You no doubt saw that the governor of Arizona vetoed a controversial law allowing companies to ban customers they disapprove of.The veto was seen as a wider blow for freedom � the freedom of all people...

You no doubt saw that the governor of Arizona vetoed a controversial law allowing companies to ban customers they disapprove of.

The veto was seen as a wider blow for freedom � the freedom of all people to shop wherever they choose regardless of their backgrounds. Folks felt this put out a clear message that in America, no one can be disallowed from public places.

Except it�s not true.

There is still one group who is routinely discriminated against this way.

Men.

Around a year ago, for example, I was forbidden from shopping at a Whole Foods by a cashier there I�d recently dated.

I considered telling the Human Rights Commission this violated my civil liberties since there weren�t ready alternatives. The last I looked, Stop & Shop doesn�t have a section with 276 different kinds of granola.

But I realized no one would care about a man being banned. We�re the one group no one stands up for.

Most guys will attest this has happened to them.

�Dated a waitress at a bar for a couple months,� a twentysomething nephew told me. To protect the guilty, I won�t name him. �Suffice it to say, I have never been back to that bar once that ended.�

Another nephew said he was so aware of the practice that he decided to impose a pre-emptive ban on himself. When he was single, he made a rule to never date any woman he met at his favorite exercise club. He knew that once it was over, she would forbid him from working out there.

I was once banned from New York City. I lived in Utica, N.Y., and dated a woman who lived on the upper East Side. She was prone toward drama, and when we broke up, declared I could no longer come to Manhattan. I tried to work a technicality by telling myself she mostly meant north of Midtown. This, I felt, let me justify visiting the Village, which I did a few times. But I was definitely scared.

This also happens to fathers of teen girls. A number of times, when I took my daughter to stores, she told me I wasn�t allowed to come in since if she ran into someone she knew, it would be too embarrassing.

Another father told me his teen daughter forbade him from walking with her around the mall they�d just driven to. Same reason. He agreed to shop by himself, but she wouldn�t even permit that. She said he had to stay in the car. He knew dads are powerless in the face of such bans, so he complied. For two hours.

Can you imagine if someone was barred from a mall because of skin color or orientation? It would be a national scandal. But no one holds rallies for banned fathers.

It is even all right to make men the target of public disparagement, something you could never do with minority groups. When I was in college, a number of us guys dated girls on the same dorm floor. The girls were routinely upset at our inattentive boyfriend behavior. They decided to try to correct it with public shaming and began posting a weekly �Rat List� on the wall. Actually, they used a different word than �Rat,� but same idea.

They used the list to publicly rank us each week according to who behaved worst. And not a single rights group protested.

However, I suppose I should add that the Rat List backfired. We males saw a high ranking as an honor and began to compete to be Number 1, so the girls had to take it down.

I was relieved a few months ago when I finally got a note saying a decent interval had passed and my ban from shopping at Whole Foods was lifted. I am now able to resume picking among 276 varieties of granola.

But I�m sure many other men are still discriminated against this way. It could even happen to me again. So let it be known that despite the Arizona veto, one group in America is still routinely banned from stores and public places.

I believe this calls for legislation.

Because until all of us are free in this nation, none of us are.

Folllow Mark Patinkin on Facebook.