The Ethics of Gun Sales

Here’s another hypothetical for you: Suppose for a moment that you own a retail business, and the child of one of your customers uses something that his/her parent purchased from you to commit a heinous crime. Let us also suppose that the product you sold in entirely legal in your city, county, and state, that ownership of such articles is (debatably) protected by Federal law, and that you have complied with or exceeded the requirements of every law and ordinance that regulates these purchases and your class of business. Let us further suppose that your customer took all measures required by law and all of the measures that a reasonably prudent person would take to secure the article he/she purchased from you, and that their child defeated those measures and precautions in order to get access to the article. What degree of responsibility do you still have for the resulting heinous crime?

Before you answer that, consider what your opinion would be if you owned the company that had manufactured the article used in the aforementioned heinous crime. Suppose that your product was legal to produce in the United States, that you were in full compliance with all state and Federal laws regarding the production, distribution, and sale of your products, and that the heinous crime in question was committed by a person unknown to you in a location hundreds or thousands of miles from any facility that you own. What degree of responsibility would you and/or your company have for the heinous crime mentioned above?

As you’ve probably guessed, there is such a case currently before the courts following the Santa Fe Texas School shooting, as the families of some of the victims have brought suit against the gun store that sold the guns used in the shootings, and the companies that manufactured them. People who identify as pro-gun and/or libertarian are calling these actions absurd, and are comparing them to the lawsuits filed against food companies for making the plaintiffs obese. People who identify as in favor of gun control and/or victim’s rights have responded by saying that if you’re going to manufacture and/or sell devices that make it remarkably easy for a single deranged individual to injure or kill a great many other people in a short period of time, you’re going to have to expect to be held responsible when exactly that happens…

As an amateur historian I actually do have some knowledge of both the inclusion of the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights and the ways it has been interpreted in modern times, but I’m not going to offer opinions about Constitutional Law without a license. The legal exposure (or lack of it) that these companies might have in this case is up to the court system, not scruffy business bloggers. For now let’s stick to the issue at hand: what ethical responsibility do the people who make and sell guns have for atrocities committed by their customers?

On the one hand, one could argue that any customer could conceivably use any tangible object to commit a crime, regardless of whether or not that object is normally considered to be a weapon. Nothing else appearing, a customer could use the objects you have sold them to stab, bludgeon, or smother their victim, and the number of things that can be used to poison an adult human being are appalling once you start to enumerate them. On the other hand, guns generally have no practical function other than launching small quantities of lead into targets at extremely high velocities. Guns do not, in fact, kill people. They do, however, make it far too easy for people who have one to kill other people. And while there are some people who do have a legitimate need for a gun, decades of historical data covering millions of incidents very clearly establishes that the odds of being killed in a gun mishap (or a gun-related suicide) are several hundred times more likely than the odds of defending one’s self or one’s family with a personal weapon…

All of which brings me to the question: Do we, as business people, have an ethical responsibility to prevent customers from purchasing consumer products that could be used to injure or kill another person, either by them or by someone who has stolen the products? Alternately, do we have the right to tell anyone what kinds of products they should or should not be allowed to purchase, let alone prevent them from doing so by refusing to make and/or sell those products? Even granting that the current gun laws in this country are clearly not sufficient to prevent multiple school shootings every month in America, do we want to have private citizens deciding which Constitutional rights their neighbors should or should not be allowed to exercise? Or should we just make products that people want to buy, offer them for sale at competitive prices, comply with all Federal, state and local laws, and let the people decide for themselves?

It’s worth thinking about…

Please Tell Me It’s A Hoax

There are times when you run across a story so absurd that you have to wonder if you’re being pranked, either by the news media or by the people in the story itself. The unfortunate fact is that much of what you can read about online, even more so than traditional news outlets, is completely untrue and was created for the sole purpose of getting you to repeat it and get upset about it. So when the story about an ultra-Conservative group attempting to run a donut shop founded and run by a high school student out of business because they don’t like the name of the place first hit my desktop, I made a determined effort to find some indication that the story was a hoax. Unfortunately, this does not appear to be the case…

You can go to the local ABC affiliate station’s website and read it for yourself if you like, but even the station is saying that they can’t take responsibility for all of the details being correct. The story goes that conservative groups in the small town of Front Royal, Virginia, have converted the community into something right out of a Hollywood movie script, waging war on anything they consider to be insufficiently religious, including all references to magic, the supernatural, popular culture, music, pre-marital contact (of any kind) between people of different genders, or – apparently – donuts being sold in a store with a 1950s pin-up theme. It’s not exactly a new concept – every few years another small town somewhere in America will drop into a Footloose scenario and outlaw parties, mixed-gender social events, dancing, or whatever else has its elders in an uproar. This is the first time on record, at least as far as I can tell, that theocratic groups of this type have gone after someone for the name and theme of an otherwise harmless business, however…

I’m not going to present this as an ethics issue because I don’t believe there is another side to the story – a group of people are using their alleged religious convictions to cover their bigotry and hatred for anybody and anything different from themselves. I should acknowledge, I suppose, that I have no evidence that these so-called “Christian Conservatives” would react any differently if the donut shop was being run by a male entrepreneur, or someone whose surname is more Anglo than “Ramos,” but I know which way I would bet if I had to…

What makes this a business issue – and brings it into my purview in this blog – is that what they are actually attacking is a successful business run by a young woman who has managed to start up and run her operation while attending school full time. Even if we are willing to stipulate that running a donut shop with a slightly racy theme does somehow interfere with someone’s ability to practice a level of humorless, joyless religious fanaticism that even our Puritan ancestors would find embarrassing –and I am not willing to so stipulate, in fact – that does not change the fact that these wingnuts are infringing on someone’s right to operate a business and earn a living. And if they can do that to Ms. Ramos and her donut shop, and get away with it, what is to stop them from targeting any other woman-owned, minority-owned, or otherwise inconvenient business? For that matter, how long is it going to be before people with no religious convictions whatsoever start making up whatever stories they need to in order to drive a competitor out of business?

Assuming that this hasn’t already happened, of course…

Now, I must once again point out that I don’t have any independent confirmation of the story. I hope, more intensely than I can possibly tell you, that the whole thing turns out to be a hoax; that there really is a Tiana Ramos and that her Naughty Girl Donuts is thriving and prospering, surrounded by supportive townspeople who can’t even imagine why anyone would make them out to be a bunch of hateful fanatics. Because if this story is true it should sent a chill down the back of every entrepreneur and business owner in this country – and I will fear for the future of our Republic…

The Ethics of Exemptions

If you’ve been following the ongoing efforts to water down or otherwise weaken the Healthcare Reform Act – since the 37 attempts by Republicans in Congress to repeal the act outright have all failed – you’ve probably noticed the exemption offered for religious organizations regarding contraception. The argument goes that since some religious groups oppose birth control in any form, forcing them to pay for these services for their employees would be a violation of their First Amendment right to Freedom of Religion. This is usually countered with arguments that the organizations themselves aren’t paying for birth control – their insurance providers are, which leads to discussions about self-insuring agencies, final responsibility, and claims (and usually counter-claims) about conflicts of interest. But as upsetting as all of these disputes are, they still fail to take into account one of the obvious consequences of allowing any exemptions to our national healthcare laws in the first place…

If you allow any exemptions to any law, somebody will eventually attempt to use that exemption to their own benefit, regardless of whether or not the exemption is actually appropriate. This is the origin of cases where someone who isn’t a Native American has their house declared Tribal land and starts a casino, people whose official residence is somewhere off-shore to avoid paying taxes, and billionaires who receive Federal farm assistance money every year because they own just enough agricultural property to qualify. In a setting like this you’d have to be an idiot not to expect anyone who can do so to try to game the system; the real question becomes at what point is the requested exemption a reasonable interpretation of the law, and at what point does it become fraud?

Consider the case brought by the Hobby Lobby organization in Federal Appeals Court this past week to avoid having to pay for contraception services for their employees on the grounds that it would violate the company’s religious beliefs. The company points out that they use proceeds from their for-profit business to support the efforts of their ministry, and that therefore the entire organization can be seen as the support system for a religious enterprise. The claim may seem absurd on the face of it, especially since the company itself isn’t registered as a religious organization, and therefore has no legal requirement to spend any amount of funds any specific activity. But that’s exactly the problem: if we are going to allow exemptions for churches, then can we deny them to religious schools? If we allow them for religious schools, can we deny them to religious hospitals? How far from the actual house of worship can we extend this type of religion-based exemption before the whole question becomes absurd?

Even worse is the fact that while Hobby Lobby may appear to be gaming the letter of the law, there is at least some possibility that they are keeping to the spirit. Consider, for example, a company that really is run according to Christian ethics – providing people with money and other support on the basis of need, rather than the amount of work received in return, and so on. This could still be a for-profit company – it could still make a profit each year, in fact – but it would have a real chance of reaching people who would never go to church, let alone listen to a sermon once they got there. Such an enterprise could, at least in theory, adhere more closely to the central beliefs of that faith than any conventional religious institution. If it does so, how can we dismiss it as merely another business enterprise, undeserving of any special consideration?

Which leads me to the question: Can we allow any organization to have exemptions from a law that promotes the general health and welfare of the entire population on the grounds of maintaining religious freedom to the people involved with that organization? Can we allow any such exemptions, in fact, knowing that a non-zero number of applications will be made by people and organizations who have no reasonable justification for requesting them? Does freedom of religion override the right of all people to have complete medical care? And if it can only be said to do so in specific cases and for specific organizations, where do we draw those lines, and who gets to draw it? Or should we just have one set of rules for every organization and company and let the fallout (holy or otherwise) fall where it may?

It’s worth thinking about…

Buying Tickets or Not?

Every so often the question come up about whether parents bringing infants into a place of public accommodation should be required to purchase an additional seat for the child, or whether they should be allowed to just keep the child on their laps. Airlines usually allow lap children, despite the risk of injury to the infants in the event of an accident (or even a rough landing) because they weren’t in car seats because the added expense would keep a lot of families from flying at all (you generally can’t leave the kid with a sitter for your entire vacation). Movie theaters and some concert venues allow this because it’s too much trouble to try to prevent it; sporting venues allow this because who really cares if a baby is crying when the entire building too noisy to hear him or her. But the real question isn’t so much how this practice affects the customers, or even how being held in someone’s lap for the whole event affects the baby; it’s whether or not this practice is fair to the other customers – a point brought home this year when the organizers for the Summer Olympics in London posted a policy of requiring all children attending to have their own tickets…

There was a short article about this on MSNBC.com, but the really interesting part of it was reading the (often spirited) debate in the comments section at the bottom of the page. You would probably expect people who have small children to be outraged by this policy, and complain bitterly about this discrimination against children and families; you might also expect people who don’t have small children to counter by pointing out that such activities are bad for the child, unpleasant for everyone else in the grandstand, and potentially disruptive to the events themselves (in situations where the athletes need to concentrate, for example). What was surprising was the number of parents with small children who shot back saying they would never be so rude as to inflict their infants on an unsuspecting public, or so careless as to expose their baby to a stadium-full of germs and pollutants – and the number of people who claim not to have small children who insist that it is wrong to limit someone’s freedom by telling them where they can or can’t take their infants…

I find myself focusing on the fact that no one in London or on the Olympic Committee is saying you can’t bring a child to these events – they’re saying that if you do, you have to buy the child a ticket, just like anyone else. This might be seen as a way of selling more tickets (several of the on-line commentators made that point), but it would certainly be more comfortable for all parties involved, avoid trouble with fire regulations and venue capacity, and eliminate arguments about why somebody under the age of 2 is there in the first place – if the parents bought an extra ticket they clearly aren’t bringing the kids along just because they’re too cheap to hire a sitter. At the same time, however, it won’t settle the arguments about whether the crying and other behaviors are fair to the other customers, or the claims that parents should be allowed to take their children anywhere they want, so long as the children don’t require any additional space…

In general, these questions should have common-sense solutions, based on the actual conditions. If you have a child who will just sleep through a sporting event in a sling you wear, I can’t see the harm in bringing him or her to the stadium. On the other hand, bringing any child to an age-inappropriate event (a PG rated movie, for example) is potentially harmful to the child, and extremely rude to anyone who wants to watch event in peace (toddlers in Lord of the Rings movies? Really?). The problem is, most people have no common sense, and all too many people believe that they should be allowed to do anything they want, regardless of how it affects anyone else. All of which leads me to conclude that while an “everyone buys a ticket” rules may be unpleasant, they’re probably a better idea than the alternative…

The Ethics of Boycotts

There was an opinion piece in the Cleveland Plain Dealer this past week urging all male readers to boycott the upcoming season of the Lingerie Football League because it promotes violence against women (and ultimately rape), even when the watchers are fully committed to the idea of gender equality and disgusted by crimes of this type. The theory goes that since this type of violent crime is the ultimate expression of lack of respect for another person, any behavior (however trivial) that supports or fosters disrespect for anyone is simply a point on that spectrum, and once you have taken the first step all of the subsequent ones become easier. Like all “slippery slope” arguments, this one suffers from several logical fallacies, but it does raise several important points about boycotts of business operations. So let’s consider the ethics of the situation…

First off, I want to make it very clear that I have no information regarding the influence television events like the Lingerie Football League games have on human behavior; I’m not a specialist on gender equality issues, and while I am a behavioral scientist I only study behaviors relating to business. That said, there exists in any slippery slope argument the difficulty that the progression the person making the argument sees may not appear that way to others viewing the same facts – and that what appears to be an escalation to one person may not be. Certainly, without a great deal of highly consistent data to support the contention that exposure to images of women playing football in their underwear leads to an elevated rate of violence against women, we can’t accept any one individual’s opinion that this is so, no matter how expert that individual might be. If we wish to be scientific – or even merely professional – we cannot justify such a boycott simply on the grounds of outrage. But can we support it on purely commercial grounds?

Suppose for a moment that sponsorship of this programming generates additional sales for the companies paying for advertising time on those channels – which we can safely assume, considering that the “league” is continuing operations for another year and companies are still buying the ad time. Let us further suppose that those sales contribute wealth to the stockholders of those companies, allow for the creation of new jobs and raises for those currently employed, and increase the tax base of the communities where those companies (and their employees) live. We have no information to suggest that the people producing the Lingerie Football content are also prospering, but it is reasonable to assume that they must also be paying their employees, suppliers and stockholders (if they are publicly held), as well as giving work and media exposure to the young women who constitute their “players.” Can we assume, then, that any of these actions are unethical?

At the same time, it does not seem unreasonable that some elements of our society might confuse the members of the Lingerie Football league with real female athletes, or that such an association might make it more difficult for real women’s sports (those conducted for the purpose of athletic competition, rather than mere titillation) to gain and hold credibility in a media-dominated era. It is possible, in fact, that viewing such programming really will contribute to unrealistic views of women, disrespect for female athletes and/or women who are willing to perform on national television in their underwear, or even the gradual deterioration of behavior suggested by the opinion columnist in the Plain Dealer. However, I feel we are justified in questioning whether the Lingerie Football programs are the only source of such influences, or whether the vague possibility of bad behavior at some unspecified future point outweighs the positive benefit of jobs, standards of living, profits, and other forms of economic prosperity in the present…

Or, to put it directly, do we as viewers have an ethical responsibility to boycott programming that might, possibly, have bad social consequences at some point in the future? Do we, as citizens of a free-market economy, have an ethical responsibility to allow any business enterprise that does not present any clear and present danger to anything to conduct business in compliance with the laws of our country? Or do we, as members of a society possessing both the right to free expression and the right to the pursuit of happiness, have an ethical responsibility to let people make up their own minds about what they want to watch, what they want to believe, and what they choose to do as a consequence of those behaviors and beliefs, even if we know that a non-zero number of them will choose to do things we find repugnant as a consequence?

It’s worth thinking about…

Again, Unintended Consequences

Here’s another follow-up on a story from last year. You may recall that almost a year ago I wrote a post about the financial and economic potential of the attempt to legalize same-sex marriage in the state of California. As you probably know, the state’s Supreme Court struck down the legal provisions against such marriages, only to have them re-imposed by a ballot initiative (of possibly dubious legality) in November. At the time, analysts were suggesting that the availability of same-sex marriages could contribute as much as $370 million, although the time-frame involved was a bit nebulous. Given how badly the state’s economy has been hit by the current downturn, however, it seems likely that Californians would be happy about even $23 million a year in increased business…

Which is exactly what has happened in Massachusetts. A story being reported by the Associated Press indicates that over the past 5 years, since same-sex marriage was legalized in Massachusetts, approximately $111 million has been introduced into the state’s economy through industries that support such ceremonies. According to a study conducted at UCLA, roughly 12,000 same-sex couples have held weddings in Massachusetts, at an average cost of just under $10,000 during this period, although the researchers concede that there is a great deal of variance in the amounts spent. The implication, however, is that California, with nearly six times the population, would be likely to achieve a considerably larger effect…

Now, I’m not suggesting that such an effect, if it really happened, would be any substitute for development of new industries or business units in California; there are only so many same-sex couples with money to spend, and eventually all of the other states are going to pass similar laws, if only to cash in on the effect. Still, it is difficult to argue that the state would not benefit from $120 million a year, if only for a few years; it’s also unknown if there would be collateral effects in other business sectors not directly connected to the industry (e.g. hotels and airfare for guests at these weddings, tourism from wedding guests deciding to spend a few extra days on the Coast while they’re out for the wedding, honeymoon and anniversary trips), although it seems likely…

As in my previous post, I’m going to leave all considerations about the morality of such unions to those better equipped to carry such on arguments, so please don’t flame me over points of whether these weddings should be happening at all. The point I am trying to make here is that, as businesspeople, we would already be considered idiots (and bigoted idiots, at that, assuming there’s a difference) for rejecting someone’s business because of their race, religion, or country of origin. I can’t imagine what is any more intelligent about rejecting someone’s business because of whom they want to marry – especially in a place like California, where ANY increase in business would be a very welcome thing these days…


Decades ago, someone commented that in business, black, white, red, yellow and brown are all irrelevant; the only color we should really be concerning ourselves with is green. Maybe it’s time we added pink to that list. If the numbers coming out of Massachusetts are anywhere close to correct, we’d be idiots not to…

The Ethics of Pole Dancing

For those who have never encountered the term, Pole Dancing has nothing to do with folk dances of Polish origin, Maypoles, or drunks who believe that the telephone poles are following them as they drive home -- although alcohol is sometimes involved. Pole Dancing is the performance style common to "exotic" dances in strip clubs, and involves a series of gymnastic or even acrobatic maneuvers executed while clinging to and spinning around a pole extending from the floor of the stage to the ceiling. Clearly, this is not something you'd want located in (or moving into) a retail space in the center of town, or anywhere families with small children are likely to encounter it, unless you take an unusually tolerant view of sex education. But the case that came up a week or so ago demonstrates once again that things are never that simple, especially where First Amendment Rights are involved...

As reported in the York PA Daily Record, a woman named Stephanie Babines is attempting to open a dance studio in rural Adams Township, where she will teach (among other things) pole dancing to local women who want to learn how to do it. Note that this is not a strip club or a "gentleman's club;" there will be no men allowed in these classes, and spectators will not be permitted either. In fact, there will be no nudity involved, and nothing will go on in any of the studio's classes that could not be shown on network television in prime time. But this hasn't stopped the local authorities from going berserk over the studio's business permit application...

The township government seems to be taking the position that anything that might be remotely defined as a sex-based business, or even anything that might be remotely defined as promoting a sex-based business (or even anything implying that there are such things as sex-based businesses, one supposes) are in violation of a town ordinance that governs business permits. This is often considered a slippery-slope situation, in the sense that once a given municipality has one sex-based business, it is no longer possible to prevent other such businesses from opening. And we all know how dangerous THAT could be!

In fairness, there are cetain public safety risks associated with bars of any kind, and strip clubs in particular. But this situation isn't about increased rates of public intoxication (the dance studio doesn't serve alcohol), noise polution (the studio will be sound-proofed and will not operate at night), drunken driving (no alcohol, no drunk driving), or associated crime (no drunks with cash to rob, no cash register full of cash to rob, no dancers with handfulls of dollar bills to rob, no scantily-clad women to assault, no crowds of drunks to get into brawls, and so on); it's only about whether this type of business is going to be difficult for families with small children to deal with. Which is hard to imagine in this case...

The bottom line in this case seems to be at what point does the township's collective right to live in peace (without troublesome reminders that people do, on occasion, behave in risque fashions) outweigh the rights of a law-abiding citizen to operate a business that teaches people how to dance in a risque fashion? If the good people of Adams Township don't want a studio like this one, can't they just not do business there? Or does the Township government have a responsibility to protect their citizens from the (possible) effects of such an operation?

It's worth thinking about...

Take Your Gun to Work Revisited

A while back I wrote a post in this space about a couple of employees of a supermarket who were able to defend their store and their personnel because they had taken advantage of a local ordinance and had, in fact, brought their guns to work that day. It's an incedent that drew attention because of its novelty more than anything else -- it's that rare case where the weapons-carry laws worked exactly as intended, and allowed law-abiding citizens to defend themselves with a level of force that was actually appropriate to the circumstances. All too often, the right to carry a weapon simply results in the sort of accidental shootings, property damage, or inapropriate uses of force so beloved of gun control advocates. And yet, the single most difficult part of this debate does not concern either of these issues...

In Florida, the issue of bringing your gun to work has raised an entirely new controversy, as some employees of companies that prohibit weapons on the job have begun to insist on bringing their guns to work and locking the weapons in the trunk of their cars during the work day. The gun owners involved claim that since they have carry permits, and can carry a gun all the way to and from work, they should be allowed to just leave these weapons in their cars during the day, so they can be armed for the trip to and from home. The company parking lot is still private property, and the company should still be able to ban guns there, but the employees are claiming that this would require them to leave their guns at home (since they'd have no way to secure them outside of the company's property) and therefore violates their Second Amendment right to carry a gun...

Even worse, in my opinion, is the implications for people who don't drive to work. Suppose they ride the bus, or walk to work. These people have no car to secure their guns in while on the job. Should they therefore have the right to bring their guns inside and carry them in the office? And if not, aren't they also being required to leave their guns at home? More to the point, perhaps, if we don't allow these people to bring their guns to work and secure them inside the building, aren't we discriminating against those who are too poor to operate a car and those who are ecologically minded enough not to want to?

What's really disturbing about this issue, at least from where I'm sitting, is the impact on private property rights. The Second Amendment to the Constitution does not address the rights of private property owners explicitly; it merely restricts the ability of the government to control gun ownership. But if the right to bear arms supercedes the rights of property owners to prohibit people from bringing guns onto their property, then by extension gun owners should be able to bring their guns anywhere they want to (e.g. schools, churches, hospitals, crowded shopping centers, airports...). It's clearly not what the Framers had in mind when they mentioned a "Well-regulated militia," but it's just as clearly what lies at the end of this particular slippery slope...

So my question is, if you were the company's owner, if it was your office or your factory, what would you do? Would you allow people to leave their guns in their cars? If so, how would you deal with someone who is being fired being escorted out of the building by Security and right up to where they've stashed their gun? On the other hand, if you prohibit people from bringing their guns to work, and one of them is killed on the way home in a situation he could have survived if he'd had his gun with him, can you be sued for wrongful death? What about a situation like the one in my earlier post? If your employees aren't able to shoot their way out of an armed confrontation and some of them die, what happens then? Especially if state or county law would have permitted them to carry a gun anywhere other than your property?

It's worth thinking about...

The Ethics of Inn Keeping

Last night I went down to the second floor of the Residence Inn to do some wash, only to find that this would not be possible. One of my fellow guests had apparently forgotten that he or she was doing the wash, and had left his/her clothing in one of the washers for several hours. Another guest was in the middle of doing her wash using the other washer, and had at least three more loads to go, and one of the dryers was also out of action, because another of our fellow guests had decided to wash (and dry) his clothing without bothering to take the chewing tobacco out of his pocket first. Said dryer (and probably the corresponding washer, as well) were not exactly non-functional, just too disgusting to use…

The previous night, someone had decided to spray shaving cream on the walls on the third-floor hallway (leaving a puddle at one end of the hall). There has also been a steady stream of people walking from the pool area down the main hallway of the Inn with nothing on their feet, leaving a layer of athlete’s foot fungus that is so thick you can just about see it with the naked eye. Then there’s the breakfast room, which has been overrun with people who apparently see nothing wrong with letting their kids scream, run around, and play catch with food items during meals…

Now, I understand that a Residence Inn isn’t exactly the Ritz; I also realize that anywhere you have families on vacation with small children and most of a high school baseball team staying, there’s going to be a fair amount of mess, noise, and youthful misbehavior. And I’m not suggesting that the hotel or its owners have any obligation to provide any service beyond a clean, comfortable room at a reasonable price (although two pairs of laundry machines aren’t likely to be enough for a community of 100 or more people; it’s just asking for trouble). What I am asking is, at what point is someone being so completely awful that the management of the hotel should have the right to ask them to leave and go make a mess somewhere else?

As I noted in my post about airlines and where to draw the line, places of public accommodation have a legal responsibility to accommodate people with disabilities, families with small children, and other folks who might otherwise cause disruption and annoyance to their fellow guests. And, as noted in that post, people who actually vandalize the property (like the shaving-cream bandits, for example) are already breaking the law, and can be arrested and removed without further adaptation, assuming you can find them in the first place. But what about people who render public areas uninhabitable, shared facilities unusable, or dining facilities unbearable? How much of a pain do they need to be before the management should have the right to kick them out?

Of course, I’m sure that the people I’m writing about in this post would all insist that they paid their money to be here, and the hotel staff are being paid to take care of their needs and clean up after them, no matter how outrageous their conduct becomes. And I know that if there were no laws governing public accommodations, some people would refuse service to potential guests on the basis of age, race, religion, or disability; in the years before such laws were enacted that’s exactly what happened. Still, does the need to make reasonable accommodation really mean that selfish, careless or unclean people should be able to make pigs of themselves wherever and whenever they choose, regardless of the cost to the rest of us?

It’s worth thinking about…

Unintended Consequences

One of the most controversial legal decisions to hit California in the past four decades was handed down a week or so ago, when the State Supreme Court ruled that the law against same-sex marriages violated the California State Constitution and struck it down. As a result, same-sex marriages were suddenly legal in California and thousands of people began making plans to either get married or else stage an all-out effort to amend the Constitution to make such laws possible in the future. I’m going to leave the social, legal, political, religious, civil rights, equality and historical aspects of this situation to those better qualified to comment on them; I write about business issues. Fortunately, this leaves us with over $370 million dollars in new business to talk about…

Various stereotypical images aside, it’s hardly surprising that ANY group of people who have been denied the right to legal marriages for centuries might be excited by the idea of finally gaining that right, or that in their excitement they might begin planning some incredibly elaborate weddings (complete with massively expensive cakes, costumes, meals, settings, floral arrangements and accessories). The scope of the upsurge in this business sector appears to have taken everyone by surprise, however…

A story in today’s Los Angeles Times estimates that the uptick in wedding-related services resulting from the legalization of same-sex marriages in California could reach as much as $370 million. If couples from other states in the Western United States start coming to California to get married, this figure could rise even farther. And if conservatives in other Western states succeed in blocking such unions in their own jurisdictions, this sort of migration is in no way far-fetched. Nor does this figure even consider the corresponding uptick in business for the Legal industry, as scores of attorneys stand to be hired to fight for or against the legalization of same-sex marriages and recognition of those unions by other States…

It’s almost certainly not something that the people debating the issue on legal terms had given much consideration; those who are for same-sex marriages are working on the basis of equality and civil rights, and those who oppose it are mostly bringing up religious, social and political factors. Certainly the political liberals who favor these unions were not intending to create vast commercial opportunities, nor were the political conservatives who oppose them intending to find themselves working against hundreds of millions of dollars in business revenue for the State. As so often happens, the Law of Unexpected Consequences has introduced a completely new set of questions into what was already a complicated situation…

Politically, of course, no conservative can expect to oppose $370 million worth of new business and survive, any more than he or she can expect to support same-sex marriages and survive. But by the same token, any liberal who attempts to cloak him- or herself in a mantle of defending the civil rights of the people entering into same-sex marriages can reasonably expect to be questioned about whether they are really in favor of liberty or merely in favor of increased business and tax revenues…

Personally, I have always taken the position that anything that you benefit from that does not unnecessarily harm another person is not evil, and that anything which creates jobs, stimulates the economy, allows people to earn a good living and maintain a good lifestyle, and does not unnecessarily harm anyone (including members of future generations who have to live on this same planet) is generally a good thing. But under the circumstances, I have to say that it’s probably just as well that I’m not a politician…