Businesses are Here to Serve the PUBLIC
As someone said, the ‘’letters to editor’’ page is a place for opinions. Yes, it is. But whatever our opinion is, here’s one fact. We live in the United States of America. A free country that millions of brave men and brave women have fought for and defended so that ALL OF US can be free. Some people, in their passionate opinions, tend to argue that some of us should not be free. This is wrong. It’s not an opinion, it’s a fact.
Mr. Bradford is correct in pointing out it is blatant discrimination for a baker (or anyone else in business) to deny service to a gay person or a gay couple. Businesses are here to serve the PUBLIC. Any public. In the Old South, businesses denied services to Black people. This was wrong and eventually was struck down. Denying service to gay people is the same sort of segregation. If you can’t serve the public, than don’t go into business. I used to have a typing service and a flea market business when I was young and lived back in Missouri. I never turned any one away for any reason. This is how a business should be operated. I was active in Republican politics at the time but never turned away Democrats (for the record, I became a Democrat and now I am Independent).
This also applies to transgender people. It is no one’s business how an individual chooses to identify, regardless of what gender they were assigned at birth. And once again, people who identify as trans male or trans female should not be discriminated against just because someone doesn’t like trans people.
In both cases, some of this stems from ignorance and I don’t mean that in a derogatory way. I will use an analogy here involving another marginalised group--the immigrants. A lot of people hate the immigrants just like they hate gay and trans folks. The reason: they never knew one personally. I have read heartwarming stories about people like this who had an immigrant work with them or live by them and got to know them. Once real acquaintance was made, the hatred faded. In any case, whether you like or hate anyone, it’s the law that we are a free nation and it’s also the Golden Rule we are taught about in school and in houses of worship. Let’s let everyone be free to live their life in peace and harmony because after all, we are the Land of the Free. (for everyone, not just people whose likeness and opinions and backgrounds mirror our own).
–Angela Shipp, Castro Valley
