George Will, Asshole of the Day for March 3, 2014
In the wake of Gov. Jan Brewer's veto of Arizona SB1062, the bill which would have allowed businesses to deny service to anyone as long as they pretended they had some cockamamie reason it was against their religion, conservatives are still looking for ways to allow discrimination against gays. Having, in all likelihood, lost the fight against gay marriage in light of recent judges striking down same sex marriage bans, they still want to keep gays from achieving the full set of rights and services every other couple in America gets.
There has been no end to the excuses. Last week I enumerated and debunked all the weak arguments and hyperbole (It's Jim Crow for Christians! It's forcing us to aid and abet sin!). But still they march on. George Will had a new one on Sunday-- that "it’s not neighborly and it’s not nice" for gays to insist the government enforce their equal treatment under the law:
“With as many taxes that businesses have to pay, how does this government think they have any justification to tell a business who they will and won’t serve?” the viewer wanted to know.
Will pointed out the public accommodations section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 said that businesses had to serve everyone equally.
“That’s a settled issue,” the pundit noted. “That said, this too must be said: It’s a funny kind of sore winner in the gay rights movement that would say, ‘A photographer doesn’t want to photograph my wedding — I’ve got lots of other photographers I could go to, but I’m going to use the hammer of government to force them to do this.’”
“It’s not neighborly and it’s not nice,” he added. “The gay rights movement is winning. They should be, as I say, not sore winners.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/02/george-will-its-not-neighborly-for-lgbt-people-to-ask-for-equal-rights/
Yes, businesses having to serve black people is “a settled issue”. But the rest of the argument is bunk. Let's take it apart:
Gays could always find another photographer or baker if the one they ask won't do gay weddings. How do you know this, George? What if they are in a remote area with only a few photographers or only one or two bakeries and none will do it? What then?
They are just being meanies in insisting they get equal treatment and that the law back them up. “It’s not neighborly and it’s not nice.” Before businesses were required to serve blacks by law, was it "not neighborly" of them to insist? No? Then how is it any different for gays to expect the government to enforce the 14th Amendment for them? I mean, really-- would he have told black people in 1955 that they don't need to insist that Woolworth's serve them because some other business probably will?
And furthermore it's naive to think that in a community there would always be someone to serve a gay couple. If 98% of weddings in an area are heterosexual couples, then it wouldn't be hard for some of those heterosexual couples to refuse to go to a photographer or baker who does gay weddings. Local groups could pressure them to put up "no gays allowed" signs, if that were legal. And before long, no one will serve gays. That wouldn't happen everywhere, but you certainly can't look at the state of gay rights backlash in this country and pretend that it wouldn't happen in some places.
But then you're a smart guy, Mr. Will. You know this, or are smart enough to figure it out. You just don't care whether gay people are allowed to get married or to have the same services at their weddings that straight couples get. And for that, you are the Asshole of the Day.
It is George Will's second time being named Asshole of the Day. His previous win was for comparing Obamacare to the Fugitive Slave Law.
Full story: Raw Story
