What Did Sen. Phil Jensen Really Say?

The web is abuzz with liberals who claim that a state senator in South Dakota, a Republican, said businesses should be able to discriminate against blacks.

But what did Senator Phil Jensen say, and more to the point, what did he mean?

“If someone was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and they were running a little bakery for instance, the majority of us would find it detestable that they refuse to serve blacks, and guess what? In a matter of weeks or so that business would shut down because no one is going to patronize them,” he said.

Based on the headlines I scanned, we’re supposed to get the impression that Senator Jensen supports racial discrimination. He’s merely making the point that if private companies have the freedom to serve whom they choose, these companies would face the consequences of denying service to a segment of the market.

But what the senator meant doesn’t matter. He’s a Republican. For the record, I don’t think businesses should be allowed to bar service to people based on skin color.

Senator Jensen’s comments were in reference to a bill that would allow businesses to deny services to homosexuals. His state’s bill is similar to the measure Governor Jan Brewer recently vetoed in Arizona. Star Parker agreed with that veto.

She wrote in a recent column that religious freedom “is about protection of your right to practice your religion and not being forced to violate it. However, the right to religious freedom does not mean the right to write-off and marginalize into non-existence a whole class of citizens whom you don’t like or agree with.”

There’s a difference between serving a homosexual a cup of coffee, however, and  providing services for a homosexual “wedding.” Star suspects, as many of us do, that the homosexual lobby wants to make an in-your-face point.

And why is it that same-sex couples have such a hard time finding bakers and florists that are not offended by their wedding? Why do they wind up with such regularity trying to buy from Christian vendors?…A “gay rights” crusade is not about a struggle for justice but rather it is a cultural war.

Indeed it is. As Star said, would anyone have a problem if a black vendor refused to sell the KKK sheets or Christians selling video services to make porno?

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