Refusing service for a non-bigoted cause is entirely permissible. ‘I won’t serve this customer because they never pay the bill’ or ‘because they swear at the salesclerk’ or ‘because they won’t put on a shirt/a facemask’ is just fine.
Refusing service for a bigoted reason is only done by bigots.
‘Open to the public’ means ‘open to the public’. One serves customers equally unless there’s an acceptable reason to deny them.
Nobody’s expecting mind reading. If there’s a complaint, the business has an acceptable reason to give, or it doesn’t. The reason has evidence that it’s accurate, or it doesn’t; or it can’t be determined in the particular case, but there’s evidence from multiple cases that those forbidden service were primarily those in a particular category, or that they weren’t.
And the OP specified that the reason was bigoted; so arguing that we might not know whether it was or not is rather fighting the hypothesis. The OP was just assigning the cause of the bigotry to religion.
Think about the line of questioning which gets you to religion to begin with.
Why won’t the baker make a cake for this customer? Because the customer ordered a cake to celebrate a same-sex marriage.
Why won’t the baker make a cake for a customer to celebrate a same-sex marriage? Because the baker’s religion forbids celebration of same-sex marriage.
I think it’s bigotry based on the answer to question #1. If the answer had been, because the customer refused to pay a fair price, or because the customer showed an attitude problem, would not be bigotry. But discrimination based on sexual orientation is bigotry, no matter the justification.
Why would anyone ever give that as the reason knowing it offers no protection?
That bigots are going to be bigots is hardly a new discovery. But what this thread is stating is that the bigoted decision is made by ALL of the people who would justify it with religion.
I find this to be false. It is trivial to find someone that would say “I would absolutely serve (insert protected class here) except my religion forbids it”
People who choose to be religious are sometimes overzealous in their beliefs. That this happens to align with others who are bigots just because doesn’t spoil the whole barrel of apples.
Your answer depends on the view of the beholder. From the Christian believer’s viewpoint, for example, everything is “the gospel truth”, both literally and figuratively. So, when an orthodox Christian says that the only way to eternal salvation is through Jesus Christ, that person is speaking from deep religious belief with no malice intended. Anyone outside of that orthodox faith views it as a false and bigoted statement. Personally, I can’t tag that as “bigotry” because I don’t know for certain if the statement is true or false because we haven’t had much luck with dead people reporting back on what happens after death.
It’s not like saying that white people are superior because we have scientific evidence to the contrary, so ignoring the facts to express a belief is bigotry as far as I’m concerned. It’s not a battle of opinions and possibilities.
Blaming it on the religion doesn’t change any of that.
Yup.
And if they want to predicate church membership on that, or taking communion, or being married in that specific church which only holds marriages for its members, or whatever, they’re free to do that. But if they’re running a business open to the public, they need to serve people of any religion equally.
And, in fact, in the modern USA they do. Which pretty badly weakens the claim that they can’t possibly serve gay people equally; since they’re already serving people who they think are going to hell.
Perhaps you misunderstand me, because if a person refuses to serve a protected class because of membership in that class, that is precisely what I think qualifies as bigotry.
You seem to think the line of questioning can go like this:
Why won’t you serve this customer? Because my religion forbids me from baking cakes that celebrate same-sex marriage.
Read that again. Even if the baker’s religion forbids them from baking cakes that celebrate same-sex marriage, that doesn’t fully answer the question of why the baker refuses to serve this particular customer. You would have to establish that the customer ordered a cake to celebrate same-sex marriage, and that this is why the baker refuses to provide service. If this isn’t explicitly stated, it is implied. I have determined that the baker is engaged in bigotry based on the implication.
You are presupposing that anyone who would not serve someone to be a bigot, PRIOR to the actual action.
Ack, actually I have been arguing in error. I just re-read the OP and that does not follow. I think I was arguing against Rittersport’s postings instead of arguing for or against the OP
I may well be mistaken, but I get the sense that the OP was hoping that there would be agreement that bigotry that is “compelled” by one’s religious beliefs should be seen differently from garden-variety bigotry – and, maybe, even that it shouldn’t be seen as bigotry at all, because the OP doesn’t see it as a choice that’s being made.
As there’s been little to no support for that POV from other posters, the OP doesn’t seem to be interested in re-engaging in the thread.
I feel like it’s polite to at least come back and say, “you’ve given me a lot to think about.” I suppose it’s possible that someone’s mind is actually changed by persuasive argument!
It’s happened to me, courtesy of posters right here on the SDMB. A thread on circumcision convinced me the practice wasn’t merely a harmless ritual, but a needless mutilation. And the Should US high schools drop sports? thread has changed my mind on the benefit of team sports, thanks to posts by @MandaJo and you and others.
No, more like people who try to walk a straight line through the desert but end up going in circles. It’s all you, even if you don’t know it. It is also correctable, with enough effort (and guidance).
And I guess the reason for this is that, whereas ruling against the action of an individual is a pretty cut and dried thing - one person vs the establishment will just be crushed into submission - ruling against the action of a large number of individuals who all (at least on the subject in question) agree, and who can collectively protest, and who vote, becomes, in practice, a more troublesome, difficult thing to deal with, and sometimes, difficult, troublesome things are kind of swept to the side by whatever administration is current, for someone else to sort out, later.