> Yep, and the answer is that there's a difference between who someone is, and someone's behavior. I can refuse to do business with a company that does something I consider reprehensible; that's not the same as refusing to do business with someone because of their sex or religion or race (or, in my view, sexual orientation). For example, I would not work for a tobacco company; I think what they do is nearly criminal.
>
>I would never work for a tobacco company either. I'm about as anti-smoker as it gets. But as Rich mentioned, I can see where someone would conclude that you're raising what you personally view as reprehensible.
>
>Slightly different subject, but still under this same general topic - I have a question, based on an organization you mentioned here a while back:
>
>http://hebrewfreeloanphila.org/GettingALoan.htm
>
>In particular, the area on "Who can get a loan?" Obviously, one can only evaluate the conditions based on the specific language on the website.
>
>Can you see where I'm going with this question? And for the record, I'm simply raising the question.

Yep, I do see. It's a private charity (that is, no government funding) and it was created by the Jewish community to serve the Jewish community, in accordance with Jewish law that prohibits charging fellow Jews interest on personal loans. If you poked around the site enough, you no doubt saw that we have a separate fund for business loans that's non-sectarian--that's because the funder wanted it that way.

Right now, our general loan fund is small enough that being non-sectarian doesn't make sense. (Among the community of Jewish Free Loan Societies, we have one of the smallest ratios of $ to the size of the Jewish community.) Some day down the road, if we grow enough, we might also have a general fund that's non-sectarian.

To put this in the context of the broader discussion, we're not a public accommodation (as in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_accommodations.)

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