That's Ridiculous

Yahoo News: Country Club Must Make Gays Even Offer

So, down in the Liberal State of California,

California's highest court ruled Monday that country clubs must offer gay members who register as domestic partners the same discounts given to married ones — a decision that could apply to other businesses such as insurance companies and mortgage lenders.

This is another example of activist judges forcing private businesses to follow the Liberal ideology.

The court ruled that the policy constitutes "impermissible marital status discrimination."

While businesses might once have claimed a legitimate business interest for maintaining different policies for married couples and gay members who cannot legally wed, such distinctions are no longer justified under a sweeping domestic partner law that took effect in California on Jan. 1, the court said.

"The Legislature has made it abundantly clear than an important goal of the Domestic Partner Act is to create substantial legal equality between domestic partners and spouses," Justice Carlos Moreno wrote for a five-judge majority. "We interpret this language to mean that there shall be no discrimination in the treatment of registered domestic partners and spouses."

Marriage can only take place between one man and one woman, so, really, there is no "impermissible marital status discrimination."

Jon Davidson, legal director of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, predicted that the ruling would affect not just country clubs, but mortgage lenders, insurance companies and other businesses that have separate policies or fees for married and unmarried customers.

"What the court said was that if a business in California provides benefits to married couples, it has to provide them equally to couples who register as domestic partners," Davidson said.

Then if you can't have separate policies for married couples and unmarried "domestic partners," then how can you have separate policies for anything?

Does this not lead to a slippery slope? How then can any business have a separate policy or fee for anything? Must movie theaters do away with student, military, and children discounts? Should restaurants not be allowed to have senior menus? Should movie stores have to rent NC-17 movies to 16-year-olds? Should car rental agencies have to rent cars to those same 16-year-olds?

Where does it stop? And shouldn't private businesses be allowed to set their own policies and fees? If you don't like a business's policies/fees, go some place else! Or start your own place! This is America, after all.