Glad to help. Let’s look at it from a few other ways. Imagine that IHOP advertised in a specific church bulletin with a coupon that read “bring this in and get 10% off your meal”. That would be cool, right? It’s an advertisement just like any other out there.
What if, instead, a specific church had a deal worked out with a nearby Denny’s that all its members got 10% off their meals. That too wouldn’t be illegal.
Age is a protected class too, yet it’s perfectly fine for that Denny’s to say “bring in your AARP card for an additional discount.” You can’t get one unless you’re 50 or older. And unlike the Church bulletin examples, you can’t be a 21 year old faking your way with a senior citizen card. Doesn’t that discriminate against a good chunk of the population?
But if the example were something like “tell your server that Christ is your lord and savior and get a free pie with your meal” that would be a cause for concern.
It’s kinda late and I have a 5 month old who’s fussing so I’m really not entirely sure how much sense I’m making right now. So I think I’ll just stop
I don’t see what’s to stop a person from making their own Church of Cthullu Bulletins/Program and presenting that to your hostess… Maybe leave a stack by the counter or mixed in with the free papers in the machine or display.
It would be very short sighted of a church to do so, and very much against their mission, but can’t say it wouldn’t happen on occasion. A church, by divine order, has to get the word out, having nonbelievers pick up bulletins, even if the non-believer has no intentions of reading it at the time of getting it, may look at it while it is in his/her possession, and God may get a message through at that time.
Which is what I feel is the gist of the OP’s objection, that is it a use of the non-religious world commercial system by God to get His word out through the religious world system. Or to put it another way God is even using capitalism and arguably greed to spread His message.
No, this is clearly illegal. You can’t discriminate based on religion even if you try to do it indirectly. To take your example to the extreme, suppose a restaurant had pancakes for $1,000,003.99 and offered a $1,000,000 discount to members of a specific church. Obviously no one is going to drop a million bucks on four dollar pancakes. The result is essentially no different from the restaurant having a rule saying “X church members only”.
That’s the issue. When you are talking about a protected class (race, gender, religion, and a couple others) you can’t have a policy that in effect discriminates or prefers based on that class. So yes, offering a discount based on a church bulletin is clearly illegal because it gives a preference to members of churches. So are mother’s day promotions. The text is:
I don’t not have an equal advantage to the church members because I have to go out of my way to get a bulletin, while church members don’t.
The general anti-discrimination law, the Civil Rights act of 1964, applies only to race, color, religion, and national origin. Age is a protected class from other laws, mostly related to employment and housing. However, there is no general law against discriminating based on age. I can have a policy saying “we don’t serve grannies” as long as I don’t discriminate against grandma while hiring.
If you want a case, go and find one. I cited the law and it’s a clear violation. You can’t offer a discount to a specific church because it offers an advantage to a certain religion. If I am not a member of that church, I do not get that discount. In other words, I do not have the full enjoyment of the advantages the establishment offers based on my religion.
Has anyone here, or anyone citable online, ever actually failed to receive such a discount?
My experience has followed this understanding. I attend minor league games in different places, and this is a common promotion. The last time I saw it, I came without a bulletin (was going anyway that day). I could see that the promo was working for the team–there was a good crowd, and several families and groups all with bulletins visibly in hand. Somebody handed me an extra one as I approached the gate. Even that was unnecessary; there was a stack on the counter (though left by the team or by a church, I don’t know). And the ticket-seller was barely lifting her eyes toward the papers in hand, anyway. Everybody got the discount.
The point is, if you’ve showed up, the promotion has done what it was intended to do. They don’t actually care if you’ve ever been inside a church.
If someone wants to question promotions for protected classes, the one to look at is “ladies’ nights” at bars and nightclubs, which have the dual promotional purpose of luring women (for the free or discounted door or drinks) and luring men (for the women). In that case, I think they actually do care if you’re a woman or not.
Of course, men who undertake such efforts often aren’t appreciated by either women or other men, but they’ve been successful in a few states.
Looking past the fact that the ruling is based upon Maryland law and not federal law, the principle is the same.
This takes me back to what I was saying earlier about discriminatory effect, regardless of intent, and the fact that, in effect, the discount offers a benefit to church-goers over non-church-goers.
The argument I am having difficulty with is that there is no discrimination because everyone, religious or not, has an equal opportunity to go to a church to pick up a bulletin, the same way everyone has an equal opportunity to go to a newspaper stand to get a coupon out of the newspaper.
If the discount required a newspaper coupon, then the effect of the offered discount would be to favor those with a subscription to the newspaper or to favor those who would be at or near the newspaper stand anyway because those people would bear little additional cost to acquire the coupon relative to those who had to go out of their way just to get the coupon.
An offered discount that has a discriminatory effect based upon ease of access to a newspaper is not barred by law. An offered discount that has a discriminatory effect based upon ease of access to a church is barred by law because it favors the church-goer over the non-church-goer (i.e., the devout religious over the non-devout or non-religious).
I don’t see the NAACP and analogous because NAACP membership is open to everyone and NAACP is not a race based organization. It’s an anti-race-based-discrimination organization. In that sense, NAACP is no different any other secular nonprofit or any other corporation. The fact that it’s the “NAACP” has no bearing on anything.
Churches are not closed to the non-religious, in fact quite the opposite. Having a church bulletin is not necessarily a sign of a religious person.
Although the most telling thing about this issue, is that there are no legal cases that have ruled these types of discounts illegal. It’s apparent that there are plenty of organizations that would like to float a test case, but until one is presented interpreting the law and the situation as described in the manner of the OP as illegal, I consider Denny’s and whoever else that wants to offer a $2.00 savings on lunch okay in my book.
How about the Junior League. To my knowledge their membership is only open to women. Many of their local chapters solicit discounts from various vendors that are only available to their members: http://www.jlpgh.org/ama/orig/mmbrdiscnts.pdf
Although the church is not closed to the non-religious, the reality is that, in effect, the non-religious do not regularly attend church, which takes us back to the real world effect of the offered discount.
As far as there being no legal cases ruling these types of discounts illegal, I provided a cite to a ruling in this thread. Although dicta, the court ruled church bulletin discounts are indeed illegal unless the place of public accommodation is willing to extend the discount to those without a church bulletin.
If a man went to a place of public accommodation, asked for the Junior League discount, and was refused, then I’d say that discount would be illegal sex discrimination.
As has been stated over and over…and over and over, just because it’s inconvenient for you to get the coupon, doesn’t make it discrimination. Just because it happens to be convenient for a protected class to get the coupon, still doesn’t make it discrimination. You can get the coupon as well. I’m sorry it’s such a hardship for you to make a stop at a random church to grab a bulletin on your way to Denny’s but as long as the churches are open to the public and the bulletins are free to anyone who wants them, you’re very clearly not being discriminated against. Not even a little bit.
Now, to use an example from earlier, if, in order to get the discount you needed a bulletin that was only distributed in the men’s locker room of a Korean Community Center and you were a white female, that would be different. But that’s not the case here.
Here’s a question for you…What if Denny’s was running a slightly different special? Get 20% off your breakfast by bringing in a coupon that will be distributed each Sunday morning on the sidewalk in front of each of the local church’s in the city. Anyone can walk up and grab one, it’s on public property (they have a permit from the city to do it). That’s the only place you can get the coupon, that’s the only way to get the discount. It’s still more convenient for church goers to get it. You, a non church goer would still have to drive over to the church to get one so the inconvenience to you is the same, but this time, it’s absolutely 100% unrelated to anything religious other then the fact that there’s a church about 100 feet in front of the coupon stand.
What if instead of in front of each church the coupon stand was 1 block west of each church or in the Starbucks across the street from each church or wherever you want it to be. The location is irrelevant. If you’re willing to drive somewhere, walk into a random building or to a coupon stand on the sidewalk and grab a coupon, but you won’t walk into a building that happens to be a church, I think you’re going out of your way to be offended, or at least looking for ways to be discriminated against.
And also, don’t forget, any discrimination here is discrimination you’re bringing upon yourself. You are allowed to get the coupon, you are choosing not to go and get it.
Yes it does. I do not have full and equal enjoyment of the coupon offer because I am a different religion. It is more difficult for me to take advantage of the coupon because I need to go out of my way to get it while member of religion X doesn’t have to.
There is no difference. The salient point is that it is more difficult to obtain a benefit because of my protected class. It doesn’t really matter if that difficulty is driving 30 minutes to a church or tracking down a male Korean to pick me up coupon.
Look, you can’t do an end run around the law. No matter how many intermediate steps you have or what proxies you use, if the end result is that you disadvantage a protected class you are in violation of the law. Obviously intention matters here, and if the intention is to give a benefit to a specific religion it is illegal.
