Lawsuits from the gays

I keep getting forwarded emails about how this group or that is going to sue the rest of us over discrimination.  The latest has been how gays will sue everyone from the wedding photographer who refuses to do their event to the Catholic Church for having doctrine against gay marriage.  While the latter may happen—but I doubt it; the RC has a lot of resources to fight back, will fight to the death over this, and perfect First Amendment rights to their faith—I can tell you how to handle the former.

      For better or worse, I have a good deal of experience in rental applications and coming face to face with litigious people who want to rent and believe, like street lawyers, that it is first come first serve. I’ve also been deluged by job applicants who demand, in an entitlement sense, that I hire them.  Here’s the answer.  You cannot discriminate on 8 specific subjects—race, creed, gender,age, etc. These are established by courts.  And gayness may be added to this with marriage or specific state statutes that are in place.  But you certainly can discriminate against anything else. Perceived inability to pay the bill would be one case.  “I just didn’t like his interview” is perfectly fine to nix an applicant.  And in the case of people who project entitlement and lawsuits, I usually said ‘no thanks.’  The bottom line is that a business can choose to not do business on practically any grounds except the sacred 8 grounds.  I suppose this would allow people to discriminate against certain groups (by making up an alternate excuse)though I never did this.  To me it was just super-important to know how to avoid a lawsuit. 

      I have run into a lot of middle managers who are on Church or Chamber or Government committees who don’t understand this.  They are extremely fearful of anyone who belongs to one of the 8 groups of significance.  I suppose this comes from a lot of company fearmongering in their training.  Look, you don’t have to hire someone who has African ancestry just because they appear on your doorstep.  Look at their skills the same way you’d do anyone else.  But what seems to overwhelm these committees is when someone brings up some nonsense about how,say, she’s pregnant.  Then some supervisor from ABC company starts dire warnings about how you dare not discriminate against this (true) and the groupthink of the committee seems to boil down to “well then we have to hire her.”  An independent businessman would say, “Well, can she lift the 100 lb. sacks of feed?”

      So then will the gays sue everyone in the wedding business?  Not if they do their business right.