Not true, because there is no way for this to abrogate anyone’s religious freedom. The baker’s religion remains as the baker prefers it when he makes such a cake. What he’s requesting is the “freedom” to dictate the religion of cake-eaters he’s never met. He doesn’t need or have or deserve the right to dictate.
However, all right, taking the bait: Yes, your neighbour’s existence handily outweighs your religious rights, every day and twice on Sundays.
(and many times I have “put my money where my mouth is” and actually been a full participant in religious ceremonies I don’t agree with.)
If you are going to make up answers to your so-called questions and assign them to me why do you even bother asking?
In case you want a real answer instead of just a chance to editorialize and slay strawmen here you go.
I’m sure I can find many more cites including the Federalist Papers. I doubt these cites will do any good…
We could even have a Constitutional Convention and write anything really. If the principle of power delegated from axiomatically sovereign people to a charter is still contentious that ought to remove any doubt.
I want to ask something: can refusing to do business with someone or something be held discriminatory? What if it was a Nazi who wanted an Auschwitz theme?
I’m betting this might be a ploy to put the dude out of business. Or am I becoming too cynical?
IF what he says is true, and he’s never made this kind of cake before, I imagine he’d probably be in the right. I believe he’s said he doesn’t make Halloween cakes, because he’s one of those uber-fundies who thinks Halloween is sinful. :rolleyes:
(Maybe another test case could go in and ask him to make a cake for Solstice or whatever Wiccans call Halloween?)
Something similiar happened a few years ago – a bakery refused to do a birthday cake for a kid whose parents named him Adolf Hitler. (I don’t believe there was a lawsuit though, just that it was in the news)
If you only view it in isolation and only about whether or not that person gets a cake made then yeah. No one really cares.
If you see it as a step forward or backwards on the justice ladder then it is a big deal. For instance if you viewed the anti-miscegenation case Loving v. Virginia as merely about whether Mildred and Richard could get married you might be kinda “meh” about it too but at stake is a much larger question that affects the whole country. Same idea here.
In the U.S., anti-discrimination laws apply only to protected classes. Political affiliation is not protected, so you can discriminate against Nazis all you want. Notably, neither sexual orientation nor gender identity are explicitly protected under Federal law (although “Sex” can be interpreted to include them), but they are unambiguously protected in Colorado and some other states.
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/colorado-employment-discrimination-31680.html
See also:
And, on the type of business that is bound by anti-discrimination law:
Whatever your feelings are on the whole cake thing, I don’t think comparison here fits. Loving vs. Virginia involved the government, this is a private business. (No, private businesses aren’t allowed to discriminate either, but they have a bit more leeway than public ones)
And it’s also about a custom made item, so it’s more of a grey area.
Yes. Is the baker a jerk? Yes he’s a jerk. But we can’t force him to do the right thing, he has his protections just like you and I do.
You’ve made several statements about the Supreme Court ruling that suggest that you do not understand what the reasoning behind the Supreme Court ruling was, so asking you about your understanding of the Supreme Court ruling is not only not “diversionary”, it’s entirely on point.
Your response, however, *is *diversionary.
It would be interesting to see the results if he were to be inundated with business now. All of which he turns down. That is, twenty consults a day taking thirty minutes apiece, each eventually turning out to be a cake he refuses to make.
Better still, we can keep them from being business people in the public sector, since they obviously don’t want to serve the public, only people they deem worthy. Fuck them.
removed by author
Not ultimately.
The tantrums are because liberals believe Justices come in two flavors -
[ul][li]Moderates, and[/ul][/li][ul][li]Homophobic anti-woman extremists[/ul]Garland was, by liberal standards, a moderate, which means that by conservative standards, he was a liberal. Obama picked someone who he thought was reliably liberal enough to be liberal on the Court, meaning would vote against any change to Roe v. Wade and SSM, but might still slide past the Senate. He, along with everyone else, figured Hillary would win the election and if the Senate flipped, Hillary could re-nominate Garland, or someone even more liberal. The GOP gambled that they would retain the Senate, which they did, and that the next nominee would be at least as moderate as Garland, or perhaps even more so. Which is how it worked out, because Trump won. So the gamble paid off big-time, and thus the Dems do not get any “moderates” nominated - they get what they characterize as anti-woman/homophobic/transphobic/neo-fascist extremist crooks, by which they mean “not liberal”. [/li]
I didn’t quite get the rest of your post. You kept mentioning Gorsuch - did you mean Garland?
Regards,
Shodan
And the government forced you to do so? Because that’s what we’re talking about.
Regards,
Shodan
The fact that this specific baker won’t bake a cake for gay or trans people isn’t really the issue here. LGBT people have pretty extensive social knowledge and in-group lore about how so-and-so place is LGBT friendly or how their friend got harassed in the bathroom, or a waiter made fun of two girls for being a couple. We’re not exactly in the business of shopping from vendors who hate us, even when it’s just a sitdown restaurant or something that doesn’t provide any service even tangentially related to LGBT issues.
This takes place in the Denver area, this guy almost certainly had a rep in the community before and was targeted for the lawsuit, and any of the candidates could’ve gone to a dozen other bakeries for a cake.
The principle of this is more to protect gay or trans people stuck in smaller, more rural, spread out, or fiercely conservative areas. It’s to prevent people from being denied services or humiliated in places where you can’t just easily go down the street and find Rainbow Bakery, run by everyone’s favorite baker twinks and a dykes. People stuck in Nowhere, Texas or who don’t have access to a bunch of queer friends who have a network that can vet places before they ask for queer-adjacent services.
Or this, essentially. While I would never suggest we’re in anywhere near as dire a situation as Jim Crow POC were, it’s actually striking how much a similar “guide” very much exists even in the most diehard blue corners of Oregon, albeit in spoken word. Sure, it’s not as brazen as people putting “No Fags” signs outside their restaurants or whatever, but the LGBT community very much has lore around avoiding places where we may be either given the very subtle runaround, bathroom policed (for butch lesbians and trans people), or denied certain kinds of service linked with LGBT culture despite not being substantially different from other services (e.g. finding people who will cut LGBT peoples’ hair in queer styles or as the correct gender as a newly transitioning person can be difficult).
[quote=“Shodan, post:94, topic:819732”]
Not ultimately.
The tantrums are because liberals believe Justices come in two flavors -
[ul][li]Moderates, and[/ul][/li][ul][li]Homophobic anti-woman extremists[/ul][/li][/quote]
Whereas you appear to believe liberals come in one flavor: straw-filled.
You seem to have accidentally omitted the part where Orrin Hatch said on multiple occasions that he and his fellow Republicans would absolutely approve Merrick Garland (a judge he had supported since the 1990s) if only Obama would nominate him for the Supreme Court, and that Hatch himself would work to get Garland approved… right up to the moment Garland was nominated by Obama, at which point Hatch and the other Republicans vowed to block him from the Supreme Court. So did Hatch suddenly discover Garland’s deeply hidden liberal bent after years of supporting him as a staunch conservative, or have we always been at war with Eastasia?
Gyrate:
I guess it went over his head.
I think the conservatives might have some problems comprehending this argument, as it’s based on caring about someone other than one’s self.
Is that your cultural touchstone? 1960s? And ideological liberals wonder why people look at them so quizzically.
The idea that someone would hold a gun to someone’s head and make them produce a cake they like is beyond reprehensible. Use this test and come back to me. Or don’t.
Yes you are so caring for human lives that you would physically force someone living his to do what you want. What is life to you? Doing what is socially acceptable 100% of the time. Forcing others to do so?
So do you prefer the stockade for bigots? Stoning? How will you make him conform?
Do you believe government owns your body? If so it makes sense when you deny the freedom to do what you want with your body. If my body wants to open a bakery, fine. If my body does not want to make a certain cake, you commandeer the body in service of the state and its clients.
You upped the ante on the crazy, I’m glad you’ve calmed down a bit, I was a bit worried.