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October 10, 2011 at 8:29 pm 
Ed Brayton My friends at the Center for Inquiry were set to host Richard Dawkins and Sean Faircloth for a talk Wednesday night at the Wyndgate Country Club in Rochester Hills, a suburb of Detroit. But the club has now canceled the event, saying they don’t want to be associated with such an evil person.
The Wyndgate terminated the agreement after the owner saw an October 5th interview with Dawkins on The O’Reilly Factor in which Dawkins discussed his new book, The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True.
In a phone call to CFI–Michigan Assistant Director Jennifer Beahan, The Wyndgate’s representative explained that the owner did not wish to associate with individuals such as Dawkins, or his philosophies.
Although privately owned, The Wyndgate facilities are open to the public for special events and occasions. According to Title II of the Federal Civil Rights Law of 1964, “open to the public” means “all persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin.”
After learning of the owner’s last-minute refusal to allow Dawkins to speak, CFI–Michigan asked the owner to reconsider his position, but this attempt to resolve the issue amicably was met with silence. The sold-out event, scheduled for Wednesday, October 12, will now be held at a different venue.
“It’s important to understand that discrimination based on a person’s religion—or lack thereof—is legally equivalent to discriminating against a person because of his or her race,” said Jeff Seaver, executive director of CFI–Michigan. “This action by The Wyndgate illustrates the kind of bias and bigotry that nonbelievers encounter all the time. It’s exactly why organizations like CFI and the Richard Dawkins Foundation are needed: to help end the stigma attached to being a nonbeliever.”
This may actually be illegal under Michigan’s Elliott Larson civil rights act, which defines any entity that does business with the public as a public accommodation and explicitly covers religion.
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That was all I needed to realize the owner of the Wyndgate is a first-class moron.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone hammer home the god of the gaps argument quite as well as Mr. O’Reilly does. He does it so well that any person can see it for what it is. He is a very simple man.
“The sold-out event, scheduled for Wednesday, October 12, will now be held at a different venue.” This is good news, as it means the event will still go on, and the Wyndgate will get the bad publicity – if it actually IS bad publicity. But isn’t that going to sharply limit the damages in a potential lawsuit? I mean, it almost makes it moot, and certainly means the result is going to limited to an agreement not to discriminate in the future plus (hopefully) court costs. Which would be a pity.
I suppose one could go and contact them to complain http://www.thewyndgate.com/wyndgate/contact.html but I doubt it will do anything at this point.
If you look through the annals of American history, I think you’ll find that all the best people have been excluded from country clubs at one time or another. Still, I hope they sue the bastards.
Of course, if they do sue for religious discrimination, it will just serve as fodder for the annoying “atheism is a religion!” argument that I so loathe.
Well, CFI could certainly claim any costs involved in moving the event, plus any difference between (1) the revenues they would have received holding the event at the Wyndgate and (2) the revenues they actually get at the new venue. (1) might be hard to substantiate, though.
It would be interesting to know how long the Wyndgate has been in existence. It would be even more interesting to know if they formerly excluded jews, blacks, teh GAY and other undesirables from their rolls or events. I’m guessing that they did.
If the venue owner sticks to his reason, this should make a good test case. But I’m thinking there’s a significant chance that after talking to lawyers, the venue owner will make up some other reason for cancelling the event.
The Wyndgate seems to have been founded in 1995 and went public in 2002.
It is important to take the bigot to court. If they can discriminate against Dawkins, a man with some means, and get away with it then the rest of us no-names are truly f***ed. Indeed if it perceived that there are not consequences to this then it will happen more and more often.
This is a simple case and Dawkins would win it with ease. If the jerk wants to settle, I would suggest not agreeing to any non-disclosure clause. It needs to be known that there is a price to pay for breaking the law and that price is far and beyond what can be accepted price of doing business.
Dawkins is invited in, Dawkins is booted out. You can’t explain that.
Yet another incident in the evolution of human rights.
Re addiepray @ #6
I suggest going over to PZ’s blog where there is a lengthy discussion going on about this case. As a number of commentors over there have stated, citing Supreme Court decisions, for the purpose of application of the religious non-discrimination portion of the act, atheism is considered a religion.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/10/10/it-was-his-turn-to-get-expelled/
Atheism does not need to be a religion — and it isn’t — in order for atheists to fall under the same anti-discrimination laws as Christians and others. The laws forbid discrimination on the basis of religion, not merely against those who are religious. Discriminating against an atheist because your religious views are in conflict is the same thing legally as discriminating against someone because they’re a Christian, but that doesn’t make atheism a religion.
I have created a petition at Change.org to ask the venue’s owner to apologize.
http://www.change.org/petitions/wyndgate-country-club-apologize-for-anti-atheist-discrimination
democommie:
I was a guest of a member where I played there a handful of times in the mid-1990s. I recall it being a brand new course and club though I didn’t validate that through research. They put a lot of money into the surrounding non-golf grounds and had a very nice clubhouse. This area wasn’t developed much until starting in the 1970s-1990s comprised mostly of mid- to high-income professionals and engineers (the latter mostly in the auto industry) serving a global economy (lot of highly educated immigrants from other states and countries). The mix on the driving range was typical of the Northern Oakland County area which is about 30 – 40 miles north of Detroit and given the demographics of the area suggest no such discrimination.
Religions aren’t really protected; free exercise of one’s religion is. One way to exercise one’s religion is to choose not to practice one or believe in one!
So atheism is treated just like theism with regard to free exercise of religion. And that means that atheism is treated like religion is, because theism and atheism are both free exercises of religion, just from opposite ends of the spectrum.
I think this is where the confusion comes in when atheists are saying that atheism is treated just like a religion, or just like a religion is, when what they’re really trying to say is that they’re treated the same when it comes to free exercise issues, which includes having the same rights to public accommodations that theists have, and not being discriminated against for the way they use their free exercise rights.
deanbuchanan, it doesn’t matter whether the club is public or not. The article you linked to talks about how they were becoming “public” in the sense that the golf course is open to the public. What matters is that they rented out their facilities to the general public, a fact which means they are considered a “public accommodation” as it pertains to the Civil Rights Act.
To clarify (though I think yinz* got my point)- I just hate the idea that this sort of thing fuels the idiotic talking point of “atheism is a religion”, not that I think that point is actually relevant to the legal situation presented here. I’m preemptively (and perhaps childishly) getting riled up at what some wingnut will say about this case at some point in the future if it goes forward, and how it will be transformed into an asinine talking point. I fully cop to the silliness of that.
I think Aquaria at #18 puts it best, and I thank you for the clear summation. I hope Dawkins sues the pants off them and wins.
*Pittsburghese for “y’all”
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