Because ordering a dress is an artistic expression? No. Totally different animal.
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“The argument is a baker should not be able to refuse to bake a cake for a gay customer, if they would make that exact same cake for a straight customer.”
I don’t think any baker would refuse “to bake a cake.” Few bakers would argue that to bake a generic white cake at the request of a gay couple would violate the baker’s conscience. But most couples ordering a cake for a wedding want writing and decorations on the cake: (“Congratulations, Mark and Kathy!”) and/or wedding-related decorations such as icing bells, roses, swags, and the placement of plastic figurines.
The issue is whether the State can coerce the baker to use his or her artistic expression specifically to facilitate the celebration of a homosexual union, thus violating his or her conscience.
You are not familiar with this case, which makes me think you didn’t read the thread before posting. You’ve made factual errors or else total non sequiturs here and in previous posts.
That’s true. The analogy fails on that point.
However, insofar as the dress shop is a public accommodation, and refuses to accommodate the requests of plus-sized customers for dresses that will fit them, the shop is discriminating against plus-sized customers.
If I post on my Facebook page video documenting the manager of La Gamin women’s clothing store denying my request to accommodate me regarding a dress in my size, (her face pixilated), and I further post the message, “La Gamin dress shop fat shames plus-sized women,” could they prevail in a libel case against me?
You should read the case this specific thread is about.
While I sympathize with your humiliated friend, this is a false analogy. There are American clothing shops that cater to subspecialty clothing sizes. I once walked into a clothing store and was told they couldn’t help me because (unbeknownst to me) it was a shop for plus-sized women, and their sizes started at 14. Had I been a size 5X and walked into a JC Penney, I would not have grounds for a suit because nobody is obligated to carry clothing of unlimited size ranges.
But this is not a case involving sizes. The business in question is a bakery that sells wedding cakes. They do not specialize in cupcakes and sell cupcakes alone. They carry plus-size (i.e., wedding) cakes and a wide variety of other baked goods. Had the couple in question requested a cake the size of Texas, the shop could have said it wasn’t equipped to fulfill that sort of order. Instead, the shop refused to sell what it sold every day to heterosexual couples.
While I sympathize with your humiliated friend, this is a false analogy. There are American clothing shops that cater to subspecialty clothing sizes. I once walked into a clothing store and was told they couldn’t help me because (unbeknownst to me) it was a shop for plus-sized women, and their sizes started at 14. I was not thin-shamed. I was in the wrong shop. Had I been a size 5X and walked into a JC Penney, I would not have grounds for a suit against that store, either, because nobody is obligated to carry clothing of unlimited size ranges.
But this is not a case involving sizes. The business in question is a bakery that sells wedding cakes. They do not specialize in cupcakes and sell cupcakes alone. They carry plus-size (i.e., wedding) cakes and a wide variety of other baked goods. Had the couple in question requested a cake the size of Texas, the shop could have said it wasn’t equipped to fulfill that sort of order. Instead, the shop refused to sell what it sold every day to heterosexual couples.
However, in fulfilling the order of a heterosexual couple for a cake with artistic embellishments customary for a wedding celebration, the baker would not be violating his or her conscience.
The violation of the conscience in participating - by means artistic expression - in that which Sacred Scripture forbids.
It would not violate the conscience of the baker to provide a homosexual couple a generic white layer cake with an attractive, generic decoration.
But not specifically wedding-related designs.
And the State shouldn’t intervene to compel speech by the baker, or to coerce the baker to violate his or her conscience.
So do you think this county court judge’s decision to deny a preliminary injunction will stand the test of time?
First, the couple in question did not ask for anything to be written on the cake. So, it was just a cake.
Second, “sacred scripture” is a weird thing to rest on. If you want I bet I could come up with a variety of things the bible frowns upon that our would be pious baker does not care about (e.g. will she refuse to sell a cake to people with tattoos – Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the Lord..
So how do we assess her conscience when it comes to scripture? Whose interpretation of scripture do we care about in this?
I do not advocate bigotry or homophobia. But when the sad sad story of America’s political decline is written, it will tell of plutocrats stealing Trillions while the Left vented its anger against … cake makers. Those taking the wrong side in this thread are hereby ordered to read Republican Is Not a Synonym for Racist:
And …
I agree with Mr. Mace.
Of course! Liberals are to blame for the failure of conservatives to acknowledge their own policies’ discriminatory effects. If only they’d have shut up about it, conservatives would have acknowledged their own discrimination long ago. It’s just so hard to admit your own culpability when those pesky liberals keep pointing it out first.
All Americans - including people of faith - are aware that Caesar had decreed that sexual orientation is a criterion which Americans (citizens, residents, and visitors) may not lawfully consider when choosing whether or not to provide accommodations or services, and that Caesar has been for some time weighing the legal rights to accommodation of homosexual persons against the legal right of people of faith to the free exercise of their conscience.
People of faith are also aware that Caesar has been inclined to identify as “illegal discrimination” any refusal to use their artistic expression to facilitate the celebration of a homosexual union. However these people of faith distinguish between *just and unjust discrimination *. Any unjust discrimination would violate the law of God, just as surely as would an act facilitating the celebration of any arrangement that violates the law of God, such as the celebration of a homosexual union.
When, however, Caesar chooses to command what God forbids, identifying as illegal discrimination the free exercise of conscience which adheres to God’s law, these people of faith nevertheless remain bound to obey their consciences which have been formed to inform them of God’s commands. The obligation to observe the law of God supersedes, for people of faith, any obligation to observe the law of Caesar. Even when Caesar chooses to outlaw their fulfillment of this obligation.
Well, no one said obeying God’s commands was supposed to be easy.
When the faithful have at least two ways to obey both their imaginary Caesar and their imaginary God–either find a different business, or put anti-gay messages on every cake they sell–I have little patience with the martyr act.
No, not easy.
However, that an allegedly just and democratic Government would penalize people of faith for observing the requirements of their consciences, indicates to people of faith that their Government has overreached in a way that violates the very tenets upon which our country was founded.
For people of faith, this means that the United States occupies less and less the ground of “the land of the free” and more and more that of totalitarianism.
It’s not surprising that the advent of totalitarianism in this country would begin by legislating against the free exercise of conscience. Having eradicated conscience rights in one area, the forces of totalitarianism may extend these prohibitions to other areas, until the legal right to exercise freedom of conscience is at last extinguished in every regard.
This is, indeed, a dangerous precedent.
When my children fuss and whine about some tremendous injury to themselves–say, I make them put dishes in the dishwasher–I sometimes fantasize about my “fifteen minutes in Syria” child-rearing technique. It might provide some helpful perspective.
When people complain about having to sell their products and services equally, without being able to discriminate against people, and call this totalitarianism, I fantasize about something very similar.
What specifically, Euphrosyne, would you say distinguishes your flowery rhetoric of doom from that used by the John Birch Society in response to the Civil Rights Act of 1964?
But what about “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.”
But not to subordinate the law of God to the law of Caesar. For example, the Jewish people rightly opposed and reacted with opposition to the presence of images of Caesar being erected in the temple precincts, which God had forbidden.
The precepts of the divine law always supersede those of man - even of governing authorities who dare to overreach.
That you would compare the legitimate concerns of people of faith regarding the free exercise of their conscience to the behavior your disobedient “children” is outrageous.
The adult population American people are not “children” of the State. Or of you.
Insofar as you - and Caesar - have dared to attempt - by the enaction of civil law - to usurp the lawful place of God as the governor of our consciences, your patronizing attitude, would indicate so colossal an arrogance and a hubris, as to border almost upon sociopathy. An attitude well-suited to totalitarianism, indeed.
As for your invitation to debate your analogy to the John Birch society, I believe further such conversation would be fruitless. Totalitarians cannot be opposed; any opposition would be indicative to you of childish recalcitrance. A shameful attitude toward your fellow ADULT Americans.