UPDATE: Here’s the audio of Belling comparing women who breast feed their babies to “sows”:
[audio:belling-women-are-sows.mp3]
Right wing talk radio show host Mark Belling has outdone himself this time. On this afternoon’s show while he was ranting against a proposed breast feeding rights law, he not only displayed his ignorance about the benefits of breast feeding to both the mother and child, he managed to outrage pretty much every mother in Milwaukee.
I’ll have the audio shortly, but in short, Mark Belling compared women who breast feed their children to “sows”. Women are “pigs” in his expert opinion. For some reason, that particular segment is missing from the podcast on his web site right now. Coincidence? Doubtful.
That was only the beginning of an outrageous anti-family rant that was a showcase of disgusting and chauvinistic depravity.
Even women calling in to his show today who identified themselves as “conservatives” were outraged at the outrageous statements of WISN’s “premier” talk radio show host. And rightfully so.
Why a single middle aged man who has no family (that I know of at least) thinks he’s qualified to provide commentary about something as personal as breast feeding and it’s effect on women, their children and their families is beyond me. Why that kind of person thinks they can make such an offensive comparison and then try to cover it up is even a bigger question.
I live in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Milwaukee, WI with my wife Jen, our daughter Emerson, and sons Carter and Colton.
Every time I listen to Belling (usually while surfing the dial for traffic or weather), part of me feels sad, partly for how angry he always is, and partly for the fact that he is still on the air indicates he has an audience.
So he thinks breastfeeding is “crude”? How very indicative of the overly puritanical view of human biology shared by way too many Americans. It’s not crude – it’s life. Here’s something “crude”:
Belling’s a douche.
To say the radio host is insulting and disgusting is an understatement. I am so upset about this!! Who are you calling to complain about this jerk?
I don’t know why I keep logging in to your posts every morning Dan, but there is something addictively funny about seeing how the liberal thought process works. “women are pigs in his expert opinion”"Mark Belling compared women who breast feed their children to “sows”. Thanks for posting the actual audio so we could listen to the actual quotes and the context in which it was said. He said that women who make openly whip their breasts out in public were like “sows” and he said it in a joking fashion. Oh how I love to watch metro sexual liberal men praddle on with their fake righteous indignation on matters like this. Keep it up.
“BonyT” or whoever you are, you sound like just as much of a jerk as Belling. You must define your manliness by posting anonymous anti-woman comments on websites. Way to go tough guy!
Jamie, you go girl, “I am woman, hear me roar”. I have to invite you guys to a cocktail party, you just cant get enough of this entertainment.
Ah, once again, never doubt that a conservative won’t hesitate to defend the indefensible.
MC Pickard, Jamie, and whoever else had their sensitive feelings hurt by this “disgusting and chauvanistic depravity”(love it). My own children were breastfed, its great yadayadayada, who cares. My amusement is in how Dan clearly misquoted and rearanged Bellings words and context for either dramatic effect or disreguard for honesty. Then you all carry on with your faux righteous indignity. Derek, I love how you have to qualify your listening to Belling to your associates “usually while surfing the dial for weather or traffic”. Its ok to come out, Derek, your a closet Belling listener.
Is it any wonder that Belling has never been married?
Typical. Factually point out what a conservative says and embedded a sound file of what he says, and some conservative will smear you as “sensitive” to insulate themselves from criticism.
Easy folks. Belling is just “winning new hearts and minds” for the Republican party, that’s all. BonyT is getting lonely being one of the last few remaining Republicans in Wisconsin!
If you listen to Belling on any sort of regularity (you can define regularity in your own way) you know his opinions regarding kids, families, and many times sports are 80-90% wrong. He did in fact plead ignorance and/or ambivalence when it came to the positive effects of breastfeeding babies, which for me, made me realize that the rest of the rant was worthless to listen to….
As for the larger point of the topic (the proposed law to allow breastfeeding pretty much anywhere), and I’m surmising the reason he decided to use the term “sows”, I’m wondering why people (lawmakers and such) feel it is necessary to bring something like this up for a vote, much less pass it?!?!?
MC Pickard,
Let’s look at your quote a slightly different way….
“Typical. Factually point out what a LIBERAL says and embedded a sound file of what he says, and some LIBERAL will smear you as “INSENSITIVE” to insulate themselves from criticism.”
Now that statement is actually MORE accurate. Seems like it cuts both way, in my humble opinion.
Red herring aside, Sean, we are not discussing a liberal, we are discussing a conservative, Mark Belling… if you didn’t notice,
Maybe Mark Belling lacks the scientific knowledge to realize that as mammals breast feeding is what we do. Or perhaps he’s convinced that our technology with infant formulas etc. means we are evolved enough to no longer require basic mammalian functions such as breast feeding. Either way he must be running out of right wing material to attack this very basic fact of ‘human mammalian life’. It’s too bad Mark Belling wasn’t more evolved as a human so that he could be asexually reproductive. That way we could all tell him to go ‘F’ himself!
Ok, lets all act indignant about this boring topic. So a single middle aged, no kid, bachelor said something insensitive about public breast feeders, is this really worthy of all the metro sexual outrage? Personally, I could care less if they legalized public toplessness for any reason. Now don’t call me a pig and hurt my feelings.
Typical. Factually point out what a conservative says and embedded a sound file of what he says, and some conservative will cry “metro sexual outrage” or “boring” to insulate themselves from criticism.
Rinse and repeat.
It’s gotten you pretty wrapped around the axle bonyT. Seeing all your fuming and sputtering is worth the price of admission alone!
What a silly comment to get worked up over. He was making rather ribald humorous commentary. Listen to the context of the words, and the tone of the speaker. Perhaps it was in poor taste, but I doubt that most of the “perpetually offended class” would take the same umbrage if the comment was made by Chris Rock, or Ed Schultz.
The outrage is based on the person making the comments. You don’t like Belling so you lay in weeds waiting for a perceived “gotcha” moment. It is selective and hypocritical. If you want to be outraged at sexist commentary, then I would ask where your outrage was when Sarah Palin was the target, or Condaleeza Rice. Liberal sexism should have been just as repulsive to you. Think about it.
Ah… a defense of “you too.” Well, it’s an admission of sorts – even though it’s a really poor one as it at least acknowledges the acrimony in Belling’s ranting.
Belling just spent the last 2 weeks lambasting the multi-trillion dollar porkorama and detailing the Doyle budget crap sandwich and this is the best you could come up with. Oh thats right, like Derek, you just happened to be surfing for a traffic update and came across this breast feeding tragedy.
MC Pickard,
1) I realize we’re discussing a conservative. 2) If you actually read my comment you’d know that I did comment on Belling’s tactics/discussion points, but I also thought you should be informed that there are people on the left that are just as poisonous and goofy. Sorry if you don’t think or believe that, (it’s OK most on the left don’t) but it’s true.
Good god. This isn’t a liberal vs. conservative issue. If this was an attempt at humor, it was a terrible one. He actually said that breastfeeding is a crude practice. WTF?! Breastfeeding provides the best food possible for a baby. And anybody who thinks that breastfeeding women are getting off on “whipping out” their “you-know-whats” (I love that Belling can’t even call breasts by their clinical name) clearly has no experience with breastfeeding women.
I don’t understand his (or anyone’s) problem with this statute. It protects a nursing mother’s ability to feed her child without forcing her to crouch uncomfortably in some dirty public restroom. The alternative is to basically banish nursing mothers to their homes.
Methinks a good lesson for Mr. Belling would be to sit in a room full of hungry infants whose mothers are not being permitted to breastfeed in public.
Which segment of the podcast was this in? I’d like to hear the caller comments, if they are still available to listen to. Thanks!
To the extent my personal experience may be illuminating…
I think I understand the impetus for the legislation recalling an incident a few years ago in which (if I remember correctly) a woman was thrown off a Delta flight in Milwaukee because she was breastfeeding her baby. Though I did not experience anything so extreme as I nursed my three children, there were certainly moments in which I felt a certain amount of…ah…lack of understanding. To add some context, when I nursed my children I ALWAYS kept baby blankets or nursing drapes handy and I tried to be as discrete as possible – trying to find out-of-the-way places when possible, turning my back from groups/public areas, etc. Even with attempts at discretion, including more than once feeling guilty as my child sweated under a drape in the heat of summer, there were a couple instances in which people came upon me and cast glares my way or muttered something under their breath. I had a person come up to me (and she had to go out of their way to get to me in my out-of-the-way place) and suggest that I should be sitting in a bathroom stall to nurse my child. I have to admit it took all I had to keep from suggesting I’d be happy to should she eat her lunch in an adjacent stall.
In the few uncomfortable moments I had, I always tried to grant that the other person didn’t fully appreciate how overwhelming it can be to have a crying, hungry infant depending on you to feed it, or how very difficult nursing can be for new mothers (maddening latching difficulties aside, do I need to mention searing pain and bleeding nipples??? – it’s easy to forget there are other people in the world at all…). When that’s your situation, trying to make sure you behave as the social outcast some people apparently expect you to be while nursing (hiding from the view of any)is not your first priority. I consider that even as an over-educated, highly assertive woman those few instances got to me a bit, and can appreciate legislation that gives women some sense of comfort and protection in their attempts to meet the needs of their children.
HOWEVER, I’ve been in instances in which women have not been terribly discrete and it’s uncomfortable. In a restaurant, for instance, I was quite surprised to see a woman at the next table bear her full breast for view of all so a 3ish child could run over and latch on.
For better or worse, such boarish behavior is not limited to nursing women…and perhaps the rather limited number of times in which a breastfeeding mother is not sufficiently discrete is kind of low on a long list of ways in which people are inconsiderate of others. It strikes me that our culture’s Jekyll and Hyde views about women’s bodies (push-up bras “good,” nursing bras “bad” – cleavage “good,” nursing drape “bad” – ginormous breasts on a model “Oooooooooo,” ginormous breasts on a fat woman “Eeewww”…Ok, that last one was more for humor than to support my point) make this a particularly sensational topic – perhaps more sensation that substance. I guess we shouldn’t find it surprising that the Mark Bellings of the world would glom on to it and talk about it in the most sensational language they can find. Strange as it may seem, they get paid for doing just that…and enough people apparently find this kind of activity worthwhile enough to keep the Mark Bellings of the world employed. (I find that more surprising than Bellings’ behavior…)
At the risk of letting my “sensitivities” show, I do find it creates/perpetuates a negative image of women to call us “sows” – even if it only intended to apply to some of us. If I flip the script and think of how men are compared to animals, terms like “dog” and “pig,” while intended to be perjorative, carry with them a congratulatory sense of sexual prowess too often lauded by men. There is not the same “double read” when using such terms to refer to women. Though the complexities, nuances and potential affects of such language use might be lost on or dismissed by some, when women in a society are positioned not just as “different” from men, but as inferior to them the way in which language is complicit in such structuring is more of a concern than a curiosity.
J, it most certainly can be a liberal vs conservative “issue”. The bulk of the discussion from Belling was geared towards the rights of businesses around WI to decide what was and what was not appropriate in that person’s place of business. In this situation there is popular support, by the left, to say to that private business, you no longer have the legal ability to say to a woman nursing you cannot nurse in this restaurant, book store, etc.
Now I do believe the practice of breastfeeding a child is not a crude practice, it is a scientific fact that it is better and more nutritious for infants, but the problem (and C touched on this) is that there will be a certain amount of breastfeeding mothers that will take this statute and “test it” which for me is boorish and anti-social. More than likely the majority will be discreet and respectful of those around them, the problem is that it is still considered, a private act, which I tend to agree with. My wife breastfed both of our children and not once (at the zoo, restaurant, shopping, etc) did she ever have to duck into a bathroom, or hide in a car.
Like anything else with infants, you have to plan ahead. The need or desire to breastfeed your infant is a choice. A choice, as I mentioned before I agree with, but with things like breast pumps, and the ability to freeze and travel with actual breast milk, the need to actually breastfeed in public should be minimal. Knowing this two things ring true 1)referring to any woman that breastfeeds, whether it’s in public or not, a sow is STUPID but 2) to make ANOTHER law that tells business AND society what they should accept as OK is even more stupid.
It’s hard for a poor guy to know when to be offended anymore. Ok, so a breast in the middle of the mall to feed a newborn is good, but Hooters waitress breasts in a tight shirt is sexist and offensive. Calling a generic woman a sow in jest is bad, but elephant crap and urine on a cross in the museum is art. Marquette Warriors is tragically offensive, but semi-nude transvestites simulating the last supper in a beer ad is hilarious. Gosh, I wish the they would come out with a pamphlet to use as a guide.
IMHO, If you were offended deeply by the sow remark, you are either a bit too emo and need to increase your meds a few milligrams, or you are a Belling hating hypocrite just looking for something to whine about.
Sean, I understand that businesses want to be able to determine what conduct is acceptable and what is not, but I am not nearly as concerned about the few women you claim will “test” this law as I am with those who women who have been asked to leave some place while discreetly nursing a child. I have read story after story of women asked to leave some place because she was breastfeeding. And yes, I am fully aware that we can use pumps and supplement with formula, but a particular woman could have any number of reasons for not wanting (or being able) to use an alternative. Unfortunately, as long as men like Mark Belling think that breastfeeding is a “crude” practice and that women who do it are “sows,” we do need laws to protect women who breastfeed. Science confirms that breast milk is by far the best food source for infants and leads to healthier children. Why should we, as a society, make a task that is already frequently more difficult than many people realize, and make it that much harder by permitting insensitive businesses (most likely run by the Bellings of the world) to harass breastfeeding women?
FamilyGuy – I’m not sure what your point is by comparing breastfeeding women to Hooters waitresses. How is a woman feeding a child analogous to a woman using her sexuality to make money? Nobody is proposing a law to ban scantily clad waitresses, so it’s not as though breastfeeding would be protected while near-nude waitressing wouldn’t. (Plus, you generally see LESS breast while a woman is breastfeeding – remember, there is a baby attached to it – than you do when a woman is squeezed into a Hooters outfit.)
Hey, everyone! I’m not a liberal by any means, but I can’t stop reading this blog daily!
I feel so compelled to sit around and comment repeatedly about a subject that is simultaneously hilarious and boring to me!
I don’t care about any of this, but I’m going to stick around and keep commenting on this post for the rest of the day; possibly even for the rest of my life.
You lefties are so exciting!
Breastmilk is the best way to feed a child. No one should ever suggest formula be substituted just because they would rather see a baby suck a plastic nipple rather than a woman with a blanket drapped around her chest and baby. I am personally offended by this comment. I am also upset that anyone would make comments like this as well as suggesting a woman to pump for public appearances. If men knew what it was like to birth a baby then try to get through the next few days of engorgment and trying to breastfeed as well as two months of healing from having a baby push through your small area then to deal with Baby Blues and to be able to get out of the house to a restaurant and be asked to leave because her baby needs foods. If only you knew what pumping involved. Pumps do not have the same suction as a baby’s mouth so pumping in place of a meal would lower the supply for the next feeding, not to mention it would take a woman about 30 minutes just to get out that milk. On top of taking care of her baby who nurses every two hours. A baby can also form “nipple confusion” if given a bottle before they are 3 months old, then most babies who breastfeed will NOT take a bottle after that because it requires a different motion of tongue and, well, it’s just not the same as their mother’s breast. Not to mention the benefits the mother gets from the hormones released during nursing (not just medical benefits), benefits like reduced chances of Post-Pardum depression and the bond it gives baby and mom. I don’t expect any man or woman who has never breastfed to know what I’m talking about. But don’t degrade something that you know nothing about. Most states that have laws to protect women’s rights to breastfeed also protect others rights to feel comfortable in public (a woman must do it with discretion – use her shirt or a blanket so no breasts show). Though I beleive it is much more crude for women to display ALL but their nipples (called cleavage) anywhere in public and not be thrown out, but a woman who covers up her baby’s head (which makes the baby sqiurm more because of the body temp and they like to look around) to get a meal is advised to sit around urine and disease (which is thrown around the air every time a toilet is flushed) if not asked to leave. That’s apalling!
Wow, Bony T… For such a “boring topic” (as you stated a few comments down), you sure are talking a lot about it.. Must not be so “boring” after all, eh?
You sound just as lame as Belling. You would probably look better if you just stopped commenting.
J,
You may not be concerned with the goofs that will test this law, but I am. Are the people that would test this law the majority of women? Absolutely not! Whether it is discretly or not though, there should not be a law that dictates to a business what he/she deems acceptable in their business, especially a practice that many consider private. I agree with you that breastfeeding is better for babies versus formula, I don’t think anyone should or can argue with that, but in this day and age the parent(s) of the child is making that CHOICE. They don’t have to breastfeed, and in turn the businesses shouldn’t have to, by law, allow them to.
Breastfeeding is viewed by most (Mark Belling aside) as a natural act, but not every natural act is allowed to be practiced in public. There is no law against breastfeeding, you just can’t do it in public. The answer to your question “Why should we, as a society, make a task that is already frequently more difficult than many people realize, and make it that much harder by permitting insensitive businesses (most likely run by the Bellings of the world) to harass breastfeeding women?” is because those “insensitive” businesses are 1) there to serve the masses. If most deem the practice of breastfeeding a private matter than the business owner/proprieter has an obligation to those customers to make sure that they have a comfortable experience and 2) because it’s their property. If you came into my home and I didn’t appreciate, in the middle of the living room, you breastfeeding your child, I should be able to ask you to do it someplace more private. Also, asking someone politely to go somewhere secluded and/or private to breastfeed is not harrasement, it’s courteous to the other people around them.
Sean,
I think your argument that business’s should be able to decide what is acceptable in their business is pretty weak. Its the same type of argument used a few decades ago to not allow black people into restaurants.
I think if you are offended by seeing a woman nursing, it is your choice to leave. If you don’t want to risk seeing a woman nursing, get take out. People with children have the same right as everyone else to spend their money. It should also be remembered that breasts are first and foremost important for raising children, and second a sexuality part of a woman’s body.
I personally found it quite amazing that a person would be so stupid to say something like that on the radio. I am not personally offended, but I could see how any woman, especially who has breastfed could be offended. I do hope that the people how are offended do complain. If enough people complain it will be in this radio station’s best interest (making money) to drop him.
I also find it funny that the conservatives here are talking about “lefties” whining. Everytime I turn on the tv I hear some nut job right wing pundit going crazy about how America is about to become a socialist country with the new president. If speaking up against sexism is whining, then what exactly is that? Delusional paranoia is worse than “whining” in my opinion!
Sean-While there are pumps and the ability to travel with breast milk, it’s not as simple as that. If I was to give my child expressed breast milk instead of nursing, it would be a signal to my body that my child did not need to be eating. To maintain an adequate supply, I would need to pump. This is not an easy thing to do in public. And not all women respond well to a pump. I needed to pump twice to provide enough for 1 bottle at daycare.
Why do “most deem the practice of breastfeeding a private matter”? Is it because formula has been hyped and pushed on so many that breastfeed is no longer the norm? Kudos to you and your wife for having a baby who never had to nurse in public. My son nursed every 2 hours as an infant. That doesn’t give you time to be out.
Sean, you know why I’m not concerned about this hypothetical fringe element of which you speak? Because I hear far, far more stories of breastfeeding women being forced to leave some place or being harassed for doing so. I am not sure I have ever heard a story of an incident of exhibitionist breastfeeding.
Let’s remember that breastfeeding is about the babies, not the moms. Breast milk is best for babies. The more difficult it is for women to breastfeed, the fewer of them will do it and those who do will do so for shorter periods of time. It benefits us all to promote breastfeeding.
The government enacts all types of restrictions on business and property owners. You may disagree that this is an appropriate restriction to place on business owners, but let’s not act as thought business owners currently have carte blanche to do whatever they want on their property. Ultimately, we just disagree on the role of government here – I side with protecting infants and nursing moms, while you side with protecting property owners.
Anyway, I’d just like to point out that the back-and-forth in which Sean and I have engaged has been a perfectly reasonable one. I have no problem with people who want to debate the appropriateness or necessity of this law as it pertains to the rights of property owners vs. the rights of breastfeeding mothers. I may disagree with Sean, but I’m not remotely angered or offended by him. It’s only people like Belling – those who compare nursing women to farm animals and call the BEST method of feeding a baby “crude” – who are offensive.
mynameiskatie, the topic is completely boring, but reading outrage comments by ubersensitive men and never ending novels from women who feel compelled to teach us the intricasies of their boob feeding experiences is oddly compelling to me.
BonyT, how wonderful that you have so much free time! It is certainly your prerogative to spend it following a topic in which you have no interest, but perhaps you can find a group that can better benefit from your participation…http://volunteermilwaukee.org/welcome.php might be a resource for that.
The amount of pure ignorance is tragic at best. I am sorry for Mr. Belling’s apparently joyless childhood.
Of all the things Belling says each day in 3 hours on the air, it is astounding that this comment would be seized upon for such self-victimizing outrage. I’d guess most comes from that odd group that includes (but is not limited to): Shepard Express readers, Organic food zealots, Bike helmet and car seat uber-advocates, Prius disciples, fair trade coffee cluckers, … well, you can see where I am going.
The answer is simple. Breast feed politely and with a bit of public decorum (You are not special because you choose to breast feed). Take your heart off your sleeve. Don’t look for a reason to be offended, there are plenty legitimately offensive things out there.
Have a lovely weekend.
Like I said in the original post, the outrage over what Belling said wasn’t confined to liberals.
His lack of understanding about breast feeding and just plain offensive comments cut across traditional liberal/conservative lines
Having listened to the pertinent comments half a dozen times now, I–a politically-moderate, Ozaukee County- dwelling professional–think the following:
1. Nobody has misconstrued the context. The categorical reference to breast-feeding women as “sows”–without any obvious or even subtly contextual antecedent reference to women (hardly a throng, by the way, in my experience) who make some flagrantly exhibitionist display of themselves in public breastfeeding–is patently offensive and without redeeming editorial value. To suggest that this is “ribald” repartee is wishfully ignorant.
2. I feel no “self-victimizing outrage.” What I do feel is flabbergasted. This is the level to which we’ve taken public discourse? The legislation at issue makes a good-faith effort to address a situation in which women should have a clear expectation of how to pattern their conduct when seeking to feed a child in public and Belling’s comment on what ought to be a good-faith discussion of that dilemma is to liken the women who would benefit from the bill’s resolution to barnyard animals? As somebody with a professional attachment to the rule of law and a personal stake in the informed debate that’s supposed to nourish democracy, I think I want to puke.
3. I do believe that perhaps the most proportionate reply to Mr. Belling would be to have my 15-year-old son–breastfed until he was 4, incidentally–take his 6’4″, 240-pound self out to find Mr. Belling and BEAT HIS A**. I suppose that would be editorial comment that even Belling could understand.
“BonyT”: Don’t be a jerk. Thanks.
This seems like a good opportunity to release a greased sow in WISN’s offices.
Either that or a “breast-out” protest as Belling arrives at work.
You notice how liberals never actually argue Belling’s point? I bet most of the people on here don’t even know what his point was. They just act outraged and offended over the way he explained it.
The Family Guy said”
“You are not special because you choose to breast feed”
“If you were offended deeply by the sow remark, you are either a bit too emo and need to increase your meds a few milligrams”
This is not “self-victimizing.” This is not a “poor me” situation. A douchenozzle called women who breastfeed pigs. That is rude. End of story.
Your Feb 26 (1:54 pm) post is a steaming pile of victimization. Oh, poor me. I just don’t know how to deal with you ladies and it’s just so hard for me because the rules just keep changing. The one things that never changes is me– the regular old white guy– and poor me because I just can’t keep up with everything because it changes.
Hypocrite. Nice try.
Steve, that’s because there is no point to what he said, except to prove the one that he’s a ignorant jerk. And spare the outrage over the “outrage”.
One stupid comment does not make a point. Just because Belling chose to to refer to women that breastfeed in public, sows (a term I have repeatedly NOT condoned, BTW) doesn’t mean the larger point, that the government is looking to infringe on a private businesspersons decision(s),AGAIN, should not be discussed. To consternate over the comment is stupid, because the comment is stupid, but it’s as equally as stupid as mandating more crap onto the businesses here in WI. Our tax rates our too high, our regulations too strict and our government’s policies extremely short sighted (when it comes to retaining and attracting business). It’s too bad that one stupid, insensitve comment overshadows the larger point that Jim Doyle, and all of his supporters continue to think of and make policies on issues that hamstring businesses and not encourage them….
Giving women the right to breastfeed has nothing to do with high taxes or regulations Sean, nor does it have anything to do with business. I personally think that anytime the right, Belling in this case, wants to get people on his side jazzed up, they try to make it into an issue about “business rights!”. I don’t buy that in general, and in this case specifically.
That said, the thing is, a business owners rights don’t trump everything else, so to play it out as though rights stop the minute you cross a doorstop in to a private business is ridiculous.
That would be like saying a business should have the “right” to refuse service to anyone in a wheelchair, wouldn’t it? Do business owners, if that’s the real issue here, have the right to refuse entrance to those in wheelchairs in to their stores? Should they even need to build ramps so those in wheelchairs can get in to their stores?
Or how about if a store owner doesn’t agree or accept homosexuality? Should they be allowed to refuse service in that case? Take it to the extreme in the name of “business rights” and pretty soon you have stores that won’t cater to group X or Y and we’re back in 1958 Alabama.
That’s why trying to label this as a private business owners decision is a silly argument.
Is there a way to get a list of sponsors of the show so us ladies with their “you-know-whats” in a bind can send some opinions on where they spend their marketing dollars?
Dan,
It really isn’t a silly argument, and yes it does have to do with high taxes and regulations. The state of Wisconsin, in general, thinks up and enacts policies and laws that are inherently anti-business. This is just another example of putting one more law on the books that private businesses have to adhere to, because someone (or some people) in Madison think that adding more laws, unnecessarily, is a good thing. This isn’t an attempt, at least by me, to get anyone all jazzed up (I’ve been arguing this “issue” for awhile now), it’s a valid, ever growing problem in this state.
As for your examples (disabled people, homosexuality, minorities) you do realize all of the people in those situations do not have a choice regarding their respective categories, right? I mean someone doesn’t go to a store and ask to be disabled, or wake up one morning and say “Hey, I want to be gay today.” BUT, when one chooses to breastfeed, that’s a different story. As I’ve mentioned in previous comments, there is plenty of time to plan around an infants feeding schedule, places to breastfeed in private, and ways to feed a child breastmilk without having to actually feed the child from the breast. When people are at a restaurant, they should not have to feel uncomfortable because someone has chosen to breastfeed. In that same vain, the business owner should not have the state mandate that he not be able to address that situation. It’s ludicrous and indicative, again, of our state government’s constant willingness to infringe on the rights of private business and the majority of customers in that business.
AND as long as we’re dealing in “extremes” and we’re OK with allowing Government to dictate how and what is acceptable, why don’t we allow people to walk into private businesses naked, or grope each other at their table, or yell at the top of their lungs for no apparent reason, with no recourse by the management of the business?!?!? Mandate the owner accept those acts as legally protected and tell the rest of the customers “Deal with it!” Sound stupid? Yes, but so does equating NOT allowing breastfeeding in public to 1958 Alabama.