While I’ve read through the thread I do think it worth mentioning now that there hasn’t been anything substantively suggesting that simply writing “20% off if you present your church bulletin” on a board in a restaurant is illegal. I think there is a good argument that actually enforcing such a policy would be illegal. Even if the practice of enforcing that policy rigorously is illegal, that isn’t necessarily indicative that the sign itself is illegal.
When it comes to a public accommodation, the interest of government is insuring that members of a protected class can have “full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, and privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin.” As long as someone can still fully enjoy all of those things regardless of what is written up on the discount board then is such signage as we’re talking about in this thread going to be held by the SCOTUS to violate the Civil Rights Act? I think such a policy could be, but I’m interested in just strictly the sign. Let’s imagine a scenario in which such a sign is posted but the business has a policy of also giving the discount to anyone who asks for it.
So essentially we’re talking about a free 20% discount on certain days that is specifically advertised to the religious but not exclusively enjoyed by them. I think it becomes a question of what sort of advertisement rights do public accommodations have. Can I go full bore with massive banners saying “Jesus Lovers Welcome Here!” and have an all out advertising campaign enticing the religious to come to my store, as long as in no way are my accommodations offered in any reduced or lesser fashion to people of all religious beliefs?
I signed into this thread in the hopes of learning something new about the law and religion where it concerns restaurants, not to discus the theoretically bad behavior of fictional people. I’m unsubscribing from this thread.
As for what you can legally do, I’m not qualified to say. As for what you should be able to do (since we are in IMHO), IMHO it’s totally okay to advertise that you welcome and encourage any particular group of people, provided you’re really doing so to welcome and encourage them, and not to backhandedly exclude or discourage someone else.
But if you want to go into the realm of what you should be able to do, then you should be able to offer discounts to anyone you want, for any reason that you want, at any time that you want, whether or not someone is some non-free protected class. After all, it’s your property, your business, and your decision as to whom you want to serve and how much you want to charge.
So you, and every other business, should be able to keep the black people away from your lunch counter, exclude them from your motels, etc.?
Also, an interesting bit about signage would mean a business can have signs up that say “whites only” so long as they don’t enforce it and they permit non-whites to come in upon request?
I started another thread, inspired by this one, about discriminatory dating websites, and raised this exact question. Can signs in and of themselves be discriminatory even if their discriminatory messages are not actually enforced?
Well, yeah. Or white people for that matter. Why not? It’s a basic human right enter into mutually-acceptable agreements for trade (a right that governments suppress). And if you’re thinking about the Jim Crow south, consider that the Jim Crow laws mandated segregation, whereas that wasn’t the case in the north. No one has a right to someone else’s property. In the end, market forces will mostly achieve the goal of equal access. Requiring it via law is violence.
Oh, are we done talking about what the law actually is and have now proceeded to the “Libertarianism: Yea or Nay” stage of the debate? Let me know, because if so, I’d like to take this thread off my subscription list. Thanks!
Imagine that IHOP switches tactics: they buy advertising in local church bulletins, with the ad being a clip-out coupon that reads, “Bring this coupon to IHOP and get 20% off!”
How, if at all, does this change the analysis?
Suppose they advertise in the weekly Catholic diocesan newspaper instead?
I think there’s a difference between attending a service in order to get a bulletin, and professing faith in a church or tradition. I’ve never seen a service where you have to do anything except walk in the door to get a bulletin. No confession of faith, no “converting” to their church, no worthiness and intentions interview with the pastor, nothing.
I’m not Catholic, but I’ve been to a Catholic Mass and they gave me a bulletin just like everyone else. Nobody asked if I was Catholic, quizzed me on doctrine, or asked me to genuflect or make the sign of the cross to get the bulletin.
There’s plenty of effort by Evangelicals to convince people to go to services AT ALL, so the fact that one went and sat is quite possibly “enough” for whoever thought of the promotion.