The California judge indeed stated that only cakes already baked and on the shelf for sale must be sold to anyone without discriminating. He ruled a baker may refuse to manufacture any cake not already manufactured. There was no exception compelling a baker to manufacture a cake from a previously used design.
You cannot merely claim offense at someone’s religious beliefs or practices as a means to discriminate.* That is tantamount to discrimination based upon religion, which is forbidden. So it would very much depend on actions of the customer as to whether a baker could refuse to produce a cake that the Fred Phelps clan wants to celebrate the death of a soldier since Phelps’ crew considers such as a part of their religious practice.
If the Phelps customer calmly says that they want the grave design and describe what they want to celebrate then the baker would be discriminating on the basis of religion to refuse. If the Phelps customer is threatening and disruptive then there is a neutrally applicable reason to escort them from the premise and deny their patronage. Whether the baker should have the right to refuse anyway despite discrimination is the focus of these legal cases.
See Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah. The City of Hialeah took offense at this Santeria church engaging in animal sacrifice and passed an ordinance forbidding the “unnecessar[y]” killing of “an animal in a public or private ritual or ceremony not for the primary purpose of food consumption”. SCOTUS unanimously ruled the ordinance invalid as it targeted the religion by targeting the religious practice.
That is correct. That is what the judge said. That is one of the main things that some of us are contesting in this thread.
Correct, and pretty much exactly what I said.
Mostly correct. If they want a version that the baker has already designed, the one celebrating the resurrection of jesus, then the baker should make it. If they want a different design, one that does not have angels or rays of sunshine on an empty tomb, if they want the baker to design a new piece of art for them, then it is fairly well upheld that that is artistic expression, and can be rightfully refused.
Not sure what that has to do with anything I’ve said, but that is not carte blanche for religion, either. While animal sacrifice is upheld, they still have to follow sanitation rules and disposal rules and display rules. If their religion told them to slaughter the animals in the street and toss the blood over passerbys in public, that would not be held constitutional, as the govt has an interest in protecting public safety. That they were doing this in their own churches with presumably sanitary practices, the only objection is a moral one, and morality does not trump religion when it comes to constitutional issues.
This gets mentioned in the oral argument before the SCOTUS on the essentially identical baker case from CO.
What’s pointed out by one of the justices is that if its a speech argument, then what is the difference between an “off the shelf” cake and a newly made cake if the cake is the same?
How is one supposed to tell which one has the “ju ju” of speech and which one is just a cake?
What’s the basis for your claim that such a cake “can be rightfully refused.”?
Anything that is made can be considered art, and thus the person making that can be considered an artist.
At the wedding/reception, there could be flowers, invitations, makeup, hair that has been dressed, food, table decorations, etc., etc.
Are all the creators of these pieces somehow making speech at this occasion? How could anyone tell?
It seems clear that the speech is that of the couple being married. They chose all these elements and were the authors of the design of those elements. They specified what they wanted in the way of flowers, hair, makeup, cake, invitations, food, drink, music, clothing (sch as for groomsmen and bride’s maids), etc., etc. There were those who carried out those wishes, but those persons aren’t even identified - because they aren’t the ones speaking at the event.
I’m not k9bfriender, but I believe the notion is that the baker can refuse to make any cake that’s “not on the menu”. It’s unreasonable to expect the baker to do things for you that they won’t do for anybody else. It is reasonable to expect the baker to do things for you that they do do for other people.
So, if the baker has previously made a cake with a grave on it and the logo “We think it’s awesome that you died!” to sell to some christians who have very odd taste, then it’s reasonable to expect them to make that same cake for anyone else who comes calling - presuming the baker’s reasons not to are related to the customer being a member of a protected class.
That a custom cake, with custom art work, is in fact an original piece of art, and you cannot compel someone to create an original piece of art, like I said in the part that you bolded.
You are all over the place here, so I really have no idea what type of point, if any, you are trying to make. I agree that all of those things are following direction or instruction, not creating an original piece of art.
Creating a new work of art, like creating a gravestone to celebrate the death of a soldier, is not the same thing, even if the artist had previously created a cake with an empty tomb to celebrate jesus.
So far, you’re trying to claim that all these people that provided cakes, flowers, makeup, bridesmaid dresses, food, invitations, etc., are taking part in speech at every wedding that has these elements.
And, I see no basis for that claim. The cake and other elements ARE the expression of the couple who specified the cake and other elements. Plus, the baker and other artisans are not even identified.
No, you replied to my post, which was replying to another posters question about whether a baker would be able to refuse making a new and original artwork based on a grave to celebrate a soldier’s death. If you are talking about the OP, that’s a difference subject.
I make absolutely no such claims, and I would recommend you catch up with the thread before continuing to make claims about what others are saying, as you are so far off base, I am not sure if you are even trying to be taken seriously.
I really can’t tell if this is agreement or dissent. The tone says dissent, but the fact that you basically just repeated what he said says agreement.
We’re talking here about the asshole who expressed offensive racist beliefs and was fired for doing so, and how he successfully claimed that because his offensive racist beliefs were religious in nature, he couldn’t be fired for them.
I think that’s a bullshit ruling. If beliefs are offensive absent their religious nature, calling them religious beliefs should not magically protect them from being offensive.
If my supervisor goes to a newspaper and says that he wants “total war” against me because he thinks I’m a member of a “mud race,” I believe his boss ought to fire him, and ought to be able to fire him. If he says he’s a member of an organization with those beliefs, he should similarly be fireable. If he says he holds these beliefs as religious beliefs, that shouldn’t change anything at all.
I just read that entire case. The fucker in question was a minister of this travesty of a “church,” and in the newspaper article, he held up a T-shirt of a racist serial killer, commemorating the murderer for his contribution to the cause of the white race. There were complaints about him from black employees about racist discipline policies.
The judge nonetheless ruled that the complaints weren’t specific enough, and that the guy’s beliefs were protected, and that he’d engaged in no behavior that deserved firing.
Going to the media and praising a racist serial killer isn’t behavior? Bullshit, I say.
The idea that horrific beliefs magically earn immunity because you slap a “religion” label on them is a very stupid idea, and we need to get rid of it.
So, from this I can conclude that you believe the following:
#1. It is ok for an employer to police an employees off duty time, including what they say about non-work related topics. #2. Given that the court found the following:
‘these statements suffer from several evidentiary maladies. First, if offered to show that plaintiff actually engaged in some act pursuant to his beliefs, i.e. treating African-American and white employees unequally, the first statement is hearsay and the second statement is double hearsay. Hearsay statements cannot be considered on motions for summary judgment. Logan v. Caterpillar, Inc., 246 F.3d 912, 925 (7th Cir.2001); Minor v. Ivy Tech State Coll., 174 F.3d 855, 856 (7th Cir.1999). .’
and
‘Further, even if I considered the statements, they are so lacking in specificity that they fail to raise a genuine issue of material fact either as to whether plaintiff committed any acts or whether such acts caused his demotion.’
you believe that hearsay is acceptable and courts should act on it even if the hearsay statements are not incriminating.
#3. If the courts find a religions beliefs odious, the court should decide that the religion isn’t valid.
Is that accurate?
There is no doubt Christopher Lee Peterson is an asshole*. However, people have the right to be assholes, believe assholish beliefs and say assholish things as long as they are in the right forum when they say it. If Peterson said those thing at work, fire his stupid ass. However, he did not say those things at work. Additionally, according to the court, there is no proof that he acted on his beliefs while working.
Slee
*I sorta wish people would stop finding cases where absolute assholes are in the right. I end up defending them while I find their beliefs to be horrid.
Bad premise. If you supervise nonwhite employees, then what you say about what you want to do to nonwhite people is a work-related topic.
Bad premise. The hearsay might not be acceptable to a court, but for an employment decision? Perfectly acceptable. Employers should have much broader leeway in what they consider than the courts should. So the court may not consider hearsay, but if the employer says, “Based on hearsay we concluded that this fucker is a terrible supervisor,” the court shouldn’t overrule the employer’s decision.
I believe that courts shouldn’t be in the business of deciding whether religions are valid–which the law agrees with me on. However, I believe that a belief’s religious nature should provide no protection to the belief, any more than it should provide an opening for attack. You can’t fire someone because they have beliefs that are part of the Muslim religion; but if their belief is that all Americans should be murdered, the fact that it’s part of their Wahabbi sect shouldn’t protect them from the consequences of espousing those beliefs in public.
No, actually, people don’t have the right to say assholish things and not be fired for them. If I speak out tomorrow to disparage my employer, my employer may fire me, even if I do it in a non-work environment. If I speak out tomorrow to say that I want to murder a lot of my co-workers, my employer may similarly fire my ass.
This case carves out an exception: my employer may fire my ass, unless I claim that my desire to murder a lot of my co-workers is part of my religion.
Ha. I’ve said similar. That said, religion is too powerful to attack in that fashion. Furthermore, religious differences are too great a political tool to discard.
These baker cases are just the beginning of the effort of religious groups to excuse themselves from our law.
Does that sound extreme? Let’s remember that Arizona’s legislature passed their SB 1062, which would have been law if their governor had signed it. And, she was under tremendous political pressure to do so.
Here’s a quick glimpse of Arizona’s SB 1062.
It defines "Unreasonable burden to mean that “a person is prevented from using the person’s property in a manner that the person finds satisfactory to fulfill the person’s religious mission.”
It defines “Exercise of religion” to mean the PRACTICE OR OBSERVANCE OF RELIGION, INCLUDING THE ability to act or refusal to act in a manner substantially motivated by a religious belief, whether or not the exercise is compulsory or central to a larger system of religious belief.
In other words, my religion can be any damn thing I want it to be and it still trumps state law except under certain conditions that it is up to the state to prove actually exist.
(Sorry for the caps - that came from copying the text from the bill. Bolding is mine.)
ACLU analysis:
In the SCOTUS case of Employment Division v. Smith (1990) the ruling was that a person may not defy neutral laws of general applicability, such as public accommodation laws, as an expression of religious belief.
In that decision, Justice Scalia wrote: “To permit this, would make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself.”
These cake cases are about the supremacy of religion.
Public accommodation law and equality for LGBTQ, are barely the beginning of where this is going.
My opinion is as long as you (general “you”) keep your shitty opinions to yourself and do your job (which includes working well with your fellow employees) then fine. No problem.
Once you make your shitty opinions public though then the employer may have a cause to fire you.
So if you post some racial hatred on your Facebook page or you host a neo-Nazi podcast or participate on one and so on then as an employer I may have good cause to fire you. Particularly if you work with the sort of people you claim to hate.
No it does not matter if you come to work and are all smiles. If your co-workers know you go home and plot ways to kill them and their families then it will affect the work environment.
Or go to a house of worship where they read from a book that talks about stoning and killing people. What place in modern society is there for that violence? Now, good luck firing that critical mass of people.