Theos-Talk Archives (March 2003 Message tt00103)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, Bart Lidofsky <bartl@s...> wrote:
> A dress code IS permissible in a public accommodation, but it 
cannot be 
> used to get around the above rules of discrimination (for example, 
you 
> cannot throw out someone who has no feet because they're not 
wearing 
> shoes; you cannot throw out a Hasidic Jew or an Amish man because 
he has 
> a beard, etc.).

I appreciate your argument, which is very interesting. But I believe 
T-shirts which contain messages some people find offensive can 
probably be banned from shopping malls. I am not saying the guards 
were right. I believe they were wrong. But if the message were 
obscene (and some of those aren really clever) the mall would have an 
undisputed right to ban the wearing of the shirt in the mall. Yjru 
epi;f sldo, I would think be able to ban streaking or flashing in the 
mall, although I spend very little time in malls so cannot say for 
sure. Things might be more inteesting there than they used to be. 
They probably could not ban an arguably innocuous message such as a 
smiley face. But a message which is provocative to many people could 
be argued as being on the right side of the grey area. I can see a 
shop owner expressing concern that provoking people in the mall might 
cause injury to his or her business, and this could be a legitimate 
concern.

Of course the best outcome would be for those guards and their puppet 
masters to lighten up.