Sen. Phil Jensen wants to legalize discrimination
A right-wing Republican lawmaker is facing some backlash after articulating his belief that the government should not intervene or shut down businesses for refusing to serve black or gay customers based on their religious beliefs.
Phil Jensen, (R-S.D.) went on to say that businesses should be able to deny services to blacks, gay people, or anyone else who offends their religious beliefs, according to Think Progress.
Phil Jensen is the state’s most conservative senator, reports the Rapid City Journal. And he argues, not convincingly however, that the government should get out of the way and allow the free market to shut down discriminatory businesses. Last session, he introduced a measure that would have allowed employers to turn away undesirable clients without any legal repercussions:
Jensen goes so far as to say that businesses should have the right to deny service based on a customer’s race or religion — whether that’s right or wrong, he says, can be fairly addressed by the free market, not the government.
“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.
The measure, Senate Bill 128, ultimately died in committee, after LGBT advocates and even some Republicans characterized it as “a mean, nasty, hateful, vindictive bill.”
Looks like Jensen and others of his ilk are extremely nostalgic for the Jim Crow days when they could talk down, punk down, beat down and even kill blacks without fear of physical repercussions or legal ramifications.
