Gimmie That Old-Tyme Religious Bigotry; Anti-Muslim Edition

The owner of a public gun range won't let Muslims shoot there.

I hope she's set up a legal defense fund, for she is going to need it. Her range is open to the public. Banning people for religious reasons is as pernicious (and as illegal) as putting up a "No Irish" sign.

My FOB ancestors, some of whom I knew before they passed, were mainly anti-Catholic. They were that way because, back in the Old Country, the local peasantry would, from time to time, get liquored up and go an a pogrom. Pogroms were when the good G-d-fearing Christians would engage in acts of rape, pillaging, arson and murder against the local Jewish population. When I was a child, one of my great-aunts advised me: "When it's time for you to marry, better you bring home a Schvartzer than a Catholic."

Clearly, they considered Catholicism, if not Christianity itself, as a religion that held acts of violence as part of its tenents. So, let's say, for the sake of argument, that they opened up a business that served the public. Would they have been entitled to put a sign on the door that said "No Catholics"?

Next step: A number of my extended ancestral family didn't come over. A few went back to the Old Country. As far as anyone knows, they all perished in the Holocaust. Does that entitle me to put a sign on my office door saying "No Krauts Allowed"?

Or, let's go back to the Catholics. Say that you're from Northern Ireland, that most of your family was killed in an IRA bombing and that you came over here to escape the Troubles. Would you have a right to put up a sign saying "We Do Not Serve Catholics" in your coffee bar?

Clearly, the answer to all those hypothetical questions is "no". If you operate a business that is open to the public, you can't discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, religion or gender. Men, women, Hebes, Micks, Mackerel-Snappers, Krauts, doesn't matter. Their money is as good as that of Lester Maddox and the law requires that you treat any of those folks as you would a member of the Daughters of the Confederacy.

And if you don't want to do that, then this is what you do: Find another line of work.

Odd thing is that some people who are so eager to defend their rights are, in the same breath, more than willing to proclaim why other people should be denied their rights. Because bigots always can come up with rationalizations.