There’s a rule saying you can’t discriminate against customers on the basis of their gender or race.
You’re allowed to follow your religious beliefs up to the point where they violate someone’s civil rights. It’s kind of like the right to swing your arm ends before it reaches someone’s face.
Closing a bookstore on a particular day is completely non-discriminatory, because it does not treat any class of people differently than another.
Not offering a particular style of haircut is also non-discriminatory, because it’s based on nothing other than your skill set, kind of like not knowing how to fix a specific model of car.
Refusing to provide a service to someone solely upon the basis of their gender or race is discriminatory, because, well, that’s the exact definition of discrimination.
I’m a little confused by what some people have said above.
I’m not familiar with Canadian law. But is it true that a business can discriminate against the sexes but only if they apply for the right permit?
If so…then…the same people who support the current system, which allows some women’s only businesses, must also agree that there can, in theory, be some men’s only businesses, can’t they? They can also agree that there is no “thin end of the wedge”, can’t they?
That’s trivially simple: the religions that do not discriminate against particular protected classes of customer are allowed to follow their beliefs, religions that do discriminate in this manner are not. A Jew or a Christian who denies service to everyone outside of his business hours is not illegally discriminating against a protected class, a Muslim who denies service to women because they are women is illegally discriminating against a protected class is.
You do not have any moral or legal obligation to man your store 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year - you are allowed to have days off. You do have a legal and moral obligation to not refuse service to someone just because they are a woman, or gay, or black.
Read for context. I was replying to the specific claim made by Eliahna that it is at all unusual to force someone who performs act A to also perform act B.
It’s called an example. :rolleyes: Anyone entering business will perform actions that constrain their future behaviour. Entering a contract is one such action, but merely operating a business is another.
A guy walks in to woman’s waxing salon and demands to get his crotch waxed. Would anyone really say that one of the young female staff in attendance should be forced to do it, because they offer the same service to women?
Throw me in to the camp of “reasonable access” that says a business should be able to exclude whichever customer they want for whatever reason they want, as long as that customer can reasonably access whatever product/service they are trying to get elsewhere.
Self-regulation would quickly kick in. Just like when businesses started promoting “smoke free” environments, when there was absolutely no law requiring them to do so. Public opinion had shifted far enough against smoking that (eg) restaurants that didn’t offer non-smoking sections started losing patronage.
The OP’s question is specifically about rights, so for me, the question is pretty easy. I believe that only negative rights are legitimate rights–i.e., all true rights are some form of the right to be left alone. Any “right” that requires someone else to fulfill it is axiomatically nonsense to me, since that by definition creates a violation of someone else’s right to be left alone.
Additionally, positive rights are such an amorphous concept that they can only operate with arbitrary boundaries to force them into being practical. Does that woman have a “right” to get a haircut? Do I have to give her one? You? Only barbers do, I guess. What if she’s in a town with no barbers. Is her right to a haircut being violated? I have a “desert island” rule for rights: Could that right be violated on a desert island with only two people (two unskilled laymen) on it?
If so, it’s a right. If not, it’s a matter of social policy. Let the two guys work it out, and if they can’t, status quo inaction is the rule. So, the right to practice one’s religion (ignoring silly exceptions) would be a right. The “right” to cancer treatments would not be. If one of the poor bastards on the island gets cancer, his rights are not being violated because someone doesn’t give him treatment.
I fully understand and accept that social policy and law are constructed to make society operate efficiently, though, often in direct opposition to what I would consider someone’s real right. Such is the nature of society and community–all of us concede (voluntarily or not) some of our personal liberties in exchange for the benefit of the well-oiled machinery of a functioning society. IMO, we should be VERY careful how we strike that balance and should have a compelling reason to violate someone’s right to do what he wants (without actively harming someone else).
Our bias should be toward maintaining personal liberties, but that tendency can’t be absolute. So, as a matter of social policy (not rights!), in this instance I’d still side with the barber. She can get her haircut at the next barbershop. What harm does she have by not getting her haircut at that specific barbershop? If this becomes a widespread problem, we’ll deal with it as we do with other social challenges. In the U.S., that would be “majority rules” so long as that decision does not create any constitutional issues. But that’s a legal question.
Swap pharmacist for surgeon and the analogy is not only apt, but it has actually been tested in the courts. The pharmacist lost (he opposed abortion on religious grounds and illegally refused services). Same for a justice of the peace (he opposed same sex marriage on religious grounds and illegally refused services).
Must a licensed legal prostitute in the state of Nevada provide sexual service to persons of both genders? Is she just in the wrong business if she does not wish to offer services to members of one gender? Does it matter if the objection is based on religion or on a sense of sexual preference on the part of the service provider?
*** See I was scooped. Teach me to post before reading every post in a thread.
She may well have the law on her side.
She may well win.
Neither of those mean that she is right, except in a narrow, legal sense.
She is a self-serving, petty, vindictive twit, using a law meant to make society a better place to further a personal vendetta.
An archetype for precisely the sort of person that needs to live somewhere else.
A shining example of why legal approaches to fine-tuning society fail.
I’d give an eyetooth to be allowed to personally shun her. I suppose the alternative is for the barber and his muslim buddies to join whatever groups this woman hangs out with and, having overindulged in garlic, chilies and old goat meat, soil the ambience repeatedly wherever she goes, citing laws which mandate those groups to include the flatulently incontinent.
In fact, quite the opposite took place in the OP’s jurisdiciton. Legislation was the driving force behind going smoke free, with establishments being dragged into it kicking and screaming.