Pharmacies came to mind for me, too. On the one hand there are lots of pharmacies. On the other hand it's easy to imagine every single pharmacy in Conservative-Churchville, USA refusing to fill prescriptions for Plan B, birth control, some psychological conditions, anything having to do with gender reassignment, and more. And further, pharmacy (like marriage-license administration) has had cases where people who know what they're getting into take a job, then refuse to do it, then mount a "freedom of (my, but not your) religion" argument for why they should be allowed to not do their jobs while retaining them, and because of the political climate in the US, they get away with it. One's personal religious observance ends at the boundaries with other people. Jews have been dealing with this for ages, sometimes losing (or not taking) jobs that preclude observance of Shabbat or other halacha, and that's just part of the cost of living in a world where we don't all have the same beliefs. You shouldn't get to be the dog in the manger.
Pharmacies are complicated because they're not a monopoly but they're government-regulated (a random person can't just hang out his shingle). I don't know for which parts of the Internet service industry that's true, but some for sure. So while I don't like government compelling private businesses in much of anything, if the government is acting as your enforcer then you're not completely private either, and it feels like that should make a difference even while teetering at the top of this slippery slope. These cases are different from, say, a bakery, which should be free to say "we won't write that on a cake" or even "we won't bake that cake" to anybody they choose -- and take the consequences if it's controversial.
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Date: 2017-08-24 07:10 pm (UTC)Pharmacies are complicated because they're not a monopoly but they're government-regulated (a random person can't just hang out his shingle). I don't know for which parts of the Internet service industry that's true, but some for sure. So while I don't like government compelling private businesses in much of anything, if the government is acting as your enforcer then you're not completely private either, and it feels like that should make a difference even while teetering at the top of this slippery slope. These cases are different from, say, a bakery, which should be free to say "we won't write that on a cake" or even "we won't bake that cake" to anybody they choose -- and take the consequences if it's controversial.