A Forced Speech Case With A Fact Few Are Paying Attention To: Cake For, Say, Gay Tennis Match Or Bingo Night? No Problem!
I'm a gay rights-lovin' and -supportin' atheist who -- somehow -- realizes that Christian bakers who are opposed to making custom-designed cakes for gay weddings are not necessarily gay haters. They aren't necessarily people who refuse to do business with gay people.
In fact, Roger Parloff writes in The New Yorker:
In July, 2012, Charlie Craig and David Mullins went to Masterpiece Cakeshop, a small bakery in Lakewood, Colorado, to order a cake for their upcoming wedding reception.The owner, Jack Phillips, told them that he would happily provide baked goods for them for other occasions, but he would not create a cake for this event, citing his general policy, based on his religious convictions, against participating in same-sex marriages.
In that very brief conversation--it lasted about twenty seconds, both sides agree--there surfaced a legal conflict between small-business proprietors with strongly held religious beliefs and the rights of gay Americans.
Note this: The owner said to the gay couple that he would happily provide baked goods for them for other occasions...
So the people contending that this is about hating gays and not a case about compelled speech and religious freedom are wrong.
Let's be clear: The cake baker in the case didn't deny service to gays; he refused to make a cake for a gay wedding, based on his religious beliefs.
Again, I am a strong supporter of gay marriage and gay rights in general -- and I am also a supporter of religious freedom and free speech.
Compelled speech -- making somebody create a cake for a wedding that goes against their religion -- is very unfree speech. It's very-much-forced speech. And that's wrong.
It doesn't matter that I find the religious railings against gays and gay marriage backward, damaging, and ridiculous. People are entitled to their religious beliefs.
And this ACLU dude in the LA Times gets it wrong at length.
And this NYT op-ed by law prof Robert P. George and Yale Law School grad Sherif Girgis gets it right on how the First Amendment doesn't just protect your freedom of speech; "guards your freedom not to speak the mind of another":
Thus, in classic "compelled speech" rulings, the Supreme Court has protected the right not to be forced to say, do or create anything expressing a message one rejects....On Tuesday, the court will consider whether Colorado may deny Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, the right to sell custom wedding cakes because he cannot in conscience create them for same-sex weddings. Mr. Phillips, who has run his bakery since 1993, sells off-the-shelf items to anyone, no questions asked. But he cannot deploy his artistic skills to create cakes celebrating themes that violate his religious and moral convictions. Thus he does not design cakes for divorce parties, lewd bachelor parties, Halloween parties or same-sex weddings.
Colorado's order that he create same-sex wedding cakes (or quit making any cakes at all) would force him to create expressive products carrying a message he rejects. That's unconstitutional.
...Our point is not that forcing people to sell a product or service for an event always compels them to endorse the event. It's that forcing them to create speech celebrating the event does. And it's well-established that First Amendment "speech" includes creative work ("artistic speech") ranging from paintings to video games.
Unlike folding chairs or restaurant service, custom wedding cakes are full-fledged speech under the First Amendment. Creating them cannot be conveniently classified as "conduct, not expression" to rationalize state coercion.
...A wedding cake's context specifies its message: This couple has formed a marriage. When the specific context is a same-sex wedding, that message is one Mr. Phillips doesn't believe and cannot in conscience affirm. So coercing him to create a cake for the occasion is compelled artistic speech.
...Note that this argument wouldn't cover all requirements to make artistic items. The law may force photographers to do photo portraits for Latinos as well as whites since that doesn't yet force them to create art bearing an idea they reject, which is all the compelled-speech doctrine forbids. But custom wedding cakes carry a message specific to each wedding: This is a marriage.
If you are opposed to gay marriage -- a thing, again, that I am firmly for -- you should not be forced to make custom cakes for gay weddings. That's ideological slavery, and we need to stand firmly against it.
And...
Radwaste at December 5, 2017 5:57 AM
The court needs to establish the broader principle that there is no possible way to stretch civil rights laws to cover custom made cakes.
No where in the constitution do you have a call on someone’s personal services. When you try to compel them by force of law, bad things happen, both to freedom, and the quality of the product you are coercing.
Isab at December 5, 2017 6:52 AM
When I was younger I used to see signs in lots of businesses like this: "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone." Guess that's not available anymore. Pity, fewer limits on bad behavior.
Meanwhile back here in Colorado, it seems most folks see this legal case as a tempest in a teapot, a big deal made out of a very minor slight. It's not doing any favors for gay rights attitudes among the locals, that's for sure.
bkmale at December 5, 2017 7:28 AM
The "custom" aspect is what a lot of people miss. This is not like going to Publix and having them make a cake from layers that they already make and stick a stock figurine on top. Cakes like this are commissioned works of art, nothing less. Should the government be allowed to force an artist to accept a commission that they don't want? If you're a painter, and a black customer comes and and says, "I want you to paint a portrait of Malcom X holding Donald Trump's severed head", must you accept the commission simply because the person asking is black? If so, then the principle established is that certain government-designated groups of people have rights that supercede the rights of others. Or, to put it more bluntly, we have a caste system.
(And no, don't even start with the counter-example. If a white person sued because a black painter refused a commission to paint a portrait of Donald Trump holding Malcom X's severed head, that would be laughed out of court. And you know what? In a constitutionally principled nation, that would be the correct outcome.)
This is not even addressing the "public accommodation" thing, which I contend is on Constitutionally shaky ground itself. This is clearly a case turning on the freedom-of-speech clause of the First Amendment. Thomas Jefferson held that being compelled to express (or support the expression of) an opinion with which one disagrees, is even more tyrannical than censorship.
Cousin Dave at December 5, 2017 7:55 AM
So who are the intolerant haters? The person with a deep conviction that his conscience won't let him violate; or the persons who seek to destroy the life and business of someone that causes them no harm but doesn't feel the way they do about life and relationships?
Jay at December 5, 2017 8:47 AM
One way to asses such cases is to apply it more broadly (Cousin Dave did above), not just to a gay wedding. Would the authorities jail a wedding photographer who refuses to photograph a nude wedding? How about a black baker who refuses to bake a cake for the KKK party? How about making a moslem baker bake that gay cake? What about demanding that moslem or jewish butcher shops sell pork? In all of these cases the answer would be no but this reveals an inconsistency which shows that the cake case is flawed.
There are other contexts also where freedom of association is under attack. A woman renting a room in her house advertised for "an older Christian gentleman" and was sued for discrimination. This is for sharing your own house, where safety and compatibility matter. How about for picking room-mates? Trans people are claiming discrimination because straights won't date them. There are others. Where is the line where the gov should just butt out?
cc at December 5, 2017 9:03 AM
Related. Also, your honor, vagueness and arbitrariness are features not bugs. The city can shut down certain unfavored vendors to benefit favored vendors, who will be so grateful as to make campaign donations to the Right People.
https://twitchy.com/brettt-3136/2017/12/04/in-other-news-federal-judge-rules-that-bikini-baristas-and-their-art-form-can-stay/
I R A Darth Aggie at December 5, 2017 9:40 AM
The error in thinking is that he thinks he is participating in their marriage. If a gay couple buys cake making supplies is the store and it's personnel also participating in the marriage? No? Right.
This is a product he offers. Wedding cakes. He does not have to offer Halloween cakes, divorce cakes, penis cakes, etc. What he does is actually *not* different from what the supermarket does.
When you go wedding cake shopping, they show you their range of designs and taste the various cake, frosting and fillings they offer. You mix and match from there. Kind of like choose your own adventure. He's NOT putting his whole heart and soul into it. He doesn't have insomnia over it because he's blocked. It's. Just. A. Product.
And I'm an artist, so don't try to explain commissions to me. Dude needs to get over himself, thinking he's an artiste. Working artists take commissions they don't 100% agree with all the time.
It's just a cake.
Bitchlasagna at December 5, 2017 9:50 AM
Let's see, I'm hypothetically a Mormon with a cake business. Mormons have never claimed to hate blacks, yet they discriminated against them in their religion (and often outside their religion--I'm a former Mormon so I know). Mormons should have the right to include or exclude a member in any way they like.
But, a Mormon owns a bakery not affiliated with his religion, and says, "I will bake you a cake, but I won't put on it a decoration showing a black man and white woman on it, because I don't agree with interracial marriage-it's my religious belief and I don't care about honoring your religious beliefs."
Do you agree that the Mormon baker should impose his religious beliefs on the cake buyer? How about an atheist who wants on his cake a man or women with a colander on his or her head and a Flying Spaghetti Monster by his or her side?
Religious people quite often want "religious freedom for me, but not for thee."
It's like employment, the boss can fire you for a good reason, a bad reason, or no reason, but not for an illegal reason. Similarly, a baker should be able to not make a cake for a good reason, a bad reason, or no reason, but not refuse to bake a cake for a prohibited reason such as based on race, religion, lack of religion, or nationality. It's not his church, it's a public business that needs to follow the law just like anyone else.
Daniel at December 5, 2017 9:55 AM
Leaving aside the legalities, I'm not sure why one would want to give money to a vendor who is hostile toward your position — much less consume a foodstuff that the vendor was coerced into creating.
Kevin at December 5, 2017 9:58 AM
Oh, sky cake - why are you so delicious?!
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at December 5, 2017 10:22 AM
"So who are the intolerant haters? The person with a deep conviction that his conscience won't let him violate; ..."
Ted Kaczynski, for example, or David Koresh, or Timothy McVeigh, or Scott Roeder.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at December 5, 2017 10:28 AM
How is this different from refusing to serve Black people at your lunch counter?
Steven Daniels at December 5, 2017 11:07 AM
And I'm an artist...It's just a cake.
Not it isn't. I'm pretty sure the baker in question will sell them just a cake. Oh, you want it customized with a particular message? no, I won't do that message. So it is no longer just a cake.
Do you agree that the Mormon baker should impose his religious beliefs on the cake buyer?
Unless they have to go a great distance to find someone willing, nay, eager to bake their damn cake, how, with precision, is the baker imposing any sort of belief upon them?
You both have a poor understanding of the concept of free speech. I would say that compulsarary speech is worse than to be silenced. This is why I don't get bent out of shape when some kid refuses to recite the Pledge in school.
A free state has no business forcing approved speech.
Here's a test case: would you force a practicing Muslim baker to bake a cake for a gay wedding?
much less consume a foodstuff that the vendor was coerced into creating
As I like to say: eat the damn cake. Maybe the butter was a bit rancid, but I don't like to let things go to waste. And if the frosting tastes a bit off, well, I bought all the ingredients from the Dollar store around the corner. Oh, this won't be my best work. Oh, and you're vegans? did I accidentally use bacon grease to coat the pans? whoops.
Behold the power of Maxim 38: What's easy for you can still be hard on your clients.
http://schlockmercenary.wikia.com/wiki/The_Seventy_Maxims_of_Maximally_Effective_Mercenaries
I R A Darth Aggie at December 5, 2017 11:17 AM
No, he thinks he's part of their wedding, celebrating their union with a joyous cake, an exemplar of his skill as a pastry chef.
Perhaps he's not a part of the wedding, but his skill and time go into the production of the cake. Should he not have a say in the occasion on which it is displayed and consumed?
Their range of designs and flavors. The ones they mix for you. Not the production line sheet cake you get from the grocery store, but a custom cake you get from a professional pastry chef.
But that's their choice to do so. They get to decide when economics trumps religion. When the government says, "you must do it," the choice is no longer theirs.
No imposition of Mormonism on the cake buyer. The buyer is not required to read The Book of Mormon or pass a quiz on the life of Joseph Smith. This is merely a refusal to participate in, or provide supplies for, a religious rite.
Is it foolish? Probably. Turning down business and risking future business from sympathetic potential customers can be dangerous.
________________________________________
The question here is whether the government should be allowed to determine religious doctrine; and, if not, whether such doctrine should be allowed to direct commercial ventures in the public marketplace.
Those hostile to religion seem determined to let government fiat dictate the reach and depth of individual religious beliefs, unaware that such power can be used against non-religious beliefs, too.
The religious seem determined that government can have no say whatsoever in the behavior of the religious, seemingly unaware that a bakery able to legally say no to a gay wedding cake can just as easily refuse to participate in a church wedding.
Allowing the government to have a say in religious doctrine and belief is dangerous. Allowing religion to be used as a cloak for blatant discrimination is also dangerous. The answer to this dilemma will have far-reaching and unintended consequences. We need to put away the hysterics, can the self-righteous moral certitude, and tread lightly; here, there be monsters.
Conan the Grammarian at December 5, 2017 11:33 AM
It still bewilders me why anyone would want to legally force someone to provide a service when that person clearly doesn't want to. I would be afraid that everyone at my party would get food poisoning. I'd just find someone who doesn't have a problem with my request.
Fayd at December 5, 2017 11:48 AM
"I'd just find someone who doesn't have a problem with my request."
Much like a black person in the 1920s, gays are free to travel 500 miles to another state when they can't find a restaurant with a public bathroom open to their kind when they need a sandwich and a place to pee. Or a cake. Or medical care. Or a job. Whichever.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at December 5, 2017 11:51 AM
"Much like a black person in the 1920s, gays are free to travel 500 miles to another state when they can't find a restaurant with a public bathroom open to their kind when they need a sandwich and a place to pee. Or a cake. Or medical care. Or a job. Whichever."
Please provide any example in which a gay couple are unable to find a baker to bake them a special cake. I bet there are gay bakers all over the place and SJW bakers as well. I mentioned above cases like should a wedding photographer be forced to take photos at a nudist wedding. Should they? This case is NOT the same as blacks, who now are not turned away from any restaurant or hotel or anything. Nor are gays. But let's take another example, a bed-and-breakfast, where the couple live on the premises--perhaps they don't want a gay couple and they should have a right to say no. Perhaps they don't want people coming and cooking meth in the room or having a wild drunk party--do they have rights?
cc at December 5, 2017 12:10 PM
Tsk. Y'all missed that Crid already said it. Check the link.
Meanwhile, please let me know when you, personally, have been forced by law to do something which is actually optional - and which will never be reciprocated, with roles reversed.
Radwaste at December 5, 2017 2:24 PM
This is a bakery, not a church. If the owner wants to discriminate against people based upon his religious beliefs, he can make that his religion, incorporate as a religious institution and abide by the laws governing nonprofits.
Otherwise, if you provide a service like custom cakes, as a secular business, you should be obliged to provide that service in the same way to any customer.
Don't want to make custom cakes for gay weddings? NP, don't make custom wedding cakes for anyone. Don't want to make birthday cakes for interracial babies? Don't make birthday cakes at all.
This case opens the doors for religious discrimination against anyone, for any reason. It's bullshit and it's time to draw a clear line between religious institutions and secular institutions. If you're a business, you should not be able to use your religious beliefs to deny services to some people that you provide to others. A simple, bright line test.
e.a.b.o.d. at December 5, 2017 2:36 PM
This is a bakery, not a church. If the owner wants to discriminate against people based upon his religious beliefs, he can make that his religion, incorporate as a religious institution and abide by the laws governing nonprofits.
And halal cooks should be forced to make BLTs. Because one guy's freedom of religion is everybody else's freedom from religion.
Letting the government determine one's inner life is setting a dangerous precedent, for all.
While I believe most, if not all, of this "gay marriage is against my religion" schtick is really a pretense to discriminate ("icky poo, they might get the gay on me"), arguments like the ones advocated by first-time poster, e.a.b.o.d. (anonymousie again?), open the door for arbitrary government interference in commerce and religion as the government and the courts determine what constitutes a religious belief and/or practice and in what setting it should be allowed.
Conan the Grammarian at December 5, 2017 3:28 PM
"It still bewilders me why anyone would want to legally force someone to provide a service when that person clearly doesn't want to."
Because it is about power and fear. Especially when you would lose in an overall public opinion. Destroy one or a handful of peoples lives and/or livelihoods, (win or loose) and you will cower the rest into bending over backward for you. Standard tactics that the Democrats have used for decades.
Joe J at December 5, 2017 3:42 PM
"Please provide any example in which a gay couple are unable to find a baker to bake them a special cake. "
Keep shoveling, there's a pony in there somewhere.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at December 5, 2017 4:26 PM
The baker didn't refuse service to gay people. They asked him for a service he doesn't sell.
Ken R at December 5, 2017 4:58 PM
Hey.
Let them find a Muslim baker. See if the courts are interested.
Richard Aubrey at December 5, 2017 5:23 PM
Demanding that the Christian baker create a custom designed wedding cake for a same sex wedding is similar to demanding that the Muslim proprietor of a halal delicatessen provide a gourmet ham for an Easter celebration.
If the delicatessen refused to provide the ham (and they would refuse) because the customer is a Christian that would be discrimination. If they refused because they don't sell hams, but are willing to provide any product or service they do sell, it's not discrimination. The halal delicatessen should not be required to provide a product or service they don't sell even if there are no other sources within 500 miles.
Ken R at December 5, 2017 6:30 PM
I think a relevant question would be if a straight customer came in and tried to buy a custom wedding cake for their gay friends' wedding (and the baker would know that it was for a gay wedding) would baker sell the cake?
I think it is weird to by someone else's wedding cake but it does happen. A friend of my now SIL purchased the cake for her and my brother's wedding.
The Former Banker at December 5, 2017 6:42 PM
> If you are opposed to gay marriage
> -- a thing, again, that I am firmly
> for -- you should not be forced to
> make custom cakes for gay weddings.
So it was never really marriage at all, because the rest of the culture is free to ignore it.
Amy, this is inane. I wouldn't have quibbled with you all those years if I knew you didn't mean it.
Since we're not required to respect the responsibilities of men to their husbands if we don't want to, are we also free to ignore the responsibilities of parents to their children.
This is just absolutely goofy.
Crid at December 5, 2017 6:44 PM
So I was going through this Popehat tweetstorm about the demented response of Hollywood to Polanski's crimes, and it felt like I'd found a phrase to describe Amy's thoughts about gay marriage: 'incoherent moral catastrophe.'
Crid at December 5, 2017 8:27 PM
Much like a black person in the 1920s,
You mean when the government forced business owners on who they could and could not accept business from?
Quick question, if the government can compel people to provide a service they dont want, can they likewise force people to accept a service they do not want?
lujlp at December 5, 2017 9:27 PM
lujlp: Quick question, if the government can compel people to provide a service they dont want, can they likewise force people to accept a service they do not want?
Medical insurance.
If a Muslim opens up a bakery and hardly anyone goes there because he's a Muslim (liberals would call that racism, right?) - should it be against the law to refuse to buy that bakery's products because of the proprietor's race?
Ken R at December 5, 2017 9:56 PM
"if the government can compel people to provide a service they dont want"
Exactly! The government dragged those poor bakers downtown, forced them to obtain a business license, open a bakery, and sell baked goods to the public.
Those Jesus-hating bastards and their black helicopters are a sign of the alpacalips!
Seriously, though, no. The government is not making the bakers open a bakery.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at December 5, 2017 10:19 PM
Since we're not required to respect the responsibilities of men to their husbands if we don't want to, are we also free to ignore the responsibilities of parents to their children.
This is just absolutely goofy.
Crid at December 5, 2017 6:44 PM
My wife and I married each other three times. We only had cake the first time. The woman who baked our cakes for that wedding was a lesbian small business owner who had her own cafe until she closed it to take care of her mother. That wedding had no legal power, but we had the support of a community that held us to our word.
Our second next wedding was in Canada, and it was legal in some states (but not ours) and we went out for lunch afterward but all I remember is how beautiful she looked in her white silk shirt and pearls. Our third wedding was in NYC, legally binding in our home state, and afterward we had brunch.
In all those times and all our years together, we never actually promised one another cake. This is amazing because my wife loved cake and I'm surprised she never tried to extract this promise from me.
In the twenty years we were together, we never had to go without shelter because of cake (we were never even sold cake at discriminatory and predatorily high prices, not even for Prantl's almond torte), and none of our life threatening health issues stemmed from failure to receive cake from a licensed provider of cake.
I don't see a connection between my marriage vows being honored, and advocating for forcing a small business owner to write both of our names on the same cake or sell us a cake for our wedding.
Michelle at December 5, 2017 10:48 PM
Wait! You mean to say society has a role to play in a marriage?
That's crazy. The next thing you'll be telling us is that marriage is a social contract.
Conan the Grammarian at December 6, 2017 5:14 AM
"Do you agree that the Mormon baker should impose his religious beliefs on the cake buyer? "
It is a minor inconvenience to the buyer to take his business elsewhere. (In fact, if it disapproves of the baker's business principles, that's what he should do.) It is a major imposition to tell the baker that he must change careers in order to hold to his belief system. Again, change the players and see if it still makes sense. If the baker is an atheist, and he refuses to bake me a cake decorated like a Bible, do I have a right to compel him to do it? No, I just go somewhere else. It's not like we have a shortage of bakers.
"Don't want to make custom cakes for gay weddings? NP, don't make custom wedding cakes for anyone. Don't want to make birthday cakes for interracial babies? Don't make birthday cakes at all."
What you are advocating is the view that when people enter the public sphere, they must leave their private belief systems behind. That's not what the Establishment Clause says, and no court in the U.S. has ever held to that view. Banning people from acting according to their beliefs, just because they are in the public sphere, is tantamount to establishing government supremacy over private morals and beliefs. Again, that's not what the Establishment Clause says. In fact, the last part of the clause, "... or prohibit the free exercise thereof...", explicitly says the opposite.
"gays are free to travel 500 miles to another state..."
Nah. These days, there's an app for that.
Cousin Dave at December 6, 2017 7:26 AM
More here soon, noon PST Wednesday maybe
Crid at December 6, 2017 8:28 AM
"How is this different from refusing to serve Black people at your lunch counter?"
You really can't tell?
Wow.
You don't have to change anything on your menu to serve blacks.
I am astonished I have to explain that.
Radwaste at December 6, 2017 8:33 AM
> You really can't tell?
>
> Wow.
See, that's what I was getting at in the other thread. There's this charade of essentially wordless principle with you guys. You really don't want to have your reasoning, or even your perceptions on the record.
> I am astonished I have
> to explain that.
Your superiority is that glorious? Do others in your life know this?
Astonished, Raddy?
Crid at December 6, 2017 9:14 AM
"And halal cooks should be forced to make BLTs. Because one guy's freedom of religion is everybody else's freedom from religion."
"Demanding that the Christian baker create a custom designed wedding cake for a same sex wedding is similar to demanding that the Muslim proprietor of a halal delicatessen provide a gourmet ham for an Easter celebration."
These comparisons are totally inapt.
The halal cook or deli wouldn't have bacon or ham to begin with.
These people make cakes. It's what they do. They are refusing to sell their product to a customer because of who the customer is. A better comparison would be if the halal deli wouldn't sell schawarma to jews. Is that OK?
e.a.b.o.d. at December 6, 2017 9:37 AM
"You don't have to change anything on your menu to serve blacks."
Exactly. All you have to do is tell them that your god finds black people sub-human and soulless and instructs you to shun them in His infernal name.
Presto! Religious exemption for an ostensibly open-to-the-public government-licensed business, and bigotry prevails under cover of righteousness.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at December 6, 2017 9:37 AM
Perhaps cakes aren't worth worrying about. But would a baker who declined to serve blacks or Jews be so readily forgiven? Okay, what if an apartment owner didn't want to rent to a gay couple? And there are any number of businesses for which marital status affords particular services and conveniences.
After even those short years of bickering about gay marriage, I do not understand how proponents could be so ready, nay eager, to eviscerate the practicalities of what was so eagerly described as a human right to 'marry the one you love.'
Are gays married or aren't they?
As the bickering rolled on, supporters seemed most enthused about the tritest aspects of marriage: Specifically, weddings and feelings of romance. Far too many anecdotes took the form 'This one gay couple I know will do fine!' (always with a tall exclamation mark, as if to tower over the less compassionate). Or 'I went to a gay wedding, and the brides were beautiful! There wasn't a dry eye on the hillside!' (I assumed children would be thrown overboard in this flush of Junior High emotion, and of course they have been.)
The broadest base of enthusiasm seemed mostly to be about wanting to say something nice about gays, and to strike a pose of open-mindedness. Well, I like gays. I've had some in my life since I was 13. (Well, that's probably when I knew enough to care about the distinction.)
But the niceness has a gratuitous quality. In the Thanksgiving just past, some Twitterer in my feed made it a point to say (close paraphrase): I hope all the LBGT's who've been excluded from family gatherings found new homes for warmth and fellowship this week.
Well, golly, who wouldn't want that? But when you're looking for sads in the general public to whom you might cast blessings, best wishes to those with alcoholism (or cancer) in the family would find many, many more who are suffering.
But that's nearly incidental--
> The next thing you'll be
> telling us is that marriage
> is a social contract.
Coney is not kidding: A marriage is about the regard of a couple by the surrounding community and vice versa. It's critically important.
So now Amy, who's so often smirked that marriage is an institution for which the time has passed, is now ready to inflict her bitter cynicism on gays as well: Your unions don't deserve respect as special bonds with another.
Seeing this frost move so quickly through fashions doesn't give the impression that she wants unmarrieds to be respected as well; rather that she doesn't want marrieds to be enriched, or happier.
Crid at December 6, 2017 10:02 AM
I mean, Coney WAS kidding. But he an afford to, because he regards the issue with appropriate seriousness.
Crid at December 6, 2017 10:04 AM
> e.a.b.o.d. at December 6, 2017 9:37 AM
Jeez, you guys are making all my points before another comment can be posted.
Crid at December 6, 2017 10:05 AM
The law usually turns on fine points.
That said, there is a huge distinction between denying someone a seat at lunch counter, an undeniable public accomodation issue, and forcing a black baker to deliver a KKK decorated cake to a Klan rally.
Just because he is in the business of making custom cakes and delivering them to events does not mean he is forced to cater *all events* and decorate *every kind*of cake.
If the lower court decisions stand, this is exactly what the law would be mandating.
I think the gay couple is going to lose this one. A small step, but an important one in restoring some sanity to public accomodation laws.
David French has a pretty good analysis over at NRO
Isab at December 6, 2017 12:21 PM
"Jeez, you guys are making all my points before another comment can be posted."
Hey, it was a big target at close range.
Cousin Dave at December 6, 2017 1:04 PM
Let us say that instead of a baker, it is an ad agency who refuses to create ads for Abercrombie and Fitch because the models look underage. Do they have that right? Or it is a photographer who refuses to take photos of scantily dressed wives for their husbands. OK?
In other news, governments in Canada and UK have officially disapproved of church schools teaching that homosexuality is against the bible (which is correct) because that is hate speech. This is where absolutism takes you.
cc at December 6, 2017 1:18 PM
Your revised analogy doesn't quite work. That analogy would only work if selling schawarma to Jews was proscribed by Islam. Consuming or touching pork is proscribed by Islam.
My point was that by forcing the cake baker to violate what he says are his religious beliefs, we are effectively letting the government negate religious beliefs for anyone.
So, if the Muslim cook does not want to cook a BLT for a customer because of the pork proscription, he would be forced to because, in that scenario, we'd no longer be allowed to conform our behavior to closely-held religious beliefs if it inconveniences someone or smacks, to whatever degree, of discrimination.
The flip-side of this is that to allow one to cite religious beliefs as a reason for withholding services, we would be enabling discrimination simply because someone said "religious beliefs," thereby loosing legalized discrimination into a society in which everyone is supposed to be free to pursue his or her own happiness.
Of course, allowing individual discrimination is not the same as the government-mandated discrimination that was Jim Crow, but the effect will be similar. If we don't want to be the type of society in which "whites only" signs proliferate, enabling bigots to hide behind religion is not the way to go.
However, to enable the government to determine the acceptability of a religious belief is allow the government to determine the extent and depth of our inner lives.
The First Amendment say Congress shall "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." So, the trick is finding a way to prevent bigots from hiding behind religion while still respecting an individual's Constitutional freedom to choose and practice a religion.
No easy task, except to those wholly committed to one side or the other of the argument and willfully blind to the arguments of the other side.
We've resolved these kinds of issues before; of course, not without conflict and discord. Discriminatory organizations can no longer hide behind "freedom of association." The Mormon religious practice of polygamy was forbidden despite "freedom of religion." And, as we're all aware, shouting "fire" in a crowded theater when there is no fire is not protected by "freedom of speech."
Now, about that KKK cake....
Conan the Grammarian at December 6, 2017 5:48 PM
"Of course, allowing individual discrimination is not the same as the government-mandated discrimination that was Jim Crow, but the effect will be similar."
Would it? The issue with Jim Crow is that government has a monopoly. It has to. So when the government says whites here blacks there those are the rules everywhere. Business is far messier and far more brutal. There are harsher and more obvious consequences to having an 'Irish need not apply' sign in your window. The whole reason Jim Crow was enacted was because even in the deep south there were whites willing and even ecstatic to sell to black people. The bigots needed the force of law to prevent their competition from driving them out of business.
Ben at December 6, 2017 7:36 PM
> a big target at close range.
So you're saying Jews are overweight??
IS THAT WHAT YOU'RE SAYING, COUSIN DAVE??!??!??!
How dare you. How dare you.
Crid at December 6, 2017 9:20 PM
And, as we're all aware, shouting "fire" in a crowded theater when there is no fire is not protected by "freedom of speech."
Sure it is.
You might get charged afterward for inciting a riot or if people get hurt, but the government can not prevent you from doing it
lujlp at December 6, 2017 9:34 PM
Q: Mr. Phillips, do you mind if I ask you a few questions?
Mr. Phillips: No, not at all. And you are...?
Q: Name's "Q." My parents were tightwads.
Mr. Phillips: OK, so what do you want to know?
Q: If someone came into your bakery and wanted a custom cake made with the saying "JESUS SUCKS" on it, would you make it for them?
Mr. Phillips: Of course not! That's highly offensive not only to my religious beliefs but also to my sense of decency.
Q: Would it matter who requested the cake?
Mr. Phillips: No. I'd refuse it whether the person asking was a school bus driver or a doctor, whether it was a 25-year-old man or a 75-year-old woman, an atheist or just someone trying to be offensive.
Q: Thank you. If someone came into your bakery and wanted a custom cake made with the saying "I LOVE YOU" on it, would you make it for them?
Mr. Phillips: Well, that's a beautiful saying. Not as beautiful as "I love Jesus", but a close second. Yes, I would make it....BUT only for someone who wasn't homosexual and "married." Can you believe people actually call it "marriage"? That's an abomination. People can only be married in the eyes of God and God has condemned homosexuality, so homosexuals can't be married.
Q: So the saying itself doesn't offend you?
Mr. Phillips: Of course not. Like I just said, it's a beautiful saying. Well, I mean it's a beautiful saying unless it's being said by one homosexual to another homosexual. Then, it becomes ugly and not just in my eyes but in the eyes of the Lord.
Q: So the only people you'd refuse to bake an "I LOVE YOU" care for are a gay or lesbian couple that was going to be married?
Mr. Phillips. Well, that's "married" in quotes. Just because you make something legal doesn't mean it's morally right, doesn't mean that it's right in the eyes of God. Yes, they're the only people.
Q: What if a man and woman came in for a custom cake, wanted "I LOVE YOU" on it, and you recognized the man from a famous news story many years ago as someone who had abducted a woman after she left a church service and then raped her?
Mr. Phillips: That was a horrible crime but the man paid his time and was released. God never specifically condemned abducting a woman who had just left a church service and raping her. So I would make the cake.
Q: Thank you for your time, Mr. Phillips.
Mr. Phillips. You're very welcome. Remember, this whole homosexual "marriage" thing is a travesty, an affront to God and decent society. Next thing you know, they'll be saying it's legal to "marry" your pet or your farm animal. Our society has become much worse as we've turned from God.
JD at December 6, 2017 10:34 PM
In other news, governments in Canada and UK have officially disapproved of church schools teaching that homosexuality is against the bible (which is correct) because that is hate speech.
That's absurd. That's liberal government rubbish for you. Teaching kids that "God hates homosexuals and says they should be put to death" is not hate speech.
JD at December 6, 2017 10:54 PM
"I wonder which one of us will get in trouble first."
I live in trouble. To paraphrase Patsy Stone: "I haven't been out of trouble since 1973!"
Cousin Dave at December 7, 2017 6:47 AM
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