When is it ok to refuse someone service?

Aug. 4, 2018

Bill's Statement
In the Disney football film Remember the Titans, Sunshine, Petey, and Blue enter a restaurant after a big win. Though the restaurant is half empty, the owner refuses to serve them. “This is my establishment,” he says. “I reserve the right to refuse service to anybody. Yeah, that means you, too, hippie boy. Now, y'all want somethin' to eat, you can take these boys out back and pick it up from the kitchen."

Why were they refused service? Were they shirtless? No. Were they barefoot?  No. Sunshine didn’t even have long hair anymore! Why were they refused service? Their appearance! Blue and Petey are black.  Even with short hair, Sunshine looks like a hippie.

Contrary to what those emboldened by the rising tide of white supremacy might say, race and culture are never acceptable reasons to deny a person service.  But are there other circumstances, when it might be morally or legally acceptable to refuse someone service? Yes.

The Supreme Court decision in favor of the Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-gendered couple, is one example. As a Christian, I disagree with the baker’s decision. Jesus would have baked the cake and enjoyed the wedding.  However, the Supreme Court made the right decision.  The baker’s religious freedom is protected by our Constitution.

With qualification, the recent examples of denying service to elected and appointed officials as an act of public shaming, are another example. Here, the act(s) for which the politicians are being shamed must be morally egregious. One’s party affiliation doesn’t warrant shaming. In addition, as in all cases of civil disobedience, the proprietor must be willing to accept the consequences.

While refusing service to someone is acceptable in certain situations, we must remember the purpose of such actions should be restoration to the community.  “ … if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness.” (Galatians 6:1)

Scott's Reply
Indeed, party affiliation does not warrant refusal of service. In the case of Ms. Sanders, I think the objection ran deeper than party affiliation, but I doubt that turning her out of the restaurant was intended to restore her to the community. I suspect the restaurant staff seized the opportunity, which chance offered them, to show their outrage at what Ms. Sanders represents and defends. (There she was, right in their restaurant!) But what is the result? While the Left takes pleasure in snubbing a reviled opponent, the right points to it as evidence that liberals are hateful and uncivil. Whose cause is advanced? As we express the values and positions of our own side, shouldn’t we also live by and demonstrate the principles we want everyone to honor?

Scott’s Statement
Legally, a restaurateur or a baker can decline to serve or employ anyone for any reason, or for no reason, with one important exception: They cannot refuse based on a person’s status as part of a “protected class,” which usually includes gender, race, religion, and sexual orientation. The restauranteur who declined to serve Sara Huckabee Sanders was within her legal rights. The gay-wedding-averse bakers of cakes, well, that became a legal question involving a possible exception to the exception. A recent narrow Supreme Court decision has not fully resolved it, but the law is a process for drawing those lines, and I am willing to let that process work. 

Beyond the legal angle, there is the question of what is right and best. My opinion is that we should serve one another. This is how I hope my community will behave: Bake the cake. Bring Mrs. Sanders her dinner. I saw liberal social media posts in the wake of the Sara Sanders restaurant incident justifying abandonment of standards of civility in response to their being abandoned by the other side. The path this sets up for us is downward-spiraling.

Sure, sometimes it’s constructive to compromise standards in pursuit of a broader goal — we might retreat in a negotiation to an acceptable middle ground, or support a second choice after our favorite candidate loses the primary. If, however, we find ourselves walking back on principles simply to feed our anger, we should reassess. It is better to understand and manage passions — ours and our adversary’s — so we can plan the most effective action possible. Our own principled behavior needn’t be contingent on that of others. Sometimes treachery is so plain that incivility seems justified, but even then, is it effective, or does it just stoke a natural but unhelpful compulsion toward moral symmetry? I think instances where it is effective to meet incivility with incivility are much rarer than our passions would suggest. 

Commitment to civility helps protect the functionality of public processes, resisting the spiral into anger and retaliation. 

Bill’s Reply
My disagreements with Scott on this question are a matter of degree. I'm not sure I would describe a 7-2 vote on a Supreme Court decision as “narrow." Albeit the scope of the judgment as precedent is limited (i.e., narrow), the margin of victory isn't. The court clearly defended the baker's First Amendment rights. I endorse Scott's commitment to service and civility, although I would support the proprietor who refused to serve Ms. Sanders, as well. She did so respectfully and was willing to accept the consequences. Like Scott, I'm concerned with incivility on both sides of the aisle. However, I also appreciate the transformative power of civil disobedience. As Jesus and, later, Dr. King knew, maintaining civility and showing grace is what makes the disobedience restorative.

Agree Statement
Scott and Bill agree protests, even civil disobedience, can be an important part of cultural transformation. Such events should have the expressed purpose of seeking a community’s greater good. Commitment to civility and attention to impact keeps them constructive; succumbing to outrage and impulse toward retaliation makes them quarrelsome.