Note from Maeve: Legal stuff is just ridiculous human nonsense, and I can't be bothered to think much about it, so I'm letting Joanne write this blog post. Take is away Joanne!
Here's what the Department of Justice (which enforces the ADA) recently published on this subject: http://www.servicepoodle.com/useful-links-1/ada-and-certification-of-service-dogs
Below are Joanne's comments:
1. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a civil rights law intended to give our society a shove towards inclusion of the disabled. It was not intended to cater to the preferences of the non-disabled public, of people who make money providing goods or services to the disabled, or of businesses and state/local government,
but instead to challenge them to change their physical premises and change their behavior and practices in every way that is reasonable. It also gives persons with disabilities wide discretion in what assistive measures they will use and how they will use them. There is no requirement, for example, that legally blind people use a cane with a white tip in order that businesses will be able to distinguish them from people who just need glasses and therefore are not disabled. One could demand to use the chair lift on a bus even if seated in a homemade wheelchair. There are no significant restrictions on what walkers, oxygen machines, etc., must do, look like, or be in order to be covered under the ADA. A service dog is the equivalent of an assistive device under the ADA. Consistent with this, the Department of Justice has established minimal requirements for service dogs: they must be trained to do something specific to the handler's disability, they must be housebroken, they must not menace people, and they must be or be brought back quickly under the handler's control.
In the 60's business owners complained they would lose business, have fights break out, etc., if they were forced to allow blacks into their establishment and provide services to them exactly where and how they provided services to others. Customers often preferred that black people not sit next to them or use the same bathroom for fear of infection. Some were willing to accept light-skinned blacks dressed and acting in conservative ways, but felt some young dark black men with afros were an obvious physical danger to whites. None of that was relevant, in a legal sense, after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The objectons to allowing people served by service dogs free and easy public access are quite similar. The misguided predjudices and preferences of the majority and of businesses and governments are the reason civil rights laws (including the ADA) were and are necessary.
