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Originally posted by: Area51
Still don't understand why it's constitutional to force any business to "allow" anybody become a customer it doesn't agree with.
Here's the issue: “Does one lose the right to associate only with those whom one chooses when one opens a business to the public?”
DonDiego opines it is a legitimate issue deserving open debate. But it is no longer a legal issue within the United States.
The question was settled by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, . . . specifically 42 U.S. Code § 2000a - Prohibition against discrimination or segregation in places of public accommodation:
"(a) Equal access
All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin.
(b) Establishments affecting interstate commerce or supported in their activities by State action as places of public accommodation; lodgings; facilities principally engaged in selling food for consumption on the premises; gasoline stations; places of exhibition or entertainment; other covered establishments"
So as of 1964 one does not have such a "right to associate" in the United States.
Lester Maddox, owner of The Pickwick restaurant adjacent to the Georgia Tech campus and, later, the Lester Maddox Cafeteria in Atlanta learned this lesson when he closed his doors to avoid paying a $200-per-day fine for failing to serve African-Americans under the Act.