What about this cake and this baker make it into art? The couple doesn’t have anything to do with the cake, so that’s not part of the art.
Is the cake unique? Does it have features on it that the baker creatively designed specifically for this cake? If not, then why is this cake art, but cupcakes are not?
Why is this baker, or baking in general, maybe, unique? Do bakers posses some creativity that no one else does?
I am not sure that anyone has said that only cakes can be art, but you have denied everything else as art that has been offered as an example. You say that a subway sandwich cannot be art, but do not say how that unique creation that is crafted according to custom specifications from the customer is less artistic and creative from a baker following a recipe and directions.
Art is, quite literally, anything that is called art.
Let’s look at what might happen. Another baker on the other side of town gets a request, from another LGBT couple, requesting 2 wedding cookies, each sculptured as a caricature of one of the wedding partners. Probably this is clearly an artistic endeavor by the baker.
If the cookies are nothing more than a standard recipe, round, undecorated peanut butter cookies, baked per the instructions on the box, then maybe not.
You know how to know for sure? Right, wait for it to happen, then read the ruling.
That’s the worst way ever to run a country. Judges need to issue rulings that establish principles, not just say, “I rolled my secret judge Boggle dice and got A R T, so this one’s art, stay tuned next time!”
If there’s no clear rationale that allows the judge to call this one speech but not that one, what’s the point?
And what if the cookies are made according to her own recipe, and decorated according to her instructions, even using the custom cookie cutters she had specially made to cut cookies out in the shapes of people, exactly as she does for every other couple coming in getting wedding cookies?
Then of course, read the appeal, the overturn, and so on and so forth.
Then the baker’s attorney would argue it applied, and the couple’s attorney would argue that there was no artistic endeavor involved therefore it did not apply.
I get that, same as I would argue it would apply, and you would argue that it doesn’t.
Man, it seems so much work to hate people. Did they realize that when they signed up to be bigots?
“You can treat everyone equally and fairly, but you will have to treat everyone that way, even the people that you don’t really like.” or “You can discriminate against anyone you want to, but in order to do so, you need to hire a lawyer to argue that your form of discrimination was an artistic expression.”
Seems if people actually realized that was their choice, they’d realize they’d rather deal with people of ethnicities, religions, genders, and even sexual orientations that they disapprove of than to deal with lawyers.
I don’t believe that the ruling says that creativity or uniqueness have anything to do with anything. All arguments from the position that the first amendment speech comes from creativity strike me as goalpost movement and invalid argument.
It’s my understanding that the judge’s “argument” was that the weddingness of it all imparts sacredness which, by unexplained methods, makes wedding cakes the most speechy things ever - but creativity isn’t part of that process. It literally has nothing to do with the case and any arguments made based on creativity can be mocked and dismissed summarily.
So if “wedding cookes” are “sacred” like wedding cakes are (which is impossible to determine because the judge’s ruling relies on ‘logic’ with no relation to reality) then they too would be considered first amendment speech, even if they are cranked out by exactly the same machine that cranks out all their non-wedding cookies that may or may not also be sacred speech depending on how gay the customer is.
There is only one thing that reliably stops these mass-produced cookies from being too sacred to sell to gay people, according to this dipshit judge: being put in a display case. Because, of course, display cases are magic!
If you allow the state to chip away at anyone’s Constitutional rights, you’re allowing the state to chip away at yours. To that extent, this case was a victory for all, because the Constitution was protected, but also it was a loss to all, because an ugly side of America is free to continue being as they are.
Thing is forcing people who run a business to treat all customers the same is just society at work and not an infringement on the person.
If the person wants to be a racist or bigot they are still free to be a racist or bigot. Just not in their business. When they go home or to the bar they are free to be themselves.
If they are so racist/bigoted that they just cannot abide selling a cake to someone they disagree with then they probably should not go into a cake selling business.
I have absolutely no problem with the state chipping away my “right” to have a public buses at which I discriminate against people for being a member of a protected class. The only problem I have with such laws, in fact, is that I don’t think that they cover enough people with protected classes.
Same as when the state chips away at my right to commit murder, I don’t really have a problem with that either.
To a non-believer like me, this is gobbledygook. I’m sure it means something to you, but to me it’s not possible to distinguish it from other claims that their religion genuinely forbids baking cakes for interracial couples. If I can’t tell the difference, how is a secular government supposed to tell the difference?
Those classes of persons to which the State wishes to attach a special attentiveness to the protection of their civil rights, would, indeed, enjoy special protections under the law (people of various races, ages, marital status, sexual orientation, etc.). Most persons of religious faith would agree that, in theory, and in general, such protections are legitimate up to a point that their observance wouldn’t require persons of faith to violate their consciences.
So there’s a balance here: the rights of the business owner vs. the rights of the various couples who enjoy government-protected status.
An analogy might be the Constitutional rights of protesters peaceably to assemble vs. the rights of victims facing illness, injury, or facing imminent threats to life and limb or potential loss of their homes, or businesses who have a right to timely assistance from the public authorities commissioned to address these emergencies. (The analogy isn’t perfect; it fails insofar as victims of emergencies aren’t a protected class. But I think most reasonable people can get the idea.)
How this plays out: A friend who is an anarchist explained to me that his band of anarchists feel that shutting down traffic is an important means of protest for them, and they are committed to doing so. Otherwise, he says, they won’t get the attention and the media coverage they need to get their message out there.
He claims that when the police, with horseback mounted officers, and officers in riot gear force the protesters off the roadway and onto the sidewalk or onto grassy areas, that the police are (and thus the State is) denying the anarchists their Constitutional right peaceably to assemble.
But victims in need of police assistance, or firetrucks or ambulances also have a right to timely assistance from the public authorities commissioned to address these emergencies. Police cars responding to emergency calls, firetrucks, ambulance need to be able to get through. When protesters are blocking the main roadways in and out of an area, police and other emergency vehicles are impeded from going where they need to go quickly and safely.
So the State must balance the Constitutional right to free assembly of the protesters against the rights of those in need of timely emergency assistance.
The answer, the State has decided, is to permit peaceable assembly almost anywhere, but not in locations that would jeopardize the safety of any local resident(s).
These restrictions make the anarchists very angry, and they continue to insist that their Constitutional rights are being violated by the rules against blocking certain public roadways during protests.
The State also has had to balance the right of free speech and assembly on public sidewalks by protesters at abortion clinics against the civil right of women to obtain abortions without being physically blocked and without undergoing a gauntlet of disapproving displays and speech. In many states, “bubble zones” have been created on the public sidewalks nearest the entrances to the clinic, which protesters may not enter. Thus by increasing the distance of the protesters from the clinic entrances the women entering don’t have to experience blocked entrances or protesters getting right in their faces.
Some abortion protesters have been angered by the “bubble zone” restriction, and have claimed that this law violates their constitutional right freely to assemble on public spaces, and their rights to free expression. The State counters that their right to assemble and to express their protest has not been violated, but has had limits placed around it. To these limits these protesters have sometimes very strenuously objected.
In the case of businesses claiming a religious exemption for the provision of certain special order services to certain couples vs. the civil right of persons of all classes not to experience discrimination because of their class or status, many people of traditional faith believe that the State can and should develop a few simple tests by which to balance these competing claims. One test for claims of *religious *exemption from providing certain services to certain couples (interracial couples; LG couples, or other couples) would be for the State to discover whether there are specific verses in the relevant Sacred text that expressly forbid a particular way of relating (sexually) to one another. Or whether there are verses specifically, expressly forbidding certain people marrying one another.
The relevant Sacred texts would be the Old and New Testament in the case of Christians; the Koran in the case of Muslims; the Torah in the case of Jews, and whatever additional sacred texts that the religious body categorically include as authoritative.
I don’t want to dive into an exploration of the relevant Christian precepts contained in the texts. That the precepts are expressly and indisputably present isn’t much denied; whether they remain in force in modern times is a matter of intense debate. If you google the question, you’ll find millions of results; the first ones will give several of the relevant verses, and some will discount these verses using other verses, exegesis (a study of the text beyond its meaning on the face), or both.
I would argue that if the State, having identified the relevant texts, should then attempt to establish whether a specific, expressly stated, relevant precept set forth in Sacred Scripture is no longer in force, and on that basis, deny the claim, then that would be an instance of the State establishing a religion. This the State may not do.
If the State, however, having identified the relevant texts, decides that the requirement for the Scripture test has been simply met in the case of a claimant for a religious exemption, then I believe that the State will have acted properly, justly, and well within Constitutional limits.
But this is a terrible and unfair idea. What about non-Abrahamic religions, who don’t emphasize their books as much? What about neopagans, Wiccans, animists, who don’t have a sacred book at all? And what about atheists who nonetheless have a strong conscience–is the fact that I can’t point to a supernatural source for my conscience going to disqualify my conscience from government recognition?
And even if we had this test, you’d be out of luck, as no translation of the Bible has “verses specifically, expressly forbidding” baking a wedding cake for a gay couple. (In fact, I’m unaware of any Biblical verse that is “specifically, expressly forbidding” gay marriage–but given that nobody is being compelled to enter into a gay marriage, that’s a tangent).
This test not only shouldn’t be the main determinant: it has no role whatsoever in determining governmental relationship to religion.
There needn’t to be a test concerning “verses specifically, expressly forbidding baking a wedding cake for a gay couple.”
Because no one is refusing “to bake the cake.”
The conscience objections do not concern whether “to bake a cake.”
To produce a bare, unfrosted, undecorated cake would probably represent no difficulty to the consciences of Christian baker.
But a bare, unfrosted cake would not satisfy the requirements of any couple ordering a wedding cake. There must be the artistic expression, as well: the icing and decorating of the cake.
The question is whether the State can compel a business owner to take a special order to provide artistic expression for the celebration of a union of two men or two women - which union is forbidden according to Judaeo-Christian Scripture - on the basis of equal protection for a particular class of persons (i.e., gay couples.)
And because by precept, Christians are to offer everything they say and do in the Name of God, and because Christians cannot offer to God an act that facilitates the celebration of that which God forbids, the Christian who claims that such a requirement by the state would force him to violate his conscience would meet at least one test, that is, the one I specified.
That I have proposed one possible test doesn’t rule out that alternative, additional tests may be developed and applied to accommodate the conscience requirements of persons of other faiths, or of no faith at all.
This is a twiddlingly ridiculous objection. Obviously when I talk about baking a wedding cake, I’m talking about the icing and decorating of the cake. Don’t be absurd.
Instead, consider this: for whatever pedantic hairsplitting definition you’d like to give for what the happy couple is asking the baker to do, there are no Bible “verses specifically, expressly forbidding” that behavior.
You’ve tried to duck and weave around what you said by going back to the “precept” business–but what you’ve not done is to show the verses that specifically, expressly forbid" baking that cake.
If you’re talking about the legalities of things, Left Hand, then you’re getting into “it all depends on what your definition of is, is” territory.
If you believe that my discussion around the legalities of these matters is absurd, then perhaps a discussion around the legalities of these matters is not for you.
On the contrary, it’s clear that Christians are bound by precept found in the Sacred and expressly set forth therein that we are to offer all that we say and do to God’s holy name. And we cannot offer to God that which God forbids. To do so would be contrary to reason.
Sexual relations between men or between women are also expressly forbidden in numerous passages of sacred Scripture, and therefore by extension, is marriage of two men or of two women forbidden.
Therefore, since the persons of faith cannot legitimately offer to God the artistic expression present in decorating a wedding cake for the celebration of the union of two men or of two women, the State cannot compel this artistic expression.
You’re right. It is a ludicrous idea to buy the one that is ACTUALLY in the display case. The cake would go bad before the wedding.
But what do you say to the notion that the article says that the opinion seems to be saying that you are entitled to a cake that is EXACTLY LIKE THE ONE in the display case?
On the face of it (and based on googling of biblical restrictions on marriage), this standard would appear to allow bakers to refuse service to intermarriages between Christians (or Jews) and idol-worshipers/unbelievers, to marriages involving women who do not intend to submit to their husbands, and to marriages between believers and the descendants of Moabites.
That does not seem reasonable to me.
Baking and frosting a cake is not a religious act by any definition that I can see. Wedding cakes exist as a cultural construct, not a religious one – a couple can get married with or without a cake.
That doesn’t mean that I think bakers should be forced to submit to any act – rather, I think they must treat every respectful and law-abiding customer the same. If they would bake and frost a “standard” wedding cake for couple A, they must do so for couple B. If they would bake and frost a cake that said “Pat and Leslie” for couple A, they must do so for couple B. They can feel free to refuse to include imagery and artistry they find offensive, or ugly, or just prefer not to include, for all cakes and all customers, IMO.
I see no way to determine whether your religious beliefs are more or less genuine than a baker who insists her religion bars her from making cakes (or a clerk from issuing wedding certificates, or florist from delivering flowers) for interracial couples. If businesses are allowed to refuse service based on sexual orientation, then what would stop the possible return of “sundown towns”, except for gay couples, such that gay travelers could find themselves in a place in which they were unable to safely get a hotel room, a meal, automotive service, etc., just like so many black travelers were unable to safely get service from hundreds of places in America in much of the 20th century?