Ron Calzone is an activist in Missouri. He spoke recently at a Missouri House Committee on General Law, which was hearing testimony on bills addressing discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. He not only thinks discriminating is a good thing, like Don Quixote, he thinks it’s a holy quest. Kansas City Star:
“I believe that we have a God-given right to discriminate,” he told the committee. “We actually have a God-given responsibility, a duty, to sometimes discriminate,” he added.
Asked if he believed a restaurant owner could eject someone based on race or religion or gender, Calzone said yes. “If a restaurant owner doesn’t want to serve people with freckles, that should be his choice,” he told the group.
“Forcing someone to serve someone they do not want to serve is a form of slavery,” he told The Star Editorial Board in an email.
Bottom line, one of the bills being considered is one headed by Missouri Rep. Greg Razer, who is seeking protections for LGBTQ Missourians. He has until May 17, when the legislature adjourns, to get it passed, and according to this editorial, “absent a miracle, his anti-discrimination bill will die” — which means that it will still be okay to deny a Missourian a job or kick him or her out of an apartment because somebody thinks the tenant might be gay.
This is medieval, but it is real nonetheless. These backward notions and hateful people have always been with it, but in the Trump era, they feel empowered to come out of the woodwork and spew their poison. I hope that the good people of Missouri stand up to the bigots, because this is not an attractive advertisement for any state.
My restaurant doesn’t serve idiots…..no soup for you Ron.
Isn’t that sad? Zero tolerance for anybody. You have to be a member of some clique/cult/tribe, take your pick.
Man, where did we go wrong as a nation to be even having this dialogue?
One word Miss Ursula…….Trump. He poisons everything he touches……including unstable minds.
Long before Tr*mp. LONG before.
I read somewhere the other day, “these people have always been with us, but in 2016 they got what they wanted.” Lot of truth to that.
Sadly PJ, you are right…..they don’t believe in evolution, so never have evolved.
A closed mind never learns.
This is just awful. Trump is a vile creature. He is a parasite. Everything flows from the top.
As Anthony Scaramucci said, “the fish stinks from the head down.” It’s supposed to be the fish “rots” from the head down, but this is the age of Trump, and nobody gets anything right.
I wonder if post-Trump we’ll ever be able to get these knuckle-dragging asshats crammed back into the cave they crawled out of. They’ve had some time out in the open, spewing their hatred, bigotry and insane viewpoints. They may not want to go back to that dark place from which they originated.