We’re not “protecting” it by just leaving it alone. And the idea that you’re going to sue a photographer because you don’t like the pictures he takes is kind of ridiculous. And there are plenty of things that we might think are no value to society, but we tolerate them because people should be free to think what they want.
Of course you’re protecting it. By saying “you shouldn’t be able to sue a shop for being run along racist standards”, you are tacitly saying “racism is valid and ok”.
No, you are not saying it is OK. You are saying that it isn’t illegal. There are lots of things that society doesn’t think is “OK” but that are still legal.
Are we saying racism is “valid and OK” by allowing someone to hold a KKK rally? If you don’t agree that we should ban KKK rallies, then you are “protecting” racism. Would you support banning KKK rallies? If not, why not? Wouldn’t that help in eliminating racism?
I’m absolutely down with banning the KKK. Illinois Nazis, too.
It kinda is. Just like it’s valid an okay to be an asshole. And if a photographer is so offended by X that he wants to pass on the job, and have the money go to someone else, that seems to be within his rights. And to reiterate what others have alluded to, why the hell wold you want a photographer who doesn’t like your even to shoot it?
OK. I think that puts in completely different spaces then.
But let’s dig a little deeper. Are you OK banning KKK rallies without amending the constitution? That is, do you think the 1st amendment doesn’t apply to KKK rallies?
@John Mace: I don’t care to enter into a US-centric legal debate with you. Not my branch, and absolutely not my interest.
[QUOTE=magellan01]
It kinda is. Just like it’s valid an okay to be an asshole. And if a photographer is so offended by X that he wants to pass on the job, and have the money go to someone else, that seems to be within his rights.
[/QUOTE]
The problem is that, by that same rationale, it’d be perfectly OK for segregation to happen again. Or sexual harassment in the workplace, for that matter - hey, offenderati bitches can find another job, right ? What’s that ? Every male employer or supervisor in town does it ? Oh, well. I’m sure it’ll sort itself out 
The invisible hand of the free market doesn’t sort shit out. Never has. That’s why we have laws and regulations in the first place. If you have any illusions left on the subject, I’d refer you to your nearest economic crisis.
No worries. I didn’t know you were not an American.
I do know that other countries, like France and Germany, do not have the same 1st amendment guarantees that the US does.
Well, I’m French, so there’s that :). But honestly, if “yelling fire in a theater” isn’t protected by the First, I fail to understand why “hang all niggers” should or would be 
Well, it depends. The former is not political speech. The latter might be political speech, depending on the context. “Hang all niggers” isn’t afforded absolute protection, in the way that “Keep the White race pure” is. Don’t imagine that every KKK rally is full of shouts to literally kill blacks. In fact, a more realistic theme would “simply” be to advocate for Segregation, to expound on the idea that whites are genetically, culturally, and otherwise superior to blacks, and that the mixing of the races is either bad, against God’s will, or the end of civilization as we know it.
Think, not do. What you think is irrelevant, what you do matters. They can think whatever they want, when they start doing things, like refusing service, they are causing a problem.
The other aspect of this is, how much of your life are you willing to give over to those who hate you?
Wedding photographer refuses your business. It’s OK because you don’t want a bigot to take your picture
Restaurant refuses to serve you. It’s OK because they would have spit in my food anyway.
Movie theater refuses to seat you, it’s OK because I’d get popcorn dumped on my head by the other moviegoers.
Landlord refuses to rent to you. It’s OK because they’d be a bad landlord anyway
Homeowner refuses to sell to you. It’s OK because they’d probably trash the house on the way out, and their neighbors would hate me too.
Business refuses to hire you. It’s OK because I’d never get a raise or advancement working for a bigot.
You want to talk freedom? At what point does the person in question get to decide for themselves where they can work, live, eat and play, rather than picking and choosing from what the bigots are letting them have?
I’ll point out that most anti-discrimination laws are geared toward businesses which are using substantial public resources. A wedding photographer isn’t likely to do so as much. However, I could think of a case where wedding photographs are taken in public parks. I’d like to see photographers who discriminate against gay marriages be unable to use the public parks for that purpose. But it would be difficult to create and enforce a law like that. Unlike a public restaurant which could clearly be seen to be denying access to some people while there were open tables, a wedding photographer could simply tell potential customers they don’t like that they will be on vacation the day of the wedding.
To address the OP directly, market forces are insufficient to ensure non-discrimination. Nothing is sufficient. But the aim is not eliminate all discrimination through law, but to prevent the kind of institutional discrimination that has existed in the past.
At the point where they own the resources of the business, that’s when.
You go from people being able to hold asshole views to segregation and making sexual harassment okay. That’s some mighty fine trapeze work.
Funny definition of freedom you’ve got there.
He didn’t. In the context of the thread, we’re not talking about holding asshole views, but about discriminating along those lines. It’s always been an iffy proposition that the Civil Rights Act prevents some forms of private discrimination but not others.
That said, it’s important to note that the case referenced in the OP was based on state constitutional law and not the federal constitution.
Is that your rebuttal?
At some point, this analogy will be too strained to bear the considerable weight you expect of it.
And if all else was equal, then this would be a remarkable success for the market. But in fact there was considerable government intervention. So for all we know, the market for racism is the same now, it’s just illegal. Government interference in markets and all that.
Which would suggest, to me, that fighting discrimination through government forces is a good idea indeed.
How am I ? You specifically agreed that people had to some extent the “right to be jerks”, and specifically to refuse service to homosexuals. What’s the difference with having the right to hang a sign saying “no coloureds allowed” ? And if people do in fact have that right, how does segregation not necessarily follow in majorly racist places ?
Same with sexual harassment. The laws regulating what employers can and can’t do did not spring forth from the ether. How would “the free market” regulate a city, a county, a state where a majority of business owners were chauvinist pigs ? It didn’t in the past. That’s why we made laws. And since people still often fall afoul of the laws, I daresay chauvinist piggism is not exactly a thing of the past, either.
Now, I can agree with **John Mace **and you that there’s a fine line to tread between “you can’t think that”, “you can’t say that”, “you can’t tell others to do that” and “you can’t do that”.
But the cases discussed in the OP, and non-discrimination in general, falls squarely into “you can’t do that” territory. Which we don’t really have a problem legislating - you can’t build a house that’s not up to building codes or run a business that’s not OSHA compliant (or whatever regulations apply or not to this or that business - you know what I mean, yes ?), you can’t drive on the left even to make a political point, you can’t pinch the tits of the redhead intern from Accounts Receivable and you can’t hang a sign on the door of your restaurant that says “no blacks allowed”. Why would “no homos” be any different ? Why should we “let the free market sort it out” in this case when we do in none of the others, exactly ?
Just because something works, doesn’t mean it’s good. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying about means and the ends, right?