SCOTUS & gay wedding cakes

[Teallaura]

No. Apples and Oranges.

So, you agree the Colorado commission erred when it did not require homosexual bakers to make anti-gay marriage message cakes?

[Teallaura]

That never was the case anyway. No one in this case was being forced to abandon their beliefs. Baking a cake according to the specifications of the buyer is not the baker abandoning his beliefs. That's just silliness.

...

So you also agree the commission erred when it did not require homosexual bakers to make anti-gay marriage cakes? THIS it a key point in the case we're debating and a big part of why Colorado lost.

[Teallaura]

I have not seen anything in any of the reporting that suggests they were unwilling to. The reports I have read indicate the baker would not sell any wedding cake to them if it was to be used for a wedding in which two people of the same sex were marrying. I know other things have been reported in this discussion, but after the ruling I dug around and could not find any of that affirmed.

It's in the decision. I wanna say it's about half way through but I haven't read it that carefully yet.

[Teallaura]

No, they are meant to ensure that people are not discriminated against due to their sexual orientation, the same as they can't be discriminated against for any other reason related to their personal identity.

Um, this isn't true, Jim. Only a very few characteristics are protected by law. If you identify as a crazed killer and dress in a manner that conveys that, any establishment, public or private, would be perfectly within their rights to refuse service. Identifying as a nudist similarly doesn't get you in the door if the proprietor requires shirts, shoes and pants. (FYI, the law requires pants for everyone, just sayin'...).

[Tassman]

One would think that a same sex couple could simply put their own cake topper of two grooms or two brides on a wedding cake themselves but it all seems about forcing others to do so.

Heterosexual couples could do the same thing with a bride and groom on top of the cake, but why would they. And why would you expect a homosexual couple to do so?

But that is not the aim of these encounters - they are meant to legally harm anyone who disagrees with their agenda.

Oh you poor persecuted Evangelicals.

The ones doing "harm" are not those demanding equal rights, but those demanding the right to discriminate against some people in the name of Jesus.

[carpedm9587]

This baker isn't simply a baker. The requested service isn't just mixing flour and eggs and sugar in the correct proportions. The service requested was a specialized cake where the baker invents an artistic presentation where the unique and special attributes of the couples relationship are recreated in artwork on the cake. Something which for a same-sex relationship and marriage simply is not possible to do for this baker. One can't demand that an artist create from a dry well or operate in complete violation of his principles and morals. This situation is a complete and total violation of his conscience and being. He simply is not capable of offering them the service they desire any more than the couple is capable of suddenly deciding they are no longer same-sex attracted. He could give them a 'cake'. But he could not create what they would be paying for.

"I am an artist" is nort a valid excuse for bigotry or prejudice. "My religion says so" is not a valid excuse for bigotry or prejudice. The baker has an alternative - get out of the "wedding cake" business and focus on other confections.

Well, to the technical first. The MM/FF has no natural procreation options. They can adopt a child that has another father and another mother, or in the case of FF, one of the 'mothers' can get herself artificially impregnated with sperm from a MAN and make a baby. Either way, procreation only happens with a man and a women making a baby. There are NO same-sex procreation options.

That is true (at least as of today's procreation technology). It is also completely irrelevant to the subject at hand.

But to the point of showing the differences. These are cakes with two different purposes. One contains symbology that supports a heterosexual marriage, the other symbology that supports a same-sex marriage. And as we've already agreed. A same-sex marriage and a heterosexual marriage are not the same thing, and the cakes made are in fact also not the same thing. One violates the religious convictions of the baker. The other does not.

See my note above.

This is independent of any characteristic of the patrons requesting the cakes.

Jim

It is completely about the characteristics of the patrons requesting (or, more accurately, ultimately using) the cake. If they have different sexes - it is permitted. If they have the same sex, it is not. I do not see how you can define sex as not being a "characteristic of the patrons." That seems false on the face of it.

Michel

[rogue06]

"I am an artist" is nort a valid excuse for bigotry or prejudice. "My religion says so" is not a valid excuse for bigotry or prejudice.

Yet "I'm gay" is all that is sufficient to coerce someone into abandoning their religious beliefs

[carpedm9587]

So, you agree the Colorado commission erred when it did not require homosexual bakers to make anti-gay marriage message cakes?

Your question is a bit odd to me. As I understand the ruling, SCOTUS noted that the Colorado commission showed "overt hostility" to the baker. SCOTUS ruled that Phillips was entitled to a neutral decision maker, and the hostility of the Colorado commission showed it was not such a neutral body. Given what I have read about how the commission acted, I agree. Hopefully, the next situation will be handled by a less hostile agency and the ruling can be on the merits of the argument.

[carpedm9587]

It's in the decision. I wanna say it's about half way through but I haven't read it that carefully yet.

All it says is "other products." I haven't found anything else.

[carpedm9587]

Yet "I'm gay" is all that is sufficient to coerce someone into abandoning their religious beliefs

In the 1950s, your sentence would have read, "Yet "I'm black" is all that is sufficient to coerce someone into abandoning their religious beliefs"


No one is being required to abandon their religious beliefs. They ARE required to provide any service they choose to provide without prejudice, or not provide the service. The baker has a way to follow his conscience/beliefs without engaging in prejudice.

[Sparko]

Since no one has successfully (IMO) refuted the genetics argument...of course I return to it. It is the heart of my argument and the heart of the inconsistency made by those advocating for the baker.

Because:
1. There is no reason to "refute" it because it is nothing but an equivocation on your part. There is no "genetic" discrimination other than in your "story"
2. Even if there WERE genetic discrimination, so what? Why would that be "wrong"? Nothing is really 'wrong' in your view anyway. So your picking that hill to die on is ridiculous. Might as well argue the color of their skin was what he was discriminating against because both of them were white.

I can list many "genetic" differences that you would have no problem in discriminating against someone on. I mentioned them before. Addiction for example. If someone had genetics that made them have an addictive personality, you would still be fine in arresting someone for drug abuse. You wouldn't argue that it was discrimination because they were genetically disposed to addiction. You don't have any problem with keeping men out of women's locker rooms do you? Isn't that discrimination based on what is between their legs?

[Sparko]

I have not seen anything in any of the reporting that suggests they were unwilling to. The reports I have read indicate the baker would not sell any wedding cake to them if it was to be used for a wedding in which two people of the same sex were marrying. I know other things have been reported in this discussion, but after the ruling I dug around and could not find any of that affirmed.

Because he does more than stick a topper on a generic cake. He decorates the cake, shaping them to specs, painting them, and even caters them at the wedding, delivering and cutting the cakes. Did you even watch the video I posted earlier?

[One Bad Pig]

No one is being required to abandon their religious beliefs. They ARE required to provide any service they choose to provide without prejudice, or not provide the service. The baker has a way to follow his conscience/beliefs without engaging in prejudice.

The baker chose to not provide the service, thus following his conscience/beliefs without engaging in prejudice.

[rogue06]

In the 1950s, your sentence would have read, "Yet "I'm black" is all that is sufficient to coerce someone into abandoning their religious beliefs"

To be consistent you should be demanding that black bakers cater a KKK wedding, even being forced to make a cake saying something to the effect of "Ship All The [n-word] Back to Africa" complete with a little figure of a lynched black person. If they balk they should then be branded as bigots and threatened with having their business destroyed.

And how about a Jewish baker being compelled to design a birthday cake for some neo-Nazis in the shape of the concentration camp at Auschwitz complete with little smokestack shaped candles.

[carpedm9587]

Because he does more than stick a topper on a generic cake. He decorates the cake, shaping them to specs, painting them, and even caters them at the wedding, delivering and cutting the cakes. Did you even watch the video I posted earlier?

Yep - I did. And if he provides those services to "couples marrying," he is discriminating and showing bigotry/prejudice when he refuses to provide those services for all marrying couples. He can avoid the problem by simply not providing wedding cakes and turning to other themed cakes that are not problematic (e.g., retirement cakes, birthday cakes, grand-opening cakes, etc.). There are many contexts in which custom cakes are requested, and a perfectly adequate income can be derived. And there is the entire rest of the universe of bakery goods.