Don’t renew rights battles

We reserve the right to refuse service – and contraceptives – to anyone. And now we have the Blunt Amendment. When I was growing up in the South, many ministers preached against integration from their pulpits. As I recall, they quoted Scripture connected to the Tower of Babel, or maybe it was the dispersal of the tribes.

Many, perhaps a majority, of Southern businessmen believed it was morally wrong to serve Negroes in the same part of their business as white people. It was a free country, they said, and they had the right to refuse to serve “those people” if they chose.

I thought that with the civil rights legislation, we put that argument to rest. As a business person offering goods or services to the public, you did not have the right to discriminate, no matter your religion or moral beliefs.

I ask my Republican friends – no, that does not mean all Republicans – do we want to open that issue up again? I know Rand Paul thinks that the civil rights legislation was wrong in denying that business “freedom,” but even Paul does not want to repeal it.

Nolan Davis

Spokane