| | who has more rights? Page 1 of 10 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) | | A christian family who runs a bed and breakfast refused to rent a room to a gay couple due to religious beliefs. The gay couple goes to the BC human rights tribunal and launches a complaint. The question is who has more rights? religious belief of a home owner or gay rights? The bed and breakfast is out of business due to harassment and bad press but the case was not dismissed and may cost the owner lots of money in fines. The owner invested life savings in the place and must pay for a lawyer to represent them and the bills keep climbing. | |
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| who has more rights?
Posted: 10/20/2011 11:07:38 AM | This isn't a private residence or an exclusive club. The gay couple had the right to be given the same consideration and service as any other couple.
The Human Right's Code of Canada states that a person is to be free from discrimation. | |
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| who has more rights?
Posted: 10/20/2011 11:10:41 AM | | I'm with the gay couple. I don't know anything about business law, but i think if these owners were going to discriminate like that they shouldn't have been allowed to advertise publicly and restricted to advertising within their church or private groups they belonged to. | |
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| who has more rights?
Posted: 10/20/2011 11:12:50 AM | Once they opened their "home" up as a Bed and Breakfast, as a business, they lost any "right" to discriminate.
End of story. | |
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| who has more rights?
Posted: 10/20/2011 11:47:39 AM | Sixty years ago the question wouldn't have been about gay people, but black people. Think about that for a second.
It seems absurd that a -BUSINESS- would refuse customers based on race, so it should be just as absurd that they'd refuse business to customers based on sexual orientation. If a business refused customers of a certain religion, that would be discrimination. If a business refused customers of a certain ethnic race, that would be discrimination. It should be no different for people of a certain orientation.
This is an old story (the bed and breakfast one), but it's still good talking about it. You run a business, you have no right to discriminate someone based on race, religion, or sexual orientation. You are now open to the public - ALL public, regardless of if you agree with them. | |
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| who has more rights?
Posted: 10/20/2011 12:20:27 PM | | Who would Jesus turn away? What kind of accomodations did these folks have for slave owners and their property? Do they hold wife beating workshops? | |
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| who has more rights?
Posted: 10/20/2011 12:28:41 PM | You don't have to like anyone.
But, everyone deserves to be treated with respect.
You can be as bigoted as you want, at your own kitchen table in your own home.
Once you open a business to the public, you must be prepared to service all the public equally.
This is only fair. | |
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| who has more rights?
Posted: 10/20/2011 1:50:31 PM | | a bed and breakfast?...isnt that..like your own home?......seems to me you should be able to choose who you invite into your own home | |
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| who has more rights?
Posted: 10/20/2011 1:57:04 PM | I say good for the gay couple 
There are ways around discrimination though..
There is a facility here that I had always wanted to work at, it was pretty much my dream job. Well, they only hire from their volunteer pool.. so I phoned up and inquired as to how one could become a volunteer?
They straight up asked if I was a christian and said that that is a requirement. Genius really.
Needless to say, that ended that dream. | |
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| who has more rights?
Posted: 10/20/2011 2:21:05 PM | Its a business. You can't exclude people because it crosses your religious beliefs. Good for the couple.
And what a poor example of what religion does for people. Love and accept all, no one's place to judge another human being. | |
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| who has more rights?
Posted: 10/20/2011 2:26:10 PM |
a bed and breakfast?...isnt that..like your own home?......seems to me you should be able to choose who you invite into your own home It stops being your private residence when you register it as a bed and breakfast; many B&Bs are actually considered hotels or inns.
If you want to be able to choose who enters your home, do NOT register it as a bed and breakfast... quite simple really. | |
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| who has more rights?
Posted: 10/20/2011 2:54:10 PM | | I agree with the above posters, once it became a B&B, it is a business not a personal residence so they don't have the right to turn anyone away due to sexual orientation, gender or race, just because of their religious beliefs. What you personally believe is your choice, but when you open a business you need to realize that you have to serve the public and that means everyone, not just a select few. | |
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| who has more rights?
Posted: 10/20/2011 4:07:31 PM |
You can be as bigoted as you want, at your own kitchen table in your own home.
Once you open a business to the public, you must be prepared to service all the public equally.
Business or not, it's still where they LIVE. So what if they rent the room, and tell a bunch of fag jokes at the dinner table?
Issues like this are a whiner's dream. Frankly, I don't want to be where I'm not wanted, regardless of the reason.
If there's money in it though, maybe I should sue the KKK for not letting me join.
Things that make one go hmm..
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| who has more rights?
Posted: 10/20/2011 4:17:54 PM |
So what if they rent the room, and tell a bunch of fag jokes at the dinner table
Once again Viper, you cracked me up.
But I do believe that when they opened their home for paying customers, they lost their right to discriminate. | |
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| who has more rights?
Posted: 10/20/2011 4:23:09 PM |
Business or not, it's still where they LIVE. So what if they rent the room, and tell a bunch of fag jokes at the dinner table?
Issues like this are a whiner's dream. Frankly, I don't want to be where I'm not wanted, regardless of the reason.
If there's money in it though, maybe I should sue the KKK for not letting me join.
Things that make one go hmm.. Does this mean if I tell you that you're not welcome here, you'll leave?
Bottom line is that no one is forcing them to turn their home into a bed and breakfast, with business, comes responsibility. In Canada, you do not have the choice of which laws you are going to follow and which ones to brush under the rug.
Furthermore, until each and every person in this world is treated equally, I applaud those that fight for equality when faced with bigotry or discrimination. You can sit in your ivory tower and call it whining all you want, how would you react if you were told to sit at the back of the bus because of your skin colour? My bet would be that you'd be shouting to the high heavens about discrimination at that point, and I would back your right to sue just as much as I back this couple's right to sue. | |
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| who has more rights?
Posted: 10/20/2011 4:32:36 PM | You can sit in your ivory tower and call it whining all you want, how would you react if you were told to sit at the back of the bus because of your skin colour? My bet would be that you'd be shouting to the high heavens about discrimination
You couldn't be more wrong. That's a bet you lost, now pay up. If that happened, I would take a cab.
See, there's this really neat concept I employ. I vote with my wallet. This place that doesn't want my money, makes it all that much easier for the place that does to prosper.
I don't sue, I just don't spend. Except maybe the KKK. I might sue just for the money. | |
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| who has more rights?
Posted: 10/20/2011 4:36:16 PM |
In Canada, you do not have the choice of which laws you are going to follow and which ones to brush under the rug.
unless, maybe it is for a so-called 'minority'
e.g. why can gyms open as 'women-only', but none can as 'men-only' ?
how did women get to be considered a 'minority' when they say "blacks, His[panics, gays & women" or something..
there's more women than everyone else, more females than males (not by a large % , but still.. ) | |
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| who has more rights?
Posted: 10/20/2011 5:27:41 PM | | Except Viper, IIRC, these B&B owners didn't have a "No Fags Allowed" sign on their front door or web page. Sorry, they have NO right to discriminate. So they need to stop their whinge. | |
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| who has more rights?
Posted: 10/20/2011 5:43:26 PM | What decides the issue is not what someone or other thinks is right, but the law. States can require innkeepers, landlords, bars, restaurants, resorts, etc. to do all sorts of things. They have inherent authority to make laws and policies, and they can make businesses accommodate the public equally. There have been laws against arbitrarily turning people away from inns for centuries.
I don't know Canadian law, but in the U.S. there is probably also some federal law against this. Whether there's any authority for it is another question. The Constitution protects individual rights against being infringed by *government.* Only a few parts of it have any bearing on discrimination by *private persons.*
Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce--the "Commerce Clause," which the Supreme Court has used to justify federal intervention in almost everything imaginable--is the most important of these parts. It's the basis for federal laws against race discrimination in public accommodations, which date from the mid-1960's. Sec. 2 of the 13th Amendment, which bans slavery, also prohibits some private race discrimination.
I'm not convinced these parts of the Constitution were ever meant to reach private discrimination, even against blacks. I think it's quite a stretch to claim that making private business owners all act like nice, tolerant people--or else--is part of regulating trade among the states. I don't care if someone hates all blacks, or whites, or gays, or Republicans, or Hindus, or you-name-it with a purple passion, and believes they have no right to breathe. That is his absolute right, whatever anyone thinks of him.
Pretending the Constitution gives the federal government authority to right every social wrong is a fool's game. Whatever good results from rewriting the Constitution to make it say whatever allows us to congratulate ourselves on how much we care, achieving it is never worth risking the foundation of all our personal freedoms. | |
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| who has more rights?
Posted: 10/20/2011 5:46:08 PM | | You should be allowed to refuse service to anyone you want. | |
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| who has more rights?
Posted: 10/21/2011 8:36:04 PM | | It should be the gay rights. I'm not only saying because of the fact that I am a straight ally, but because of the fact that these are paying consumers. A hotel is designed for people to sleep in it when they need to stay there for whatever reason at all. When it comes to business, political views, religious beliefs, or sexuality should have no bearing on the renting of a room or the sale of a product. This is just as bad as when a doctor refused a young woman the Plan B because of his religious beliefs. It just should not happen. | |
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| who has more rights?
Posted: 10/22/2011 5:00:39 AM | I think everyone has equal rights. The laws that prevent discrimination aren't giving the minority any rights the majority doesn't already have. They're just saying the minority is to be treated the same as anyone. There wouldn't be any such thing as "gay rights" if it weren't for a-holes trying to oppress them.
The only law I see that does give them special treatment is the hate crime law that gives extra jail time to some who assaults a gay person based solely on the fact that person is gay. (Not sure if Canada has a similar law) It also applies to minorities who are attacked based on the race. I don't think a minority has ever been charged with a hate crime eventhough whites have been targeted because of their race.
The KKK is a private organization. They can refuse membership to whoever they want without concern for a lawsuit. The B&B doesn't have that luxury apparently; seeing as how they're going belly-up trying to pay lawyers to defend their hateful ways. | |
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| who has more rights?
Posted: 10/22/2011 8:47:31 AM |
The KKK is a private organization.
A man and his wife who own a B&B are also private persons. If the state they operate in wants to make laws that impose all sorts of rules they have to follow, all right. The state has authority to do that, and if they don't like it, they can set up shop in a state that does things differently.
But what's Congress's authority for making a federal law which says they can't discriminate against anyone they want, for any reason? I don't believe it has much. And I don't buy the distinction between a private club, say, and a privately owned club that also serves non-members.
The most important basis for the federal law against private discrimination is Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce. I don't know what other basis there would be for a federal law prohibiting discrimination against homosexuals. But it's a misuse of the Commerce Clause to make it into a catchall authority for federal laws designed to right social wrongs.
In 2005, it was the authority for destroying six marijuana plants a disabled California woman used to make medicines that only she used. None of this marijuana ever crossed state lines or was part of any commerce. And yet a federal law could prohibit growing and using it, on the ground that it had a substantial effect on interstate commerce.
I agree that federal law can prohibit race discrimination in motels, restaurants, and other accommodations that interstate travelers rely on. If a black truck driver can't use those things, it affects interstate commerce. And a federal law could probably extend to discrimination on some grounds other than race. But I think it's overreaching to go beyond that. | |
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| who has more rights?
Posted: 10/22/2011 9:17:58 AM | christian family who runs a bed and breakfast refused to rent a room to a gay couple due to religious beliefs. The gay couple goes to the BC human rights tribunal and launches a complaint. The question is who has more rights? religious belief of a home owner or gay rights? The bed and breakfast is out of business due to harassment and bad press but the case was not dismissed and may cost the owner lots of money in fines. The owner invested life savings in the place and must pay for a lawyer to represent them and the bills keep climbing.
I just don't have any sympathy for self righteous bigots. If people want to open a business that caters to the public, they should be prepared to cater to the public, all of the public. That means they don't exclude people for their color, their religion, race, age, or sexual orientation.
I agree with the above posters, once it became a B&B, it is a business not a personal residence so they don't have the right to turn anyone away due to sexual orientation, gender or race, just because of their religious beliefs So true. | |
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| who has more rights?
Posted: 10/22/2011 9:18:50 AM | I'd still like to know what kind of slave quarters these folks have? What gauge chains do they have?
Beyond the law it doesn't bother any of you that these "christians" are selectively observant, hypocritical schmucks?
Who would Jesus try and make out to be a social pariah?
Fortunately we are a Constituional Republic and not a Biblical Theocracy. If they don't like the fact the founders made no express prohibitions or limitations against consenting adult homosexuality perhaps they should hang a shingle in Nigeria. | |
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