Yes indeed, I whole-heartedly support the notion that the proprietors of The Heart Attack Grill (Tempe, AZ) and Eye-Candy Haircuts (Tulsa, OK) have the freedom to choose how to run their businesses in pursuit of their happiness. In both cases, state agencies are at the forefront of efforts to make them change their business plans or to close their doors altogether. In the first case, a state agency says that the owner may not advertise that his waitresses are dressed-up as nurses because they are not, in fact, licensed nurses. Duh? As an adult of average intelligence, I know that and don’t need the state to insult my intelligence. In the second case, a state agency doesn’t like the fact that I’m going to be staring (and maybe even drooling) at my hair stylist’s cleavage while I’m getting my hair done. Like most men — or at least those who haven’t yet been de-balled — I just happen to like looking at a woman’s cleavage.
The owner of The Heart Attack Grill has chosen to serve all comers, while the owner of Eye-Candy Haircuts has chosen to serve only men over the age of eighteen. If men don’t like to partake of heart-attack cuisine while women are present, his business will suffer. If women wish to partake of [female] eye-candy as they have their hair done, let another entrepreneur serve that clientele. I certainly don’t want to go into a place frequented by a bunch of dykes — and they might not want to frequent a place which serves Neanderthals like me. We all have choices. That’s the beauty of America — and why it has worked so well for so long.
In neither case are the ladies who have chosen to work at these business forced into their skimpy outfits. They are told (if they haven’t already figured it out for themselves) at the time of their application for work what will be required of them if they wish to be employed there. In neither case are illegal activities allowed on the premises, i.e., “You may look all you want, but you may not touch. If you can’t keep from touching, please don’t come in.” It works for me.
If it doesn’t work for the business owners, they’ll try something else. On a moral note…should they be operating as they do? No. But, this is not within the purview the state to decide. It is for the men’s wives to “lay down the law.” It is for our religious leaders to start doing their job properly — which will result in a change in our collective morality so that such business practices will cease to be profitable — and then such business practices will be ceased.
Remember prohibition? We’re still suffering from all kinds of ills because of that failed effort. On the other hand, there exists example after example throughout British and American history of bars and taverns closing their doors due to lack of business — and not from intervention by the state — after a spiritual revival in the land.
