Gobbell could "either work for John Kerry or work for me." Gobbell refused to take the sticker off her car and was immediately fired.
Click to expand...
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123024596
 
MrWonka said:
So if all the hospitals and doctors in a town are Christian, they're allowed to just let an Atheist or an Arab man with a turban on his head bleed to death? You don't see that as a potential problem?
Click to expand...

His life philosophy didn't make it that far. He just likes simple absolutes he can fit in one sentence. What a nightmare country we'd be living in if it was as he wants.
 
MrWonka said:
So could you be fired from your job if your boss saw that you had a Hillary 2016 bumper sticker on your car in the parking lot?
Click to expand...

Depends on the job, and where I live. In government jobs, affiliation is constitutionally protected. Certain state and Municipal governments also bar private employees from firing someone based on political affiliation.

But for the most part, yeah, probably could be fired for that. Don't like it? Support Unions.

Besides employment is slightly different than being served in a business. Either way, I don't give two ****s if a Trump supporter denys a democrat, or vice versa. Because those are choices the individual made. Being gay, or black, or Jewish isn't a choice. Which is why they are protected from discrimination.
 
MrWonka said:
So if all the hospitals and doctors in a town are Christian, they're allowed to just let an Atheist or an Arab man with a turban on his head bleed to death? You don't see that as a potential problem?
Click to expand...

Those two things are related to race and religion and are protected classes. Not political affiliations.
 
MrWonka said:
So if all the hospitals and doctors in a town are Christian, they're allowed to just let an Atheist or an Arab man with a turban on his head bleed to death? You don't see that as a potential problem?
Click to expand...

No, because religion, like sex, race, national origin, are protected classes under the Civil Rights Act, and discriminating against them in places of public accommodation is illegal in every state. In some states, sexual orientation is also a protected class. There is no protected class for political beliefs. So the bar could toss a bunch of Nazis, or the local Democratic Socialists of America meeting without consequence.
 
ThoughtEx. said:
Those two things are related to race and religion and are protected classes. Not political affiliations.
Click to expand...

I was referring more to the desired laws or lack thereof which that specific poster was advocating for.
 
Felis Leo said:
I believe a business owner should have the right to put any conditions on his/her serve that he/she wishes and to refuse service to absolutely anyone for any reason whatsoever
Click to expand...

I may have asked before, but just out of curiosity... are you by chance a white Christian heterosexual male?
 
MrWonka said:
So if all the hospitals and doctors in a town are Christian, they're allowed to just let an Atheist or an Arab man with a turban on his head bleed to death? You don't see that as a potential problem?
Click to expand...

Well, being an atheist, you have given me a difficult situation. But my answer would have to be: it depends. If it is a public hospital, no. No publicly-owned or publicly-subsidized businesses or agencies should not be allowed to discriminate because, in my view, they are owned and supported by the public as a whole, and thus they must not be allowed to discriminate in their service to any member of the public on the basis of their religious/racial/ethnic/political identity. But with privately-run and funded hospitals or organizations, I do not think they should be forced by the government to provide medical services to people they do not wish to provide services to. I realize that I may be in the minority in this view, but I do not believe the government should be empowered to force private persons or businesses to provide goods and services to people they do not wish to provide to, even under the most dire or exigent of circumstances.

And this is not because I support bigotry by businesses. I just do not believe the Federal government (or state or local governments for that matter) should have that degree of power over the lives and livelihoods of its citizens.
 
MrWonka said:
I may have asked before, but just out of curiosity... are you by chance a white Christian heterosexual male?
Click to expand...

No. I am a somewhat light-skinned Iranian-American Baha'i-turned-atheist heterosexual male. But I would like to think my answer would be the same whether I was of purely European-caucasian, black, or East-Asian descent. Or even if I was gay rather than straight.
 
Felis Leo said:
Well, being an atheist, you have given me a difficult situation. But my answer would have to be: it depends. If it is a public hospital, no. No publicly-owned or publicly-subsidized businesses or agencies should not be allowed to discriminate because, in my view, they are owned and supported by the public as a whole, and thus they must not be allowed to discriminate in their service to any member of the public on the basis of their religious/racial/ethnic/political identity. But with privately-run and funded hospitals or organizations, I do not think they should be forced by the government to provide medical services to people they do not wish to provide services to. I realize that I may be in the minority in this view, but I do not believe the government should be empowered to force private persons or businesses to provide goods and services to people they do not wish to provide to, even under the most dire or exigent of circumstances.

And this is not because I support bigotry by businesses. I just do not believe the Federal government (or state or local governments for that matter) should have that degree of power over the lives and livelihoods of its citizens.
Click to expand...

The good thing, I guess, is these totally privately funded and non-publicly subsidized hospitals likely do not exist in this country. I'm guessing all of them accept Medicare and Medicaid, for starters, and every doctor trained in the United States went to a medical school subsidized by Medicare, and likely a slew of other government subsidies, including grants for medical research, NIH grants, state funding for all public colleges, government-subsidized student loans, scholarships, fellowships, etc. as did the college they attended in undergrad in nearly every case if not every one. Or they enjoyed tax exempt status, which is another government subsidy.

Kind of the point is that we ALL enjoy benefits provided by government, so this idea that really any business out there can exist on a "private" island unaffected by the federal, state and local government and deriving no important benefits from those governments is delusional, IMO.
 
Felis Leo said:
No. I am a somewhat light-skinned Iranian-American Baha'i-turned-atheist heterosexual male. But I would like to think my answer would be the same whether I was of purely European-caucasian, black, or East-Asian descent. Or even if I was gay rather than straight.
Click to expand...

The point of the question is most of us doubt that this libertarian philosophy would survive an encounter with you or a family member being left to die because of your Iranian heritage, for example. So the assumption (conscious or unconscious) must be either 1) discrimination won't happen to me or someone I care about, or 2) I'll be smart enough to find a place that will treat my heart attack in time to save me, as opposed to that place that will let me die because of irrational prejudices.
 
MrWonka said:
http://thehill.com/homenews/state-w...a-bar-was-allowed-to-kick-out-trump-supporter

I am a bit surprised by this. Seems like it might be going too far. I could maybe see how the Bar would be within it's right to ask the man to take off his hat, but it seems like you'd have to argue that the hat could be considered disparaging to others. I mean obviously the hat is, but I'm not sure a court of law could or should rule that way at present time. If it was a hat with a swastika on it, that would be obvious, and in the future I expect this slogan to be considered a symbol of hate right up there with the swastika, but right now it's just the slogan of the current president.

Either way, I don't think the bar should have been able to kick the guy out or refuse service entirely so long as he was willing to remove the hat while inside. The article didn't say anything about that.

Would the bar have to have a general policy against any political apparel or could it selectively choose a side?
Click to expand...

I'm sure a bar could indeed have a policy against political apparel and that a bar could choose sides. Unless an individual falls into the so called protected class or group and private business can pick and choose their customers or whom they will serve. Trump supporters do not fall into the protected class or group, so it is perfectly okay and legal to discriminate against them based on political beliefs only.

Now if the man had been a woman, gender bias. If he had been black, racial discrimination, gay, gay discrimination etc. I would imagine if the guy had a Hillary hat on and was asked to leave, holy hell on this site would have broke loose. But the bottom line is the bar owner was perfectly within his rights to deny service ask the guy to leave. I've seen where someone wearing a Miami sweatshirt was asked to leave in Athens, home of the Georgia Bulldogs. That guy didn't fall into the protected class or group either.
 
MrWonka said:
So could you be fired from your job if your boss saw that you had a Hillary 2016 bumper sticker on your car in the parking lot?
Click to expand...

Funny you mention that. Many of our factory workers had "Obama 2008" bumper stickers on their cars in our parking lot. Yeah. I get it. Screw with the bosses.

It was not without irony that during the "great recession" all those guys were laid off, and we sold the company. It was bitter sweet. The new company moved operations to LA. I presume the empty building is still there growing cobwebs.
 
Felis Leo said:
No. I am a somewhat light-skinned Iranian-American Baha'i-turned-atheist heterosexual male. But I would like to think my answer would be the same whether
Click to expand...

I hate to burst your bubble, but it is highly unlikely you'd even be able to find a job in the United States or a Supermarket to buy groceries at if these laws against discrimination didn't exist in this country.
 
Skeptic Bob said:
They can discriminate for any reason other than for being in a protected class. It was the right ruling based on current law.
Click to expand...

Not True all the time...You can discriminate on age with care insurance and others instances... and gender. You can discriminate against white people on scholarships for school to having them only available to a certain race.
 
Felis Leo said:
If it is a public hospital, no.
Click to expand...
You do realize that if conservatives had their way there would be no such thing as a public hospital right?

Felis Leo said:
No publicly-owned or publicly-subsidized businesses or agencies should not be allowed to discriminate because, in my view, they are owned and supported by the public as a whole,
Click to expand...
Who built the roads that carry patients to these privately owned hospitals? Who runs the ambulance services that deliver patients to these hospitals? Who runs the police departments and fire departments that would save these hospitals if they were under attack by terrorists or just generally on fire? Who are even the patients of these hospitals? Aren't they members of the public?

There is no such thing as a privately owned business that is not in some way shape or form supported by the public.

Here's a good question for you... If you own a business that discriminates against black people, atheists, Arabs, gays, can we require you to put a sign outside of your business alerting the public that the owner is a bigot? As a white male, I know that these businesses would serve me, but I don't want to give them my business to punish them for their intolerance. Should I be allowed to know that?

Felis Leo said:
I just do not believe the Federal government (or state or local governments for that matter) should have that degree of power over the lives and livelihoods of its citizens.
Click to expand...

But private businesses which are owned almost exclusively by white Christian men, particularly in many rural areas, should have that degree of power?
 
I remember that lady (Juli Briskman, 50) riding a bicycle in Washington was fired for giving Trumps motorcade the "salute".

45CD3C9E00000578-0-image-a-74_1509304716754.jpg


Woman Fired For Flipping Off Donald Trump’s Motorcade

The woman has filed a wrongful termination suit against her employer (Akima LLC) who said (1) she violated the company social media policy and (2) they feared Trump administration retribution.
 
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