Jewelry store sign prompts same-sex couple to ask for refund

“You must not only bake the cake, or arrange the flowers, or make the ring, you must hold the correct opinion when you do it.”
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/heads-lgbt-win-tails-christians-lose/


Todays Jewellers (in St. Johns, Canada) made a pair of custom engagement rings for lesbians Nicole White and Pam Renouf. The lesbians had no complaints with the rings, the jewelers were courteous and professional. From the CBC: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfo...s-same-sex-couple-to-ask-for-refund-1.3077192

"They were great to work with. They seemed to have no issues. They knew the two of us were a same-sex couple," White said. "I referred some of my friends to them, just because I did get some good customer service and they had good prices."
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So the jewelers did everything the gays say people must do when operating a public business. The jewelers were respectful, accommodating, and did an excellent job for an acceptable price.

But the jewelers did not have gay approved thoughts, and so they must be punished. From the CBC:

That was before one friend went in to purchase a ring for his girlfriend — and instead found a distressing sign. It reads: "The sanctity of marriage is under attack. Let's keep marriage between a man and a woman."

"It was really upsetting. Really sad, because we already had money down on [the rings], and they're displaying how much they are against gays, and how they think marriage should be between a man and a woman."

The couple went to the store the following day, and asked about the sign. "They just said that that's their beliefs, and they think they can put up whatever they want. I just said it was very disrespectful, it's very unprofessional and I wanted a refund," White said.

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Esau Jardon, the co-owner of Today's Jewellers, said he posts several signs in his store throughout the year. "I have been posting different aspects of my religious beliefs the last 11 years, and I've never had one single problem with any of my customers," he said.

"It seems to be a Canadian right to post what you believe."

"When I walk on Church Street in Toronto, where I am right now, and I see [LGBT rainbow flags], and I see a lot of signs and a lot of things on public property, I don't have a problem with them. I accept it. I chose to come to Canada... and we accept the whole package... I don't discriminate against that, nor do I come and tell them to take them down. For the same reason, I ask to have the same respect in return, especially when it's in my own business."
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Who in this story is the most tolerant and respectful, and who is the bully? This says it best http://hotair.com/archives/2015/05/...iding-service-to-gay-weddings/comment-page-1/

Initially he refused to grant the refund on principle, so that he wouldn’t be seen as apologizing for his beliefs. He did the work they requested, they were happy with the result. What’s the grounds for a refund? Now that he’s been harassed, he’s decided to return their money and hope this all goes away. Witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational gay-rights battle station: At this point, they don’t have to go to the effort of mounting an actual boycott to get religious believers to back down. They don’t even need actual discriminatory conduct to motivate outrage mobs. (Although we already knew that from the Memories Pizza debacle.) All it takes to make a small business fear for its financial survival and the owner to fear for his actual survival is the media noticing a mundane expression of support for traditional marriage, irrespective of whether that support affects business practices in any way. The private enforcement regime against anti-SSM blasphemy is turning out to be even more effective than the legal one.​

As many have claimed, the gays are not after "equality" or have an interest in accommodation laws, they want to destroy all who don't have the proper gay approved thoughts.

How long are people going to put up with these bullying tactics? Isn't it time that the gay mob was put back in its place?

 

What place would that be?

 

I'm sorry maybe I. Issued your point...but how does gays wanting a refund from a Canadian business have anything to do with gays in America?

And like wise I'd like to know what place you think gays should be put back into?

 

How about a place where they can't bully people?...you know, like everyone else (since we're after fairness and all)

and notice the phrase used was 'gay mob' and not just 'gays'. There's a big difference in the implication.

 

Why can't people who dislike gays just keep it to themselves instead of posting signs about it ? Funny how you got upset at the gays for doing the same thing the religion owner did.

 

Everyone else can bully whomever they want. Why should gays be any different?

The only "gay mob" I've ever seen is at the pride parades, they usually turn out a lot of people and most of them are gay.

 

No they can't, not sure where you get this from.

They shouldn't, that's my point.

 

What you're talking about is a simple boycott. It happens every single day, in thousand of places all over the country. Righties boycott, black boycott, women boycott, even children boycott. Everyone and their brother boycotts. Once again, why should gays be any different?

 

Bullying and boycotting....not the same thing.

boycotting would be simply taking their business elsewhere w/o resorting to lawsuits, crying to the media, etc....which we've seen plenty of from gays recently.

Gays have a free pass to bully, and they often take it way beyond boycotting.

Do you seriously think they're the same or that this is really what we're talking about?

 

No, every boycott involves some crying to the media, and probably even a lawsuit or two.

I dunno dude, I'm thinking this is perceptual on your part. Gays are given the time of day just as much as anyone else, probably more. Very few people I know feel "intimidated" by gay people, mostly it's quite the other way around.

Let me tell you a true story. The other day I was sitting on a bus here in LA, and some guy up front was talking shyot about the gays, saying stuff like "God considers it an abomination", and "the Bible says"....

And, there just happened to be a group of flaming gay people in the middle of the bus, four young men who had just come home from an evening of clubbing, and they were being quite loud and obnoxious and making no secret of their sexual preferences.

So, suddenly one of these young men starts listening to the conversation up front, and he gets up and starts wagging his finger in the air, and says, "Nuh-uh, I hear one more word about f*****s and I'm going to stick someone with a knife. This is 2015, we don't put up with that kind of thing anymore."

And that got people a little scared, not 'cause he was gay, but because he just made a terrorist threat in public.

So now, I waited till this fool kid sat back down, and I looked him straight in the eye and said, "you need to chill."

And his first response was pretty unpleasant, I'm not going to repeat what he said, but basically accused me of being prejudiced.

And I looked him up and down, and he must have seen something in my eye because I could see his facial expression soften just as I said, "You can't fight ignorance."

This guy was really an arrogant little punk, but that's not the important part. The important part is that when I got done with him he actually got up and apologized to the bus driver.

Gays are reasonable people. They react just like you or I would, when they have to live in a beat-down world all the time. And when they do something wrong, there's plenty of 'em that can stand up and admit it (as distinct from Republicans and Democrats, who have no such talent).

This particular gay man learned from me that day, that no one is going to even see or hear his political protests, as long as he's out there threatening people with a knife. The more likely outcome on that one, is he gets stuck before the other guy does.

 

Do you think an anti-gay CEO of IBM is entitled to tell his or her employees to turn away business from pro-LGBT companies? Is that doing his or her fiduciary duties to his or her shareholders??

 

Absolutely. He's allowed to say anything he wants. (Except libel or incitement, stuff like that).

If he said it, it probably is.

Why, did this actually happen?

 

Not to the best of my knowledge, it was merely an example. But IF it did, the CEO would be removed from his or her post faster than your head could spin. The CEO's duty is to his shareholders, not their own personal feelings. If they can't deal with that, they have no business in the post.

 

Yeah. I mean, most of your multinational CEO types are very focused, they don't bring that stuff to the table. (In fact most of 'em go to great lengths to veil their personal lives).

Your small business owner... is a different animal. There's no one to tell him he can't keep his job, so he has a lot more freedom to mix the business with the personal.

However Tim Cook coming out of the closet, that was a pretty brave thing to do. I don't suppose it caught Al Gore by surprise, either.

 

Nah, it's the same thing, just on a different scope. As for who is there to enforce it, it is the State, to tell criminals they can't discriminate.

 

Well, I personally would not discriminate against gays. If I'm a business owner, gays mean business. Gays are customers, it's really dumb to discriminate against your own customers!

However there are other people I probably would discriminate against, not because of the way they're born but because of who they've become in the meantime.

I reserve the right to kick anyone out of my store for any reason. Period. It's my store, and if I say you have to leave, then you have to leave.

Now, that attitude will not keep me in business, but if I care more about my religious beliefs than I do about making a living, maybe I'm in the wrong business and God has something different planned for me.

 

Stripped of all constitutional rights.

 

I agree, it's not right to focus media on somebody over something like this.

I appreciate that you recognize a difference and I thank you for that.

Having discussed this with battle3 at length all gay people are the gay mob to her. She changed that I was guilty of this crap by complacency even though I was telling her I didn't support this kind of thing.

But when she refers to the gay mob she means everybody that is gay because those of us who don't support this don't have some sort of rally or media event or what ever the Hell she requires, obviously words aren't enough.

 

I think that the OP is conflating two seperate issues, and trying to equate them.
Issue number 1 is businesses being forbidden from discriminating. The law has been established about that for quite some time.
Issue number 2 is consumers being allowed to make discriminating choices. We all make political choices when we consume goods and services. Be it buying at the Mom and Pop local store rather than the big box store because you want to support local business, going to starbucks because they were considered friendly to the open carry laws, going to, or not going to Chick Fil A because of their CEOs stance on gays etc...
This discriminating choice is not only allowed, but I will remind the OP that at least one of the GOP candidates running for president beleives that this is the better way to deal with the ending of discrimation by businesses. That pressures by the consumers on businesses would stop them from discriminating (as per Rans Paul's statement regarding the Civil Right's Act).

I also think that in this instance the right is trying to make a point out of it, when the story doesn't really gel with the issue at hand. Because frankly what happened is that a consumer bought something from a business, then had buyer's remorse once they found out about the business, tried to get reimbursed, couldn't because of contractual obligations, then did what we all do as consumers which is try to put some pressure to get what we wanted.

 

What people don't seem to understand is that the bill of rights grants people the freedom of speech but it doesn't grant them the right to be free from criticism. Whether it comes from the media or customers.

 

Should we also shove the Christian mob back in it's place?

 

Lot of business owners go into business not just to make money.....but to live their lives as THEY see fit.

 

looks like at the time the business just saw them as a customer, then when the religious fanatics told them they should be upset they got upset and put up a sign... idiots

just goes to show how easily the religious nuts are being convinced this is part of their region, when in the past it never was

.

 

Absolutely. As long as they stay within the confines of the law (which this particular owner did) they are free to display their beleifs as they see fit (which the owner did). No problem.
Customers are also free to shop or not shop in particular places as they see fit. And they do. Some patrons will avoid establishments with rainbow coloured flags in front of them, and some will avoid those with the signs that this jeweler posted. I think that we totally agree upon this.
Business owners do run the risk of losing certain customers when they display their beleifs. That is just a conversation that the owner has to have with his conscience and his pocketbook (many businesses in fact MAKE money by displaying their beleifs) and they need to live with those consequences, and I beleive most do happily.

This is only a story because customers bought an item from a store that they never would have patronized had they known about the beleifs of the owner, and the fact that the owner displayed those beleifs, but not all the time. Just unlucky for both sides. Nothing else. Trying to use this as a depiction of an angry Gay mob that needs to be put in it's place by the OP is ridiculous.

When my son was growing up, I bought these great DVDs by the band "They Might Be Giants" that were great for learning how to count and learn the alphabet. I thought they were so great that over the years, I bought them as gifts for my friends that had young kids. Well, in the meantime, Disney bought the rights to these DVDs, and I try to avoid Disney products as much as possible (I dislike how agressively they advertise to kids) so the last copies I bought, I returned to the store. This is EXACTLY the same story. The only difference is the return policy of the two establishments, and the amount of money involved....

 

Political signs and ideals have no place where a service is not meant to discriminate. It's essentially attempting to stop gay people buying something in the store, without directly refusing them. If the sign said something about marriage between different races, this would be really hot news.

Personally, I don't see why any business would want to prevent sales; that's not a good business model. If it can be proven that it would hurt sales to sell to gay people - i.e. they would lose their majority of hard-line christian clientèle then that's reasonable. But I don't think that's the case here - or in a majority of these cases.