June 7, 2018
Hardware Store Owner Celebrates Court's Cake Ruling with 'No Gays Allowed' Sign
Kilian Melloy READ TIME: 2 MIN.
LGBTQ customers can take their money elsewhere as far as the owner of a Tennessee hardware store is concerned, news station WBIR reports.
Jeff Amyx, the proprietor of Amyx Hardware & Roofing Supplies, which is located in the county of Grainger, Tennessee, first hung his "No Gays Allowed" sign in 2015, after the U.S. Supreme Court found that denying same-sex families the right to marry violated their rights under the Constitution.
That sign was soon replaced by another that claimed the store had a right "to refuse service to anyone who would violate our rights of freedom of speech & freedom of religion," though the sign did not explain how buying a screwdriver or box of shingles would violate those rights, or how refusing to take money from customers of any specific demographic would preserve them.
Following the Supreme Court's narrowly defined ruling with regards to a Colorado baker taken to court for refusing service to a same-sex couple planning their wedding, however, Amyx broke out the "No Gays Allowed" sign once more - even though the Supreme Court had struck down an earlier ruling because it found that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission had treated the baker with hostility, not because it agreed with the precept that LGBTQ people should be shunned in the public sphere by people with homophobic "religious" or "moral" convictions.
Indeed, the court's ruling made a point of saying that "it is a general rule that such objections do not allow business owners and other actors in the economy and in society to deny protected persons equal access to goods and services under a neutral and generally applicable public accommodations law," as the Los Angeles Times reported in an article about the ruling.
Despite the facts of the case. Amyx regarded the court's ruling as a victory for the nation's anti-LGBTQ Christians. But Amyx was also swift to pluck the "persecution" chord, telling the media, "Christianity is under attack."
The store owner, who lists himself on his Twitter account as being a Baptist Preacher, went on to say, "This is a great win, don't get me wrong, but this is not the end, this is just the beginning."
