Restaurant refuses to serve Christian group. Why is that OK?
Is it OK for a restaurant to cancel a reservation last minute simply because some employees don’t like the group involved – and what they believe?
I recently asked that question in a column, and I have received more reader responses than anything else I’ve written for Paste BN. It clearly struck a nerve, and I think a lot of Americans are grappling with these issues.
The restaurant in question defended the move because many of the LGBTQ employees expressed they felt “uncomfortable and unsafe” serving members of the Family Foundation, a group that advocates for biblical values such as traditional marriage and the sanctity of life.
I think it would have been a very different story if the roles were reversed and a Christian-owned restaurant denied meal service to an LGBTQ group. The outcry would have been immediate.
I felt it was important to call out this double standard. Creative business owners – such as website designers or bakers – who decline designing a website or cake to celebrate same-sex marriage because that goes against their beliefs are often decried as bigots, even though these artists do business with all people, including those in the LGBTQ community.
Isn’t preventing someone from entering a restaurant because of their work or beliefs an even greater slight?
I appreciate all the feedback I’ve gotten, and I encourage you to read my column if you haven’t.
— Ingrid Jacques
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Some might say that at 90 years old, she is graduating a bit late.
I disagree. Her age is a number, nothing more. A chronological tally. It doesn’t show us the life she has lived, the people she has loved, the children she has raised and the wisdom gained in the process.
Joyce, I’d argue, is getting her bachelor’s degree from Northern Illinois University right on time. And when she walks across the stage at Sunday’s graduation ceremony in DeKalb, her very presence will deliver a message she recently shared with me: “Keep learning. We don’t even use a fraction of our brain, so it’s there if we only take advantage of it and use it. Keep going.”
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