S.D. Sen: Legalize Race-Based Discrimination

South Dakota State Sen. Phil Jensen thinks businesses should be able to deny services based on customers’ race, religion, or sexual orientation. We know that Jensen isn’t the only lawmaker in this country who believes business owners should be legally allowed to discriminate against people based on the latter. But in defending a now-dead bill he’d sponsored proposing just that, Jensen told the Rapid City Journal he thinks businesses should also be able to choose their clientele based on race or religion and let the free market decide whether that is right or wrong.“If someone was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and they were running a little bakery for instance, the majority of us would find it detestable that they refuse to serve blacks, and guess what? In a matter of weeks or so that business would shut down because no one is going to patronize them.”