North Carolina Diner Removes Prayer Discount For Customers

[klr]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/0 ... 62840.html

A Winston-Salem, N.C., diner will no longer dish out discounts along with dinner to praying customers.

Mary’s Gourmet Diner had been offering a 15 percent discount for customers seen offering grace before meals during the past four years.

The practice went under the radar until a Christian music radio station in Orlando, Fla., uploaded a photo of a receipt with the discount to Facebook on July 30. Then it went viral.

The restaurant said the discount was given to customers at the discretion of the wait staff and was open to people of all religious beliefs. But that left out discounts for the nonreligious.

Elizabeth Cavell, staff attorney at the Freedom From Religion Foundation, began hearing complaints about the discount from state and national members. The Freedom From Religion Foundation is the largest national association of freethinkers, or people of no religious beliefs.

She then wrote a letter to the diner’s owner, Mary Haglund, on Aug. 4, asking her to stop offering the discount.

“As a place of ‘public accommodation,’ it is illegal for Mary’s Gourmet Diner to discriminate, or show favoritism, on the basis of religion,” the letter said. “Your restaurant’s restrictive promotional practice favors religious customers, and denies customers who do not pray and nonbelievers the right to ‘full and equal’ enjoyment of Mary’s Gourmet Diner.”

On Thursday (Aug. 6), a handwritten board near the front door announced that the restaurant would no longer offer the prayer discount.

“While you may exercise your right of religious freedom at this restaurant by praying over your meal to any entity or non-entity. We must protect your freedom from religion in a public place,” the sign said.

The restaurant declined to comment.

Cavell was happy with the response and said the foundation first looks to resolve legal complaints through education. It has no plans to take legal action.

This is not the first such restaurant promotion.

In 2012, Prudhomme’s Lost Cajun Kitchen, a Pennsylvania-based restaurant, was offering discounts to individuals who brought in a church bulletin on Sundays. After complaints, the restaurant was forced to give the discount to anyone with a bulletin from any congregation, including atheist ones.

[NineBerry]

Ah, it is the easily offended atheists again at work. If they keep up that speed, they will leave the easily offended muslims and christians behind very soon.

[Seth]

I'd have told them to go fuck themselves sideways with a cactus. In fact I'll do it now.

Hey, intolerant Atheists, go fuck yourselves sideways with a cactus!

They can offer all the discounts for "prayers" they want without discriminating against anyone. They don't specify the CONTENT of the prayers, nor do they require them to be THEISTIC prayers, therefore they are not discriminating based on religion or lack thereof.

Prayer: "something wished for: something that is wanted or hoped for very much"

[JimC]

Suck it up, religion freaks!

[piscator]

I'd have told them to go fuck themselves sideways with a cactus. In fact I'll do it now.
...

You know nothing about businesses of public accommodation. Moreover, your ideology compels you to refuse to draw a single distinction between a business that operates a place of public accommodation, and some fly-ridden cattle farm.

Why should anyone care about your opinion on this matter?

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Why should anyone care about your opinion?

[JimC]

Isn't it a certain part of Seth's beloved Merkin constitution that is behind this forced backdown?

Secular is as secular does...

[piscator]

Isn't it a certain part of Seth's beloved Merkin constitution that is behind this forced backdown?

Secular is as secular does...

Most of the successful anti-discrimination laws pertaining to public-facing businesses are based on the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution, as well as the "Justice" promised in the preamble.

[mistermack]

Of course, a discount for praying, is exactly the same as charging people who don't pray more.
Which is illegal religious discrimination.
It's like giving a discount to whites, and charging blacks more.

It's no wonder they had to drop it.

[Seth]

Suck it up, religion freaks!

Suck it up Atheist scum, the Constitution guarantees freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion. PFFFFFFFT!

[Seth]

Isn't it a certain part of Seth's beloved Merkin constitution that is behind this forced backdown?

Secular is as secular does...

Most of the successful anti-discrimination laws pertaining to public-facing businesses are based on the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution, as well as the "Justice" promised in the preamble.

Keerect. They are based on a false interpretation of the Commerce Clause at the federal level, and in fact most of these laws are state or local laws that clearly violate the First Amendment by favoring "freedom from religion" arguments made by Atheists. "Congress shall make no law..." means exactly what it says, and through the 14th Amendment that restriction on interfering with religion by government agencies devolves to the lowest public levels, right down to the dog catcher.

Virtually every "anti-discrimination" law that mentions religion below the federal level is entirely unconstitutional and without any legal support.

[Svartalf]

Suck it up, religion freaks!

Suck it up Atheist scum, the Constitution guarantees freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion. PFFFFFFFT!

Actually, it does both, being free to practice your religion entailing not having your neighbor's constantly thrown in your face.

and the freedom from religion argument need not be made by atheists, just by religious minorities fed up by the more vocal and proselytizing types.

[piscator]

Suck it up, religion freaks!

Suck it up Atheist scum, the Constitution guarantees freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion. PFFFFFFFT!

Pull your head out of your ass. Freedom from religion is categorically implied by by "Freedom of religion".

[Seth]

Of course, a discount for praying, is exactly the same as charging people who don't pray more.

No it's not. It's the same as saying that if a patron (of either sex) wears hot pants and a cut-off wet tee shirt in the bar they get a drink discount. If they said that anyone who prayed the Catholic Rosary or some Muslim prayer or a Buddhist blessing would get a discount it still wouldn't be legal discrimination because it doesn't say that you have to BELIEVE in the prayer, just that you have to appear to pray over the meal in some fashion. It doesn't matter what you "pray" for or what religion you belong to. You can be Catholic and offer a Satanic prayer or be Atheist and offer a prayer that religion will fade from human existence and it doesn't matter.

Which is illegal religious discrimination.

Nope. Only if a religion is specified and all or any other religions are excluded. Atheism is a religion (I thought you knew that by now) so you could look at the meal and say a silent "prayer" of thanks for the First Amendment and get the discount, so it's not religious discrimination at all.

It's like giving a discount to whites, and charging blacks more.

Not anything like it at all.

It's no wonder they had to drop it.

I'm going to write to them and suggest they reinstate it and tell you Atheists to go fuck yourselves.

[piscator]

Suck it up, religion freaks!

Suck it up Atheist scum, the Constitution guarantees freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion. PFFFFFFFT!

Actually, it does both, being free to practice your religion entailing not having your neighbor's constantly thrown in your face.

and the freedom from religion argument need not be made by atheists, just by religious minorities fed up by the more vocal and proselytizing types.

We're also not required to choose a religion to gain citizenship.