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GAY RIGHTS

Restaurant Refuses to Serve Gay Rights Group, Comparing Them to KKK

"I have the right to refuse service to anyone," owner says

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by Mary Noble

Senior Editor t

Image: The Arkansas Times

A gay rights group had their reservations cancelled by the owner of Sisters Gourmet Bistro in Van Buren, Arkansas, who compared their organization to the KKK.

The River Valley Equality Center had booked the restaurant for a fundraiser, but they were later called by the owner Richard Hodo, who told them "we're not going to have that at Sisters."

"What I told the lady on the on the phone, look I said if the KKK came here and wanted to hold a fundraiser rally and all that, I wouldn't allow that either," Hodo told ABC 4029. "I told them that I do not support their cause, that if they want to do that that's their business. I do not care, but I don't support their lifestyle and their cause," said Hodo. "This is a private club and I have the right to refuse service to anyone."

The restaurant acted perfectly legally, since Arkansas has no law protecting gays and lesbians against discrimination. In other states, the restaurateur's action would likely breach anti-discrimination laws. In a similar recent case in Oregon, a baker is being investigated for breaching the state's equality statute after he refused to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple.

Via the Blaze.
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Would you like to see a federal law that prohibits refusing service to people because they're gay?

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Comments (view in Forum)

  • DARSB
    !
    For me it's always it's always been a civil rights issue, and it's really creepy to hear people like this restaurateur using much the same language as Lester Maddux.
  • InjusticeSucks
    !
    Well since its in my home state and i am not gay but they will never again see me in their Hating place.And i sugest that any Gay never ever eat their lets see how long that Great Policy stays in Place or just how long stay in existence.I live less then 10 min from that Dump.
  • rkinsawjoe
    !
    A difference I find is that in this particular case the plan was said to be for a fund raising event which to my mind is altogether different from reserving a table for dinner or even a dining room for a meeting. Refusing service to an individual or to members of some specific group simply because they are of this or that persuasion in my opinion is discriminatory and wrong. But to refuse a "fund raising event" for not wanting the business to be seen as supporting or endorsing a particular viewpoint, I think, is not. Lester Maddox went out of his way to have his business involved in political issues where this business owner was doing the exact opposite.

  • View all 11 replies >

  • u
    Hireman
    !
    If a restaurant wants to deny service to people because they're gay, white, northern, or any other reason, they should be able to, and their competition should have the right to reap the benefits.
  • DARSB
    !
    If only that idea had ever worked... it did lead to "whites only" drinking fountains and the insanely wrong practices of segregation.
  • stepped_in_it
    !
    @DARSB Guessing that if the Federal Gov hadn't stepped in during the mid '60's, that "policy" would still be in full force today.....but that's only a guess.

  • View all 51 replies >

  • u
    CommonSense
    !
    Opening your own business is not simple for anybody.
    And to think discrimination doesn't effect people's freedom ignores the bigger picture.
    If an entire town is racist you may have everything except the most run-down, poor businesses refusing service to black people. Then say housing discriminates and black people can only find menial labor. And no black person there has the resources to open anything other than a barbershop or a 7-11.
    Do you think this sort of situation would be fair and that we should just let it happen because this is how people choose to do business?
  • o
    OhWiseOne
    !
    @CommonSense I think business owners should be free to serve whomever they choose. It's their business and not yours. If anyone doesn't like it they can open their own business.
  • Ventric
    !
    @CommonSense I think you are getting it mixed up with the Jim Crow laws. Obviously I don't agree with discriminating against gays but this is a private business and interfering would be denying the owners individual rights. I'm sure there are plenty of other places that would welcome the additional revenue from the gay rights group.
  • u
    culinary
    !
    @Ventric I think it is bigoted, hateful, spiteful and selfish and I DON'T agree with it, but it IS a private business. They can serve who they like. Fortunately, someone else made a lot of money that day.
  • NotOfThisWorld
    !
    We have to accept straight people. Anyways thats not how I wanted to start. Please, let me start over now. Most of the time you don't even know people are gay. What's the worse you ever see, honestly, them holding hands? Hugging? Hearing an I love you, or be careful? If they're mature adults, that is. Just like you don't see alot of straight couples making out when you go to the grocery store besides teens.
  • PoliticalSpice
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    @theroadtohell1 No it doesn't clear it up. Why are you so emotional about this issue? So sensitive? Why would you care about it so much?

  • View all 14 replies >

  • stepped_in_it
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    Welp, I guess per Alabama's laws, the "right to refuse service" is not illegal. I have gave this same opinion before and got "treaded" on and I don't support it! My favor color is green (as in money). It seems to make me happy (who says money can't buy you happiness is broke). I don't care if my money wants to mess with other same sex money or have multiple partners of money as long as all the children are green also! This businessman must survive on his morals....it must be very difficult to pay his bills with those morals. I keep my morals to myself and pay my bills with (you guessed it) money!
  • drpeeper
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    @stepped_in_it Yes, 2010 ended the 136 years of Democrat Control of Alabama's House and Senate. Maybe they were uptight.
  • martydotcom
    !
    pathetic to see Arkansas hasn't progressed beyond the Woothworth - Greensboro sit ins of the 60's and have gone so far as to codifiy their narrow minded hatred. I guess serving gays is against their religion.- so dumb, don't they read their Bible. Do unto
    .. Love thy neighbor etc. They violate every aspect of Judiao Christian culture. I guess gaay should be thankful Sharia law hasn't take over Arkansas. Then the local yokels could kill gays legally. Give this restaurant a wedding cake!
  • u
    amanthatcares
    !
    Nobody should be compelled to serve anyone when we have strong convictions that what they are doing is wrong. We have the right to sanction behavior we find inappropriate
  • corky5678
    !
    Open a restaurant that serves only people who are JUST like you. No gays, no atheists, no blacks, no Buddhists, no nudists, no raw foodists, no democrats, etc. Then we are free to boycott you. Good luck with that!
  • PNWest
    !
    This kind of discrimination wasn't right when it was practiced against blacks. This kind of discrimination wasn't right when it was practiced against native Americans. This kind of discrimination wasn't right when it was practiced against Asians. And this kind of discrimination isn't right now.
  • Rocker
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    I agree with your every point, PN. Question - would the "Miss Black America" be discriminatory? Or "Mrs America"? Are beauty pageants discriminatory or merely sexist?
  • o
    OhWiseOne
    !
    @Rocker Congressional Black Caucus too. No non-blacks allowed to join. Just imagine a Congressional White Caucus that allowed only white people. The sniveling would never end.
  • DarthSidious
    !
    It's a privately owned business they can refuse service to whom ever they choose to. It wasn't because they were gay, it was because it was a fundraiser and they don't have to support their cause...NEWSFLASH...and I know it's hard for liberals to grasp...but people are going to disagree and not get along...there is never going to be a time where everyone sits around a campfire, toast marshmallows, and sing Michael Row The Boat Ashore.
    If I owned a business I would be damned if anyone told me how to run it or that I had to allow a certain organization hold a fundraiser there. If I footed the money and it was my business I would run it how I saw fit and if anyone didn't like it then they don't have to patronize my business.

  • View all 29 replies >

  • No_Bama
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    They weren't refused service because they were gay, they were refused service because they wanted to hold a fundraiser to support their hate group. Period. Why does Politix contiuously have misleading/false polls accompanying their stories?
  • o
    Republican5001
    !
    @OhWiseOne actually this is politix Mary's idea of journalism...

    She even got her graduate at an Ivy League school. Leads me to believe that anything from an Ivy League school is suspect at best.

    Trying to stay relevant Mary?
  • o
    OhWiseOne
    !
    @Republican5001 I like Mary but you have a good point. I've never thought that Ivy League schools were the best in the nation. They just produce liberal zombies.
  • PoliticalSpice
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    @Republican5001 I was wondering how far down I'd have to go to see an attack on @politixmary

    Is It her politcs or is it an issue with women in general? Is that why these stories on gay issues are so upsetting?
    I care less, maybe it's because I'm a lsbian trapped in a male body. Cann't resist the temptation to be with women.

    @ohwiseone you realize politix is based in san fransisco right? This is as biden would say a big f-ing deal there. Mystery solved.

  • View all 23 replies >

  • billyleewoods
    !
    I think the owner has the right to refuse his services to anybody he doesn't want in his establishment. If people dont like it they can eat elsewhere. If we force that on a restaurant owner then whats next?
  • SignifiedNBlue
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    Its a private business, but it serves the public, so the building is public, its not a civil right. Civil rights protect us from Government. The owner is ignorant but within his rights. Should be discrimination in any state. As far as Im concerned the gay rights group should have a sense of relief. Why would they want to,be around ignorant hostile people? move on. Get another place
  • Ashstop
    !
    Good for him!! Most decent customers wouldn't want to go out to eat and see a group like the kkk or gay rights holding a rally at the next table, he will gain more business than he loses, if I'm ever close to his restaurant I will be proud to take my family there!
  • u
    equalityboy81
    !
    There is that old saying that one has a right to refuse service to anyone for any reason but it's really only able to refuse them within reason like if someone is drunk or causing problems or using a lot of profanity. Nowhere in this country can they legally refuse service to blacks, whites, Jews, Muslims, Christians, Satanists, Pagans, Wiccans, Agnostics, Atheists (religion is a chosen lifestyle and I believe atheism is protected under religion as well), men, women, old people, young people, disabled people, pregnant women, married, divorced, widowed, or single people, and probably not even fat people (though I don't know of any law covering that and it might fall under disability protections) etc. without possibly getting sued and the customer(s) winning but in most places LGBT and maybe even straight people are not protected under sexual orientation (though most straights don't face discrimination for being straight nor would if fly it they were denied service, employment, medical attention, or housing for such). There is a need for a federal law protecting gays in employment, housing, medical care, and public accommodations. The gays are hardly the KKK. I'd say that describes the religious right a hell of a lot more. If you have a business to serve the public you should have to serve everyone within reason and it's very unreasonable to deny service to people simply because they are straight, asexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transvestite, transsexuals, intersex (hermaphrodite), or transgender.
  • u
    equalityboy81
    !
    @NTBFW I caught it but if I'm not mistaken he still has to follow anti-discrimination law no matter who they cover even if he doesn't like the group. Unfortunately gays aren't covered there so he's in the clear and another example of why we need ENDA passed.
  • o
    NTBFW
    !
    @equalityboy81 not if its a private club. He can refuse anyone he wants. This has already been decided in the Ar courts.
  • u
    equalityboy81
    !
    There is no comparison between any civil rights groups (whether it be gays, blacks, the NAACP) and the KKK. The KKK is for segregation, discrimination, supremacy, and oppression while civil rights groups are for the opposite and equality for all people. If a restaurant owner cannot legally refuse service to someone because they are a man, woman, black, white, old, young, military, married, divorced, pregnant, single, Republican, Democrat, Christian, Atheist, Jewish, or disabled then they certainly shouldn't have a right to refuse gays. How is refusing gays any different when back in the day restaurants used to have signs that said WHITES ONLY or NO IRISH? It's still discrimination! Just a different time period. If you cannot discriminate against some groups then you shouldn't be able to discriminate against any group. We need to step into the 21st century. We are no longer the 1950s.
  • mwr
    !
    @equalityboy81 and I appriciate and respect your right to have an opinion differant than mine. Interesting to see you have 81 on your user id. the national organizaiton that flys that tag might not agree with your views. be safe.
  • o
    NTBFW
    !
    @equalityboy81 the owner has the right not to have a political fundraiser he doesn't support in his restaurant. He knows full well it will make some angry. But he also knows it is his business and he can run it how he wants.
  • u
    equalityboy81
    !
    @mwr 81 was the year I was born. What 81 are you talking about? If they have a problem they can sue me! LOL! It's the year I was born and I can prove it.
  • u
    equalityboy81
    !
    @NTBFW He can't refuse service to someone because they are white or black or Christian or Republican and they'd get hell if it was gay refusing straight. Please tell me I'm wrong. If they could discriminate against those then I could see him having a right to refuse gays but why is it still legally and morally okay to bash gays just because the bible tells them so?! If it were up to me no politics, religion, or social issues would be brought up by the business. It's terrible business practice and not a good way to make money.

  • View all 12 replies >

  • texas_cutie75
    !
    As long as they have a sign saying they resrrve the right to refuse service to anyone, there should be no issue. Some businesses don't want or need the kind of attention a fundraiser, be it animal rights, school fundraising or gay right fundraising, will bring...it should be their choice!
  • jessejaymes
    !
    You know I consider myself an animal lover. I don't hunt or fish and I would take a hurt turtle to the vet on my dollar. I have spent a thousand dollars on a vet bill for an old ladies dog who couldn't afford to do so because her dog got hit by a car and the dog survived. But as a business owner I would NOT hold a fundraiser for PETA. Because I know they will come in and alienate most of my customers by acting out. I wouldn't hold a fundraiser for gay rights either for the very same reason. I don't care if gays marry, don't care who consenting adults sleep with but my wife and I back in the Late 90's attended a LGBT fundraiser and we left almost immediately due to gay men making out like they were in a porn film, lisping prancing men touching me constantly, telling my wife "you're so lucky, if I had seen him first he'd be gay today" and CRAP like that. When I give someone a nice check for their support and show up for the function, I expect adults to act like responsible adults, not teenage village idiots on testosterone hormone steroids As a business owner there is NO ways that you can survive on ONLY the gay businesses unless you locate in a gay zone and there is no way you can survive the way gay males act out at large gathering be they gay pars, parades or fundraisers. It' just not acceptable public behavior. The business owner is right in refusing the fundraiser.
  • u
    equalityboy81
    !
    As of right now the poll for and against a federal law is split 50/50. I'm shocked that half of Americans think it's still okay to refuse service to; fire, not hire, give a raise, or promote; deny medical services and housing, oppress, stereotype, exclude, label, scapegoat, bully, harass, intimidate, pass laws against, commit violence against, and discriminate against an unpopular minority. We haven't come that far since the civil rights/slavery/segregation era unfortunately. This country is not about freedom, equality, liberty, and justice for all. They are only for all that if one is a rich, white, socially/fiscally conservative, Republican (or Tea Party), Christian, non-disabled, (maybe even southern) heterosexual male.
  • o
    Republican5001
    !
    Check number of the last check you signed paying for his bills? Private is exactly that, private. Far different when working for the public sector.
  • u
    equalityboy81
    !
    @Republican5001 They are still not above the law and if there was a state, federal, county, city, or local ordinance protecting sexual orientation they may have to follow. It's not a church. It's a business.
  • jessejaymes
    !
    When is the last time you were sold to a new owner? Or your wife sold away from you? Or your children sold? When was the last time you were lynched for looking at a white woman? When is the last time you were tied to a tree and you back covered with scars for leaving the plantation for an hour without permission? I am SICK TO DEATH of whining sniv3eling crybaby gays equate gay rights to slavery. Jesus H. Christ on a Harley do you think you could be any more melodramatic if you really put your mind to it?
  • o
    Republican5001
    !
    @equalityboy81

    "What I told the lady on the on the phone, look I said if the KKK came here and wanted to hold a fundraiser rally and all that, I wouldn't allow that either," Hodo told ABC 4029. "I told them that I do not support their cause, that if they want to do that that's their business. I do not care, but I don't support their lifestyle and their cause," said Hodo. "This is a private club and I have the right to refuse service to anyone."

    The restaurant acted perfectly legally, since Arkansas has no law protecting gays and lesbians against discrimination."

    I think this pretty much ends the debate...Private club and his right to refuse service to anyone regardless of your personal feelings.
  • u
    equalityboy81
    !
    @jessejaymes Well what about all the bullying and suicides gay students have been a victim and schools do nothing to prevent it. What about not being able to marry the person who you love, having to lie about your sexual orientation in the military, not being protected under the federal hate crime law and being the victim of a hate crime, being refused service or medical attention simply because you are gay, or not hired fire, denied a raise or promotion or denied housing simply because you are gay. It happens all the time! Gays were victims along with blacks, Jews, and gypsies in the holocaust. Until 2003 one could be arrested in the United States for being a homosexual or having gay sex. Gays have been bullied, killed, and beaten including before and during the Stonewall Riot. Gays have and still are arrested and harassed by police and wrongly accused of things and stereotyped. Gays have been stereotyped as pedophiles. Gays can still be refused service in a restaurant in the same manner of what used to happen to blacks. There was a law in the 30s or 40s that stated a bar had to refuse service to a homosexual. Gays are still banned from being blood and sperm donors despite that they run tests on blood. If I marry a man from another country I can't get him citizenship through marriage like a straight couple can do. In the states where gays can marry they only get the state rights, not the 1,200 federal rights straights take for granted which is denied to gays due to DOMA.

  • View all 7 replies >

  • u
    whataGOVwehave
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    That's the whole idea. If he wants to deny people, let him. If he loses profits then that's his deal. Government should never be involved with any of this.
  • harold_lloyd
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    @whataGOVwehave
    I stand corrected. Thank you. I would not want a new federal law. I'd like to think that the public would express their opinions by going somewhere else.
  • u
    ScottCX
    !
    it is 1 things to deny service to customers who walk in because they happened to be gay, it is quite a different things to refuse to allow a fundraiser for an organization that you do not agree with.

    if this restaurant owner had said "I will not allow a fundraiser for the NRA, because I am NOT in favor of assault weapons" NONE of you would have a problem with that...
  • u
    seedtick
    !
    My thoughts exactly....individual rights have nothing to do with group activism. Our country was founded with indivdual rights in mind. And, while groups have a right to gather in public for peaceful protests, they do not have a right to demand a meeting venue from a private business owner. What if an anti-gay group wanted to have a meeting in a gay owned business in San Francisco? How would that go over? Would liberals act the same about that?
    And, anyone who likens this to civil rights issues 50 yrs ago is absolutely wrong. The liberal idealogy that is popular today says that everyone must be FOR everything and they demonize anyone who is AGAINST anything. That flies in the face of individual rights.
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