(July 22, 2015 at 11:10 pm)Dystopia Wrote: TL;DR - Let the hateful people expose themselves and boycott them - You don't need a law to force them to do business with you - Just like it is more desirable for bigots to expose themselves with free speech rather than seeing them facing censorship - How is this any better (ethically) than a hate speech law? the only difference is that in the latter you are not allowed to do or say something, while in the former you are forced to do something
The state has a vested interest in ensuring equality of opportunity. When the majority in a given area are bigots, the minority has no recourse. Martin Luther King's non-violent approach to changing the radical racism of the South only worked because the government realized that left to their own devices, bigots were not going to respond to boycotts by a small proportion of society.
While I agree that in government, smaller is generally better, the negative impact of doing nothing in the face of bigotry in public accommodations far outweighs the positives of remaining true to ideology. People are more important than principles.
