The Price of Honesty
In 2018, the United States Supreme Court found itself at the center of a cultural firestorm. A Colorado baker had declined to create a custom wedding cake for a same-sex couple, citing his religious beliefs. The case, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, was watched closely across the nation. In a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the baker, concluding that his First Amendment rights protected his religious beliefs and he can’t be penalizing for refusing to bake a custom wedding cake for a same-sex couple.
The issue was hardly new. Americans old enough to remember the 1950s recall a time when businesses openly refused service to Black customers. Restaurants, hotels, barbershops, and countless other establishments displayed signs announcing who was welcome and who was not. The rationale varied, but the result was always the same: exclusion. Entire classes of people found themselves denied access to ordinary aspects of daily life because others had decided they were unworthy. In this case, the constitution went the other way, in favor of the protected class.
But what happens when the merchant isn’t exercising a constitutional right in refusing service? Or what happens when the customer isn’t part of a protected class? Is a business that holds itself out to provide service to the public able to refuse service to people they don’t like?
This week, a story out of Wales illustrated that reality. According to reports, a man entered a tattoo studio in Carmarthen seeking a tattoo. The artist began the work. The process had already started when the conversation somehow turned to the customer’s past. The man was candid. He disclosed that he had previously been convicted of a sex offense. At that moment, everything changed. The artist reportedly ordered him out of the studio. The internet erupted in applause.
Society’s treatment of registrants is unique. There are many categories of offenders, yet none, including murder, carry a stigma so powerful that it follows a person into nearly every aspect of life, long after a sentence has been completed.
You may be asking yourself; ‘who would want to be tattooed by someone who hates them anyhow’? But that’s not the point here… The scenario can be different and it often is. It could be that you’re out for lunch with a bunch of co-workers, your server recognizes your picture from the registry and the manager kicks you out of the restaurant. Or you’re buying something off a retail shelf. These situations come up all the time and here in Brevard County, Florida, there’s an ordinance that allows businesses to declare themselves to be off limits to registrants forcing people on the registry to stay 1000 feet a way!
Can a merchant prevent a customer from shopping in their store? Should people on the registry go through greater lengths to hide their past?
Registrants are told that accountability requires candor. They are instructed to be truthful about their history. They are told that honesty demonstrates responsibility. They are told that rehabilitation begins with acknowledging the past rather than concealing it. But what lesson are we supposed to learn from incidents like this? If honesty results in rejection, what incentive exists to be honest? If disclosure means humiliation, exclusion, and public condemnation, while hiding offers at least the possibility of being treated normally, what message are we sending?
These situations come up all the time. Maybe a tattooist doesn’t need to know your life history, especially when they are holding a needle and drawing a permanent mark on your body, but that’s a rare example. There are plenty of common examples where you’re put in a situation where you have to say, “look, before you hear it from someone else, I want to tell you…” or “before I make this payment, let me just let you know…” or “since it may eventually come up, I want to be honest about why I can’t…”. Or, there’s Brevard, where it’s the County that says you can’t go within 1000 feet of certain businesses and there’s no conversation to even have.
We are told to “tell the truth.” But then society punishes people when they do.
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“Registrants are told that accountability requires candor. They are instructed to be truthful about their history. They are told that honesty demonstrates responsibility. ”
That is actually propagandized group thearpy talking points. That “taking ownership” nonsense was utilized to “scare you straight” and to keep the ones that really needed to there on the so-called “straight-and-narrow.”
In response to the op-ed, It all boils down to evolutionary tribalism. Humans seem to have selective programming as to how they dole out concern, empathy and compassion towards others and things.
I’m sure everyone recalls the story of “Punch” the monkey from earlier this year that went viral. It featured a young snow monkey being literally dragged across his cage, bitten, shunned and othered by the older and established “alphas” in the tribe. This is nothing new to animal behavior as the pecking-order establishes and maintains the hierarchy within the tribe.
The young monkey was soon taken in and made to feel “accepted” by a few older herd members out of concern for it’s safety and empathy.
Which brings me to my point: The outpouring of love, concern and empathy from people that watched that video was a telling social experiment as to how selective people really are with their time and energy. Because any person with a sex offense would have received the polar opposite treatment.
Society is too oblivious to release they’re the bad guys. They don’t release they’re the very things they hate – the aggressive monkeys in the cage.
Or maybe people are just repulsed by sex offenses. They might have a different opinion on who the bad guys are.
Jacob
I have logged in every day for years to visit F.A.C., and each and every day I get excited because I just know that “This time” I will see a post from F.A.C that says go down to the sheriff’s office and sign a piece of paper of release from the registry.
Sadly, instead, I get stories of the tons of new restrictions we have to deal with, that make our lives more miserable than they already are. Having said that, if not for F.A.C, many of us would be back in jail because we do not get sent almost any information about new law changes unless we get them from the action committee being on top of it for us.
I think maybe once in my life on the registry have I gotten anything about new laws. When I go to register, they do not tell you squat, they just have us sign a paper saying we have no changes, or we have changes, then send us on our way until next time. (Copy, rinse and repeat for life)
I understand the point you’re trying to make but the difference is that the monkey didn’t do anything wrong. He was being victimized. In the publics eyes you, I, and everyone else on the list committed a heinous, unforgivable crime (whether that’s true or not) so they believe we deserve to be mistreated
@jack
“The monkey didn’t do anything wrong” yet the other monkeys sensed he was a threat to their established order.
It’s not the aggressive monkey’s fault they are the way they are. They got those evolutionary traits honest. People, on the other hand, are programmed what to feel, think and believe by repetitive media propaganda and herd mentality.
Humans are supposed to be evolved enough to weigh individual circumstances with critical thinking, yet we revert to tribalism to revel in mob justice. It doesn’t matter what the public thinks “we deserve.” State and religion should remain seperate just like not applying emotion when weighing justice. The constitution only works when it’s applied equally, not circumvented when deemed. necessary to answer the people’s emotional pleas.
Do you actually think we’re not being vcitimized by the registry and all the subsequent restrictions it entails? All because of a handful of high profile cases the media latched onto, then those survivors whined and fell right into the hands of the lawamakers.
The public simply does not reserve the right to believe what “we deserve.” It’s not up to them. However, they’ve been brainwashed into believing they do.
The registry is a failed concept. Not only does it not work, it victimizes those forced to be on it.
So we’re “victims of the registry” because “survivors whined.”
Reminds me of a question we received from a county commissioner during a public hearing: “Do you consider yourself a victim?”
We might want to think through our message a little more carefully.
Does Welsh/UK law require customers to disclose their full history to receive elective services? If not, why blab about one’s past to someone they don’t know? I do think that a business should post its “do not accept” rules prominently. The tattoo parlor should reimburse any money that the customer spent there.
I’m also a big believer in a business’s right to refuse service to anyone, for any reason. I also agree with other posts that said this guy was an idiot for his disclosure. Of course, disclosure is well advised (if not required) at a job interview or looking for somewhere to live. But for the most part, a registrant is usually better off keeping it on the down low.
I am curious about the Brevard ordinance that holds that businesses can designate themselves off limits to registrants. While I recognize they have the right to deny service and/or entry, but only to their own property line. I don’t see how it could pass constitutional muster, in that a private citizen’s or business’s authority over their own property stops at said property line.
Plus, no legislature at any level can pass law-making authority to another party. It’s been several years and I could be wrong, but I think after Packingham, North Carolina tried to rewrite their Facebook ban by requiring compliance with their Terms of Service and was stricken down because that essentially passed lawmaking authority to Facebook. I don’t see the difference where a private small business would be allowed to impose a 1000 foot rule if his place of business is not otherwise barred from registrant presence.
IMO. It’s better to tell a company you may want to work for.
It’s better than suffering the embarrassment of them coming to you and telling you what you didn’t tell them, or them finding out later and terminating you.
A lot of people respect honesty and it is the best way.
I got a job working for a retired deputy sheriff and I told him the truth before I was hired and he told me his steps-son was in prison for the same thing and he hired me.
However, I would not bring it up in casual conversation,like at a barber shop.
It’s none of their business, and most people have been brain-washed to falsely believe we will rape someone in broad daylight on a busy street corner with a thousand bystanders just a few feet away.
It is hit or miss. I’ve been hired for a job and fired because I was on the registry. I have an advanced degree and the best job that I could get in Florida was separating dirty restaurant and/or hospital linens. The hospital linens cleaning job fired me because I was on the registry. The restaurant linens knew that I was on the registry. I was hired by a registrant. Im not sure which was better because I just want to keep moving forward. Right now I’ve left Florida behind as much as possible, but I don’t have a steady income. Without my wife I think that I might have ended my life.
I am glad you are still here. 🙂
BWJ
I am glad your wife is your pillar, however, never, ever end your life. Our lives are not our own and we have purpose beyond this world if you get my drift.
I help Manage a moving company, I’m on the registry . the owner of the company knows my background intimately and I have always been up front with. He keeps me around because I do an excellent job for him. Recently we had hired a new mover that disclosed some of his background and wasnt forthcoming with being on the sex offender registry and a couple other items on his background. The owner of the company terminated him immediatly after I ran the background on this guy. the reason for termination was he wasn’t being honest and forthcoming.. I believe for jobs and to better be able to work as a team, you have to be honest with each other. This guy was a hard worker, but the trust wasnt there with the owner of the company. For future employment, check the job listing and see if you can even do the job as a sex offender, and if you can do the job and want to work be honest and tell them what you bring to the table. Now as far as letting people know in public, if they want to find out about you, then there is google. and if they want to google you then they arent the right person to be hanging around anyways.
You should to be following any due lawful process and answer at the right moment during application process. If it is a local owner than be honest. Glad you found someone willing for second chances
Machiavelli
Maybe, just maybe, if they would allow us off the registry at some point, we wouldn’t have to deal with all the B.S anyway. Yes, we would still have a record for life, but that is better than the Registry with ALL of our information and public knowledge for everyone to see. Your address, your picture and more.
Of all of the places I worked, people eventually found out and that would spread about with the employees, and it got so bad that I quit, even though the manager had my back, the employees started to complain that I shouldn’t be there, even though I didn’t do anything wrong (Other than my past of course).
I am now living on food stamps.