SCOTUS & gay wedding cakes

[Cow Poke]

Just commenting on the commentary. A bit like Trump.

Bless your heart.

[firstfloor]

Decorating a cake is not art, now?

Neither is flower arranging.

[Cow Poke]

A typesetter is not an editor and a cake is not ‘art’. It’s baking.

Is 'typesetter' still a thing?

[Cow Poke]

Neither is flower arranging.

But dropping a crucifix in a jar of pee is, eh?

[oxmixmudd]

A typesetter is not an editor and a cake is not ‘art’. It’s baking.

Sorry - but there is a good deal of skill and artistry that can go into make something like a wedding cake. Most people that have constructed their entire livelyhood around creating such things do indeed regard what they do as art, as a full on expression of who they are. It is ridiculous to demand such a person create that which violates a core moral principle they hold. To do so is to demand they participate with you in whatever action they take moral exception to. And as I have said before, IF it was me, I would never have challanged them. If a person tells me they can't participate with me because what I want to do violates their moral convictions, I leave them be. It is wrong to force someone to participate with you in violation of their conscience. Period. The proper approach is to try to persuade them there is a better way. And if their position is suffiently egregious, one can simply boycott them and/or discontinue contact with them.

Jim

[Joel]

Gorsuch's concurring opinion is interesting reading.

He refutes the claim that it was a matter of Mr. Phillips refusing to server gay people. (He refused to make a cake celebrating a gay wedding for anyone--including the couple's heterosexual mother. And in general served homosexual customers.)

And responds to all the objections.

E.g., It might be argued that the effect is to discriminate against homosexual people. But then the refusal to make the anti-gay cakes would have to use the same reasoning that it has the effect of discriminating against those of a certain religious belief.

E.g., the argument that the anti-gay cake would have had a message on it, while the cake for the gay wedding would have been the same as any other wedding cake:

"Nor can anyone reasonably doubt that a wedding cake without words conveys a message. Words or not and whatever the exact design, it celebrates a wedding, and if the wedding cake is made for a same-sex couple it cele-brates a same-sex wedding. ... Like “an emblem or flag,” a cake for a same-sex wedding is a symbol that serves as “a short cut from mind to mind,” signifying approval of a specific “system, idea, [or] institution.” West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, 632 (1943). It is precisely that approval that Mr. Phillips intended to withhold in keeping with his religious faith. The Commission denied Mr. Phillips that choice, even as it afforded the bakers in Mr. Jack’s case the choice to refuse to advance a message they deemed offensive to their secular commitments. That is not neutral. "
...
Suggesting that this case is only about “wedding cakes”—and not a wed-ding cake celebrating a same-sex wedding—actually points up the problem. At its most general level, the cake at issue in Mr. Phillips’s case was just a mixture of flour and eggs; at its most specific level, it was a cake celebrating the same-sex wedding of Mr. Craig and Mr. Mullins. We are told here, however, to apply a sort of Goldilocks rule: describing the cake by its ingredients is too general; un-derstanding it as celebrating a same-sex wedding is too specific; but regarding it as a generic wedding cake is just right. The problem is, the Commission didn’t play with the level of generality in Mr. Jack’s case in this way. It didn’t declare, for example, that because the cakes Mr. Jack requested were just cakes about weddings generally, and all such cakes were the same, the bakers had to pro-duce them. Instead, the Commission accepted the bakers’ view that the specific cakes Mr. Jack requested conveyed a message offensive to their convictions and allowed them to refuse service. Having done that there, it must do the same here.

"Any other conclusion would invite civil authorities to gerrymander their inquiries based on the parties they prefer. Why calibrate the level of generality in Mr. Phil-lips’s case at “wedding cakes” exactly—and not at, say, “cakes” more generally or “cakes that convey a message regarding same-sex marriage” more specifically?"

...it risks denying constitutional protection to religious beliefs that draw distinctions more specific than the gov-ernment’s preferred level of description. To some, all wedding cakes may appear indistinguishable. But to Mr. Phillips that is not the case—his faith teaches him other-wise. And his religious beliefs are entitled to no less respectful treatment than the bakers’ secular beliefs in Mr. Jack’s case. This Court has explained these same points “[r]epeatedly and in many different contexts” over many years. Smith, 494 U. S. at 887. For example, in Thomas a faithful Jehovah’s Witness and steel mill worker agreed to help manufacture sheet steel he knew might find its way into armaments, but he was unwilling to work on a fabrication line producing tank turrets. 450 U. S., at 711. Of course, the line Mr. Thomas drew wasn’t the same many others would draw and it wasn’t even the same line many other members of the same faith would draw. Even so, the Court didn’t try to suggest that making steel is just making steel. Or that to offend his religion the steel needed to be of a particular kind or shape. Instead, it recognized that Mr. Thomas alone was entitled to define the nature of his religious commitments—and that those commitments, as defined by the faithful adherent, not a bureaucrat or judge, are entitled to protection under the First Amendment."

[One Bad Pig]

Neither is flower arranging.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you don't know any florists or cake decorators.

[DesertBerean]

Decorating a cake is not art, now?

We should ask Buddy from Cake Boss. Or all those baking contest shows.

[rogue06]

Decorating a cake is not art, now?

It's like saying that painting a portrait is no more art than slapping whitewash on a picket fence is.

[rogue06]

Sorry - but there is a good deal of skill and artistry that can go into make something like a wedding cake. Most people that have constructed their entire livelyhood around creating such things do indeed regard what they do as art, as a full on expression of who they are. It is ridiculous to demand such a person create that which violates a core moral principle they hold. To do so is to demand they participate with you in whatever action they take moral exception to. And as I have said before, IF it was me, I would never have challanged them. If a person tells me they can't participate with me because what I want to do violates their moral convictions, I leave them be. It is wrong to force someone to participate with you in violation of their conscience. Period. The proper approach is to try to persuade them there is a better way. And if their position is suffiently egregious, one can simply boycott them and/or discontinue contact with them.

Jim

Not only is it wrong to try to force someone it is also incredibly moronic.

How often have we heard the wedding day being described as "the most important" or "special" day in someone's life? A day where so many are striving to make everything as perfect as possible So why in the world would anyone take the chance of spoiling it by involving someone who is fundamentally against what you are doing?

It would be oh so easy for a cake maker to "accidentally" add too much vanilla and make the cake nearly inedible. "Oops, my bad. Don't worry about having to pay me." Or even pull a Jesse Jackson by adding a noxious substance^[1]?

Personally, I'd think most people would want everything to go as perfectly as possible on that special day and wouldn't take such a chance. That is of course unless going perfectly for them is defined as deliberately rubbing it into the noses of anyone they think might not approve.








1. For those overseas, Jackson is a famous Civil Rights leader and one time presidential candidate who recounted in an interview that while younger and working as a waiter he would habitually spit in white customers food before serving it.

[Cow Poke]

Not only is it wrong to try to force someone it is also incredibly moronic.

How often have we heard the wedding day being described as "the most important" or "special" day in someone's life? A day where so many are striving to make everything as perfect as possible So why in the world would anyone take the chance of spoiling it by involving someone who is fundamentally against what you are doing?

It would be oh so easy for a cake maker to "accidentally" add too much vanilla and make the cake nearly inedible. "Oops, my bad. Don't worry about having to pay me." Or even pull a Jesse Jackson by adding a noxious substance^[1]?

Personally, I'd think most people would want everything to go as perfectly as possible on that special day and wouldn't take such a chance. That is of course unless going perfectly for them is defined as deliberately rubbing it into the noses of anyone they think might not approve.








1. For those overseas, Jackson is a famous Civil Rights leader and one time presidential candidate who recounted in an interview that while younger and working as a waiter he would habitually spit in white customers food before serving it.

This is why I NEVER complain about my food in a restaurant and allow them to "take it back" to 'resolve the issue'.

[Cow Poke]

It's like saying that painting a portrait is no more art than slapping whitewash on a picket fence is.

But even THAT can be art! (not with whitewash, of course)

picket fence.jpg

[seer]

Not only is it wrong to try to force someone it is also incredibly moronic.

Unless the Christian baker was specifically targeted for a test case with the Commissars....

[Sparko]

Sorry - but there is a good deal of skill and artistry that can go into make something like a wedding cake. Most people that have constructed their entire livelyhood around creating such things do indeed regard what they do as art, as a full on expression of who they are. It is ridiculous to demand such a person create that which violates a core moral principle they hold. To do so is to demand they participate with you in whatever action they take moral exception to. And as I have said before, IF it was me, I would never have challanged them. If a person tells me they can't participate with me because what I want to do violates their moral convictions, I leave them be. It is wrong to force someone to participate with you in violation of their conscience. Period. The proper approach is to try to persuade them there is a better way. And if their position is suffiently egregious, one can simply boycott them and/or discontinue contact with them.

Jim

yep. If it is not art then the couple could have just gone to the grocery store and bought some cake mix.

[Cow Poke]

yep. If it is not art then the couple could have just gone to the grocery store and bought some cake mix.

Or a ready made cake!