>>>You are on that beyond reasoning. If you think that those religious idiots have the right to do what they like anybody else deserves the right to ruin them. The job keeper have done it as a explicit demonstration.
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>>Lutz, I must agree with the others. A shop/business owner should be allowed to serve whoever they want to or not, as the case may be. Its none of my business to dictate that to a business owner - his choice, his problem. The community can choose to go there or not and that is, in turn, their choice. If the business goes out of business, too bad, poor business choice. No one should harass the business, and certainly not using illegal means, and in the same way the business should not harass the consumers for their choices to use the business or not as the case may be.
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>I have no idea what UK law is on this, but in the US, when you operate a business that's considered a "public accommodation," discrimination based on a whole list of things (race, sex, religion, etc.) is prohibited. You've opened your doors to the public, and while you can demand certain behavior ("shirt and shoes required," for example), you can't say "sorry, we don't serve women here" or "sorry, no Jews."
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>Tamar

Tamar, I don't know the laws in that regard so cannot comment.

I thought some more about this over dinner and think it is more complicated than I originally thought when posting. On the one hand, I think you should be free to cater to whatever community you like and market forces will quickly support your business or destroy it. Be a bigot in a generally progressive community and you wont last long. On the other hand, I think the laws that you mention regarding "public accommodation" serve a purpose beneficial to the community at large. They prevent discrimination from being openly promoted and that is probably a good thing. I say "probably" because forcing discrimination "underground" is perhaps also not the best solution? I certainly think that mob rule, where violence, physical or otherwise, and fraud is used to destroy a business or victimize a person is not acceptable.

Ultimately I think at an ideal level, freedom to cater to whatever community or subset of a community you like should be allowed. Society and market forces will quickly determine the success or failure of the enterprise. However, we don't live in an ideal world; it is already filled with racism, discrimination, and bigotry and perhaps allowing it to be legal only compounds the problem and inflames the wrong attitudes. So in the current world I think those laws serve a useful purpose.

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