Legal Bickering

I'm just going to vent a little bit today. In my home state of Arizona, there's been a bit of an uproar the last few months that reminds me of my children. To my understanding, it started when a baker and a florist refused service to homosexual couples for their marriage ceremonies. The couples were upset, probably feeling slighted, discriminated against, and judged. My honest views on the subject are that a person shouldn't deny a person business service just because they don't agree with how it will be used, but that they should have that choice. It's their business, their flowers, and if it makes them uncomfortable, their patrons are better off without an unwilling participant.

Either way, I think there are a dozen ways the customers could have handled the situation. Using social media, they could make sure the world knew how they'd been treated, they could post reviews on the multiple sites that give businesses ratings, and they could go someplace else with their business, spreading the word as they went. But they went to gov't mommy and complained... meaning they filed a "Stop it!" lawsuit. Really? A business slights you, so you're going to play the lawsuit card and get them closed down?

Then comes the retaliation.  Anybody else feel like you're watching children quarrel in the backseat of a minivan? So friends or other business owners (I'm not sure which), pushed a bill put through congress saying, "We don't have to if we don't want to."

And then all the siblings took sides and started whining to their parents about the unfairness of it all, making the entire minivan (Arizona) erupt into petty, squabbling, children... all of it aimed at the parents, the lawmakers.

Solution? When our kids squabble during the road trip we tell them they can settle down and leave each other alone, or they can stand outside the car for ten minutes until they cool off. I only wish we could kick people out of the state for a year until they calm down and learn how to deal with one another in a civil, respectful, way. I only wish.