In a case reminiscent of many pending in the United States, a Magistrate's Court in the Israeli city of Beersheba has awarded damages equivalent to $14,000 plus attorneys' fees in a suit against Rainbow Color, a shop that refused to print posters for a gay rights organization at Ben Gurion University.
Times of Israel yesterday reported in part:
“We do not deal with abomination materials. We are Jews!” the shop had said in response to the chapter’s request for an estimate on the posters.
Aguda argued that Rainbow Color had violated the Prohibition of Discrimination in Products, Services and Entry into Places of Entertainment and Public Places Law Act passed by the Knesset in 2000.
Rainbow Color claimed that its owners, who are religious, are barred from providing assistance to offenders of religious law. In its defense, the owners added the rulings of two Orthodox rabbis who wrote that according to Jewish law the publication of such posters is prohibited.
However the judge ruled:
When their beliefs conflict with a necessity of providing service to all in a public space, the last value holds superior.
