Amyx Hardware and Roofing Supplies Tennessee

via Yelp

The U.Due south. Supreme Court may have legalized gay marriage on 2015, just in 2018 it said that people accept the right to oppose it. The court ruled vii-2 in favor of a Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. The baker cited his Christian behavior as the reason for his opposition.

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"The laws and the Constitution can, and in some instances must, protect gay persons and gay couples in the practise of their civil rights," the court found, "just religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage are protected views and in some instances protected forms of expression."

After the SCOTUS conclusion, bigots have been empowered to refuse service to the LGBT community on the footing of "religious liberty." One notable case is Jeff Amyx, the possessor of Amyx Hardware and Covering Supplies in Washburn, Tennessee.

Doesn't he look proud?
This is Jeff Amyx, owner of Amyx Hardware & Roofing Supplies in Washburn TN.
Phone # is listed if anyone feels similar giving him a telephone call & letting him now how yous feel almost his new 'policy'.
Even had Tshirts made up!! #Murica pic.twitter.com/IEmVnAXhF5

— Sheryl Lynne ReSister #ImpeachTheMF (@shossy2) June ten, 2018\due north

\northward

Amyx caught the attention of social media back in June 2018 after hanging homophobic signs on the front door of his business that read, "No gays allowed," "Choose god or gays," and "We reserve the correct to decline service to anyone who would violate our rights of freedom of speech and freedom of faith."

It's puzzling why anyone in business to make a cadet would turn off potential customers by posting bigoted signs. Nevertheless, information technology'due south possible that someone who believes the universe was created by a supernatural bigot would also have questionable business sense.

The calendar week after his signs went up, people from across the country slammed Amyx's business on Yelp.

via Yelp

via Yelp

via Yelp

Reviewers on Google even re-categorized his business every bit a gay bar.

via Google

via Google

via Google

via Google

Eventually, Yelp flagged the folio for a make clean up and began to pull downwardly the negative reviews.

"This business organisation recently fabricated waves in the news, which ofttimes means that people come up to this page to postal service their views on the news," Yelp said in a statement. "While we don't take a stand one way or the other when it comes to these news events, nosotros practise work to remove both positive and negative posts that appear to exist motivated more than by the news coverage itself than the reviewer'southward personal consumer feel with the business organisation."

However, Google nevertheless has the business concern listed as a gay bar and doesn't appear to take touched a single review.

While people should have the freedom to exercise their religion how they choose, people should also not exist discrimininated against considering of their sexuality. The Amyx Hardware story is a great example of people using their freedom of speech to fight back against discrimination, but the land even so needs stiff laws to protect its most vulnerable citizens from bigotry.

The good news is that after the Democrats won a majority in the House, they're in a meliorate position to laissez passer the Equality Act. This bill would list sexual orientation and gender identity as protected characteristics in existing federal civil rights legislation. It would provide consequent and explicit not-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people beyond central areas of life, including employment, housing, credit, educational activity, public spaces and services, federally funded programs, and jury service.

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