On Feb 28, 2014, at Fri, Feb 28, 7:11 PM, Sisk, Gregory C. <gcs...@stthomas.edu> wrote:
> Now what these two evangelical Christians experienced was plainly > “discrimination.” I’m not sure it was. While I’m not an attorney of any stripe or ilk, I’d say that what those evangelists experienced was (verbal) antagonism. And while it was indeed vile and despicable, it is protected under free speech, if I’m not mistaken, provided no one actively threatened them with bodily harm. Discrimination would have occurred if the Jewish shop owner had indeed refused to serve them because they were evangelists, or at least discrimination in the legal sense, if I understand it. If someone had begun beating them while yelling anti-evangelist epithets, that would have been a hate crime or possibly religiously motivated assault, certainly? Discrimination is difficult to pin down; but certainly denying publicly offered goods and services for reasons other than an inability to pay is discrimination, isn’t it? Once, while leaving the local lesbian watering hole in Providence, RI, a car full of (I suspect rather drunk) young men yelled “Fucking dyke!” at me. My immediate response was “I’m a walking dyke. I do my fucking at home!” At that point one of them threw a glass bottle which smashed many yards away from me. Discrimination? They didn’t deny me from using public roads, but assault? Maybe. That bottle was more threat than assault, I think. Was I scared, in fear of my life? You better believe it, in spite of my rare quick response to their taunt. Luckily they sped off, and I was able to get to my car and go home without any physical damage. But common self preservation told me that drunk young men are dangerous; that is a lesson I learned from Matthew Sheppard. My prescience was justified by the badly-aimed glass bottle. So tell me, list members, was I “discriminated” against? Was I assaulted? At what point did their behavior cross from protected speech to criminal activity? Did it? I never did tell my story to the police. I’d already been told that the Providence police turned a blind eye on such things, and even worse things routinely. How could I get justice when I didn’t even have a license plate number or descriptions of the men? All the best, Jean.
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