How did you decide this guy has no artistic ability?
Even French fries involve a surprising range of differences in preparation, as one can see even just in the difference between fast food joints. An individual making this particular dish has a wide variety of ingredients and techniques at their disposal.
And don’t forget about the artful arrangement of the fries when actually served! They can be very deliberately placed or they can be Jackson Pollocked; either way it’s art.
Right. So if he doesn’t turn on the machine until after you put in your order, he can tell you to fuck off. The shirt can be an exact copy of the previous shirt down to the molecule - exact same shirt, exact same message. All that matters is how old it is.
For an exactly comparable situation, I’ve written a book. (Okay, not exactly the same, because my book is a hell of a lot more creative than a cake and took a hell of a lot longer to make.) Under current non-stupid laws my book is considered expression, and is protected by copyright - but each copy of my book is not a separate and unique example of expression. And thus I can’t post a sign saying “I’ll sell this book to everybody but not gay people and blacks and swedes because they suck.”
Except under this ruling I can! Yay! Because my book is printed on demand by amazon! An exact same copy of the book is created each time, but it’s created after the order is placed, so bigotry is legal now! Entirely due to the age of the printed copy, not the content, message, creativity, or speech in it.
Note: This would only apply if the ruling applied to my book, which it doesn’t because I’m not calling my book a wedding cake. Only wedding cakes (non-stale wedding cakes, specifically) are covered by the actual ruling.
I create a t-shirt design. Creating the design in the first place was absolutely a work of creativity, but printing it requires no creative decisions. If you ask for a t-shirt with the design on it, I use my silk-screen printer to put the design on a t-shirt. My machine basically involves putting a t-shirt down, overlaying the design, soaking a roller in ink, and rolling it over the design. I could train a monkey to do it.
I have a printed t-shirt in the case. Three customers, two white and one black, come along to buy it. I serve the first white customer and sell her the one in the case. The black customer asks me to make an identical one. I refuse, because he’s black. The white customer asks me to make an identical one. I print one for her.
Is it your contention that my decision is protected speech?
After I print up a new batch of shirts, a fourth customer comes in and asks to buy the one in the case. He’s Jewish. I refuse to speak to him, and, frustrated, he eventually leaves. Is it your contention that my refusal to speak to him is not protected free speech?
Because the legal principles that underlie this court decision come across as absolute gibberish.
That’s where the “speech” thing comes in.
But, the only speech here appears to be the “speech” where the baker tells the couple that they will not be served.
It’s ludicrous to consider the wedding reception as an event where the numerous components are all the various speeches of those who provided those numerous components.
And again, you didn’t answer my question of where the limits might be.
The question of the limits of this ruling is not an excuse for you to hide behind. It’s a specific issue that the Supreme Court ruling will have to include.
If you read the oral argument for the CO baker case before the SCOTUS you will see this question come up as a serious issue.
My question is not a sidelight - it is part of the main event.
Remember that this is one ruling out of the many that have gone against the bakers at all levels so far.
ALL those other judges rejected this argument.
I’d suggest you reread the rulings of the many other judges.
Yes. Why not?
I showed where in the article it indicated what I said. If you think other wise, then you need to come up with a cite to refute mine.
LHOD also posted the fact finding from the case, which further supports my position. All this information is in this thread already, you just need to read it, rather than asking people to repeat it for you.
If you come across information that says that they did not order a cake based on the cake in the display case, then cite that.
An immutable characteristic is on e that is extremely hard to change
And, while there is controversy as to what immutability means, your flat out delcartion of “you’re wrong” is ignoring many legal precednets that say, “I’m right”.
It seems that I am not sure what gay conversion therapy is (I mean seriously, how do they make you stop being gay?) and you are not sure what sexual orientation fluidity is. Because I can show you several examples of people that have gone from straight to gay and vice versa. I’m not saying everyone has this fluidity but it is not an immutable trait like race.
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You should read up on gay conversion therapy, then, as if you are not aware that there are those who do think that seriously do think that they now how to make someone stop being gay, then you are missing how much you are resembling them, with your claim that sexual orientation is a choice that can be changed, and why that is offensive.
There are legal scholars with far better credentials than yourself that disagree with your claims here.
Which has been provided.
Right, now you are catching up to what is being debated here.
Some lunch counters and businesses changed due to pressure from customers. The rest of the businesses didn’t change until there wee laws and court orders. Your claim that no one passed a law seems to completely forget that a law was in fact passed that prohibits discrimination on protected classes.
It is no more imposition to a public accomodation than imposing on them requiring that they serve people of races or religions that they do not approve of.
If they rent to non-church members, then yes, they need to rent to all non-church members without discrimination.
See, now here is actually a bit of a case of free speech and possibly even artistic expression. Officiating in a wedding is certainly an actual involvement, rather than baking a cake. A pastor is allowed to only marry christian couples, for instance. However, if the pastor does marry pagan or atheist couples, then he cannot discriminate against people for other reasons.
Ah, the slippery slope argument. While I agree that there is a slippery slope involved, I think that non-discrimination is at the top of that slope, and bigotry at the bottom. We fight our way up that slope.
Where does it end? Well hopefully where we treat each other equally without discrimination. Why is that such a horrid thing to contemplate to you?
Why would I be “outraged” if a chef refused to make a dish that he doesn’t make for anyone? OTOH, it would be discrimination if he were to prepare it for a straight couple, but not a gay.
Here’s the common denominator I think.
Does a reasonable person view a club sandwich as a work of art?
If not, then it’s pretty hard to see an artistic endeavor involved.
Does a reasonable person view a custom wedding cake as a work of art?
If so, it’s much easier to see an artistic endeavor involved.
A reasonable person doesn’t ignore the facts of the case under discussion.
Arguments about artisticness here are shit because they’re not what the case was about. It was about speech, and how wedding cakes are speech because they’re wedding cakes. A completely unartisitic, uncreative, and undecorated wedding cake is still protected speech under this ruling because absolutely no lower levels whatsoever were set on the creativity, quality, and dissimilarity-from-a-club-sandwhichness of the cakes in question.
Yes, it’s discrimination. No one has said otherwise. This IS discrimination. The baker was sued for discriminating. But, apparently it is a form of protected discrimination.
Justifying the application of law in this case is a very long way from accepting that this is in any way a desired result.
If you want me to engage with you and discuss this, please find another approach. Calling arguments “shit” really doesn’t motivate me to answer your concerns.
Or the way every other court seems to be deciding on this the question might be: if you are in the business of selling custom cakes and are asked to make a cake of a customer specified size, shape, color, flavor and style of decorative flourishes then in what way are you making expressive and artistic decisions?
Here’s how the judge addressed that.
A wedding cake is not just a cake in a Free Speech analysis. It is an artistic expression by the person making it that is to be used traditionally as a centerpiece in the celebration of a marriage,” Lampe wrote. “There could not be a greater form of expressive conduct. Here, Rodriguez—Del Rios plan to engage in speech. They plan a celebration to declare the validity of their marital union and their enduring love for one another. The State asks this court to compel Miller against her will and religion to allow her artistic expression in celebration of marriage to be co-opted to promote the message desired by same-sex marital partners, and with which Miller disagrees.”
But Lampe wrote that his ruling was tied closely to the fact that Miller was being asked to create a cake for an event.
and later,
The difference here is that the cake in question is not yet baked,” Lampe wrote. “The State is not petitioning the court to order defendants to sell a cake. The State asks this court to compel Miller to use her talents to design and create a cake she has not yet conceived with the knowledge that her work will be displayed in celebration of a marital union her religion forbids. For this court to force such compliance would do violence to the essentials of Free Speech guaranteed under the First Amendment.”
The link is in the OP.
Right. I known thats how he addressed it. It’s goddamn laughable, as I said early in the thread. In fact, pretty sure I asked your opinion on whether there was truly “no greater form of expressive conduct” than baking a wedding cake and your answers were all redirection.
No, I think YOU are misunderstanding the artistic expression argument. I don’t care what some random anonymous poster said on this thread. The argument articulated by the judge in this case does NOT protect manufacturing.
The OP links to an article, dude.
I’m looking for the opinion, dude.
If that’s not the argument you made then let me say it. The stuff you quoted is ambiguous.
Let me help you. Typically, CA Superior Courts do not publish their findings. You’ll have to write the Court for a copy of the ruling or perhaps the lawyers. 
So all these people who seem to be so sure about the fact of the case might be full of shit?
Say it isn’t so.
Really?
Here, give me your hand. Let me walk you through it.
I mean, c’mon here.
It isn’t so.