No, Catholic innkeepers, your discriminatory religious beliefs do not entitle you to a special exemption from fair housing and public accommodations laws. (That would be seeking “special rights,” wouldn’t it?)
From the Burlington Free Press:
A couple has settled a discrimination lawsuit it filed against a Vermont inn that refused to host a wedding reception for the two women. The couple claimed the inn operators discriminated based on sexual orientation.
The settlement calls for the Wildflower Inn in Lyndonville to pay $10,000 to the Vermont Human Rights Commission as a civil penalty for violating Vermont’s Fair Housing and Public Accommodations Act, as well as $20,000 in a charitable trust to be disbursed by the couple, according to the Vermont Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Kate and Ming Linsley of New York contacted the ACLU after the inn’s events manager told Ming Linsley’s mother that, due to the innkeepers’ “personal feelings,” the inn did not host “gay receptions,” according to the organization.
In a statement, the owners of the Wildflower Inn said the settlement shows they were correct to rely on a 2005 Human Rights Commission decision regarding disclosure of religious beliefs. The inn will no longer rely on that decision and will no longer host weddings.
Sorry, but your “personal feelings” are irrelevant. If you operate a business, you cannot discriminate based on particulars of your customers’ identities. We’ve been there and done that in this country, and we’re not going back.
When the lawsuit was filed, Wildflower Inn owners Jim and Mary O’Reilly wrote in a prepared statement that they were devout Catholics who felt they could not “offer our services wholeheartedly to celebrate the marriage between same-sex couples because it goes against everything that we as Catholics believe in.”
The O’Reillys later said applying Vermont’ s Fair Housing and Public Accommodations Act would violate their right to free speech and freedom of association by forcing them to hold “expressive events.”
In a statement Thursday, the O’Reillys said they agreed to the settlement “to end this ordeal and the threat that the litigation posed” to the business.
The law prohibits public accommodations from denying goods and services based on customers’ sexual orientation.
“We did not bring this lawsuit in order to punish the Wildflower Inn or to collect money,” said Kate Linsley, in a statement released by the ACLU. “We brought this lawsuit because we wanted people to know that what the Wildflower Inn did was illegal. We didn’t want to stay quiet and allow businesses to continue to think they can discriminate.”
Kudos to Kate and Ming Linsley and the ACLU of Vermont for standing up to religion-based bigotry and challenging Jim and Mary O’Reilly’s claim that their Catholic faith gives them some kind of special right to discriminate against LGBT people.
By the way, Wildflower Inn has a Facebook page, just in case you’d like to respectfully let them know your thoughts on anti-LGBT discrimination and religion-based bigotry.
The anti-gays will be crying persecution in 3…2…1…
If we gays keep saying that we must be served in such places under “public accommodation” laws and that “personal feelings” than these Christians will start to set up church services in gay bars — by flooding the place with their followers, and monopolizing the conversation. They will seek to hold rallies, fundraising parties, and bachelorette parties in gay bars. Possibly even bachelor parties — and they will go to court to point out that gay bars hire only men, (95% of the time) and no women, and we are thus discriminatory. And they will say we don’t hire heteros, and we are discriminating, even on the basis of “marriage status.” And they will say we can’t put signs on gay bar front doors: Men only. And they will require men’s bars to have fully separate woman’s rooms — and they will then say “It’s public accommodation”.
Meanwhile, the time honored phrase: “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone” will crumble to those who are the pushiest and most numerous — and those far more numerous heteros will come in and kiss and glom on each other and kill the mood — in our gay bars.
If we want to preserve our right to be left alone, then we must respect others rights to be left alone. If we wish to be for liberty for us, we must be for liberty for them. Let us not be the pushy.
Jim, I’ve never been to a gay bar with a “Men Only” sign on the door and I’ve never been to a gay bar without women’s restrooms–even if there are no women in the bar. What gay bars do you go to that only hire men?
Like Daniel, I can’t say I’ve ever gone to a gay bar with a “Men Only” sign on the door. I’ve been to one where the men who worked there were decidedly frosty in attitude toward women, but I’ve never been refused service in one because I have ladyparts instead of dangly bits.
I don’t see the potential for religious people flooding gay bars to set up church services because that’s not the purpose of a bar. A few straight people might decided to descend on some gay establishments to make a point but they’ll probably quickly bore of it all and things will go back to normal.
Ultimately we should never stop demanding we receive equal access to public accommodations. It’s the law, and where it isn’t we should fight to make it so.
Jim, if the religionists wanted to set up church services in a gay bar they would have done it a long time ago as they’ve always had the right to do so.
Buffy, I have to say that I too have been to gay bars where women weren’t made to feel welcome. They’re the ones I didn’t go back to.
Actually, to a certain degree I think gay bars are becoming a thing of the past–which is both positive and negative.
I, for one, love, love, LOVE my local gay bar. It’s disability-friendly, and I have never felt like I was unwelcome or on display there.
Jim. I refuse to defend any establishment that denies service based on gender, sexual orientation or religious affiliation.
… as an aside, 95% men + 0% women = ?.
@Jim,
Really, a men only gay bar? I admit, I’ve been partnered for 20 years, and I only went (and occasionally go with my partner) to dance clubs — but I’ve never seen a men’s only gay club, ever. I’ve not even seen one where women were made to feel unwelcome, although others have apparently.
Don’t worry. You do not have a right to discriminate in who you will serve, but you do have a right to set the purpose of your business (thus, the Wildflower eliminated WEDDINGS, so they don’t have to hold them, gay or straight — a gay bar is not a church, its a bar – and if a fundamentalist Christian or more than one want to come in and have a drink (which is the business purpose of the bar) they have a perfect right to do so. They cannot hold a church service, because that isn’t the business purpose of the bar. If they attempt to convert people — any person they approach can bring charges of harassment, or if they are forceful in any way, assault.
Yes indeed, a supermarket cannot fail to sell to someone for any reason, BUT, it can choose not to carry tofu.
You are worrying needlessly.
Kind thoughts,
Reyn