by This little ditty says that some Hallmark stores owned by a small-time franchisee are refusing to sell the company’s new greeting cards that celebrate homosexual themes.
Good for them. Franchise owner or not, a business person should be able to determine what merchandise is on the shelves of his/her store. Here’s hoping they have the courage to hold out against the backlash that is undoubtedly heading their way.
At least the force that will be applied against these store owners is primarily economic. In California, doctors offering reproductive services face legal penalties if they dare to follow their consciences when deciding whether to perform in vitro fertilization for homosexual couples or not.
…the justices were clear on one point: Doctors, in the course of operating a business, cannot refuse a patient because of his or her sexual orientation, just as they would not be allowed to reject patients based on their race.
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Physicians can refuse to perform any procedure, such as abortion or in vitro fertilization, that they find morally objectionable. But if they do perform such procedures, they cannot provide them to some groups of patients and not to others. It is true that artificial insemination is an elective procedure, not a matter of saving life or limb, but that’s not the issue here.
No? Pray tell then, what exactly is the issue?
The arrogance of the California Supreme Court is simply staggering. How dare these so-called guardians of the law presume to compel doctors – the best and brightest among us, perhaps the only professionals whose services are utterly irreplaceable – to perform acts that they find morally reprehensible?
By what right do the judges lay claim to this legal power?
A clothing store may choose not to sell polo shirts. But once it sells polo shirts, it cannot withhold them from customers based on their race, religion, sexual orientation and so forth.
It’s preposterous to equate a highly trained medical professional to a common retailer, just as it’s ridiculous to compare the ultimate in human responsibility – the creation and nurturing of life – to t-shirt sales. It’s nonsensical, this new leftist logic.
Bear in mind that we’re not talking about whether lesbians can have the in vitro procedure – they can. The issue is whether a doctor can be compelled under force of law to perform that procedure. The answer, at least in California, is a crystal-clear, “Yes!”
If this is what law is in the 21st century, perhaps it is time to do away with this century’s perverse legalism and begin again. Using this twisted logic, how long before it’s outright illegal for the mom-and-pop-owned Hallmark store to decline to sell gay greeting cards?
Another question comes to mind as well. Given a medical system in which doctors can be forced to perform procedures that are anathema to their beliefs, how long until physicians begin to quit the field and the quality of care declines as the best potential medical students pursue other fields?
