We have reached the point where what a person’s rights are depend on whether he’s in a “protected group” or not. In this piece, Will Grigg explores two contrasting cases in New Mexico. In one, a photographer who declined to do the photography at a gay wedding was hauled into court and fined. In the other, a hairdresser who dislikes Governor Martinez’s politics and therefore declines to do business with her any more, is not only left alone, but praised.
As I argued here recently, under the common law, which applied to everyone, any person was entirely free to reject a contractual offer from anyone else. No prying into motives, no litigation. The people just went their separate ways. Now, however, we seem stuck with an inquisitorial regime that won’t allow some people to just say “no.”
