A business owner’s right to make a business decision based on personal beliefs is a difficult line to walk today.
We’ve seen over the past decade, for instance, prominent court decisions in the country that allowed a bakery owner to refuse to provide a cake for a same-sex wedding because such relationships went against his religious beliefs, and upheld a Catholic hospital system’s decision not to provide abortifacients to its employees because abortion was against Catholic doctrine.
But a bakery, hospital, car dealership or pizzeria could not refuse a customer service during normal business hours because of the customer’s sexual orientation.
That’s why owners of a Red Bank pizzeria have been the target of numerous social media comments deriding their decision not to cater same-sex weddings. Other comments on social media have been supportive. Some people will stop patronizing the Dayton Boulevard establishment over the owners’ decision, and it also will probably gain some new customers who are in agreement over the choice it made.
(READ THE TIMES OPINION:Pizzeria’s refusal to cater gay weddings is about bigotry, not beliefs)