Just like Subway.
No, that’s not the case. No one would argue that a “sincerely held belief” that God told a person to murder other people gives that person a get-out-of-jail-free card if he commits murder. Just because the court says “you don’t have to justify your belief by quoting chapter and verse” it also says “just because you sincerely believe something, doesn’t guarantee that it will be legal”. If the SCOTUS were to declare gays to be a suspect class, then no amount of religious belief would allow any a public accommodation merchant to refuse service to gay people.
This is GQ, not GD, so what I want is irrelevant. I’m just citing what the court has said.
And that’s why we have judges. A simple assembly of a collection of standard pieces, like a subway sandwich, is not art - no mater what they call the employees. (Any more than the Wal-Mart greeter is an “associate” of the CEO.)
However, when each cake is an original work, decorated with a level of skill and originality by the “artist”, then perhaps to some extent it does rise to the level of art. If you really want to see, google images of Colorado masterpiece (!!) cake shop. There are a number of pictures of some pretty original and creative cakes with the “artist” in question. There’s a lot more creativity at work than with deciding how to arrange Monterey jack cheese on a bun.
And for the snide comment about “commit murder based on religious belief”. The baker argued that his work, as at, was subject to first amendment guarantees. Compelling him to produce for a gay couple, he argued, was forcing him to express his artwork in a way he did not want to based on religious beliefs. Freedom of speech is the key issue here. A person cannot claim religion allows him to murder, any more than they can claim religion allows him to refuse to allow blacks or gays to stay at his hotel. But the argument is the law cannot compel him to “say” (or in this case to decorate) when it was against his beliefs.
The key, as I keep posting, is how much this is a commodity business vs. how much it is an artist producing artwork. I think there are a number of criteria to judge- things like how unique the result, how much the cost of hiring this person (presumably any serious payment above the cost of materials indicates the value customers place on his artistic kill), whether there are off-the-shelf or custom creations, etc.
And after all this, I can’t believe I have to defend someone who doesn’t believe in basic human dignity. I expect, give it a few years and a few more interesting cases and we will wonder why anyone thought they could win when claiming they didn’t have to server gay people.
I’ve worked fairly extensively in pastries, and no, it’s not really any more creative than culinary. The couple in question were ordering out of a catalog, not asking the baker to create a new and unique design.
If you don’t think that a subway employee makes enough money to be considered an artist, how about a 3 star chef? When I make a nightly feature, that is a unique work of art. Can I withhold it from people that I do not feel
Well, they can make that claim. How well it holds up in court is a different matter.
The result in this case would not have been unique, as they were ordering from a catalog. Material cost in most restaurants is between 20-30%. What percentage does it need to be in order for it to be considered art? Many people make changes to the menu description of the food that they order, and some even order “off menu” making up their own dish.
We can hope, but the direction that things are going, it seems as though “sincerely held beliefs” will win out over public accommodation laws.
Many of the most highfalutin’ chefs will not alter their recipes to the customers’ wishes. And the Masterpiece baker did not refuse to sell off-the-shelf items to the couple.
Furthermore, I think many people are failing to note that of the majority of the Court who made gay marriage the law of the land, a majority of that majority sided with this baker. Yet they are not allowing people like that Alabama county clerk to refuse to give marriage licenses to gay couples based on a sincere religious objection. That should tip you off to how different a scenario this is.
What percentage of Christians do you believe are fake by this standard? 99.999%, or 100%? I have certainly never met or even heard of one who would not be considered fake under this strict scrutiny. (Or do they get to be “real” as long as the verses they pick and choose from are the ones you consider nicest? I ask as someone who is personally a hardcore atheist, FWIW.)
So, some do, what’s your point?
And yes, the masterpiece baker didn’t refuse to sell an off the shelf cake, as no one buys a wedding cake off the shelf. What he refused to do was to make a cake that they ordered according to the catalog.
Right, as has been discussed, they ruled very narrowly that it was not protecting his right to refuse, only that they did not feel that the lower court gave him proper due process.
Religion is kinda weird that way. People virtue signal by saying that they are a christian, as if that stands for something, but then they decline to live up to any of the standards that christianity asks of them. They choose the parts of the bible that make them feel good and lets them justify their failings, and reject the parts that they find hard to follow.
I am sure that they find their beliefs to be sincere, but they are also self serving.
Pretty much. They’re all human. But it’s only a problem with the judgmental, hateful, cherry-picking type who abound in conservative politics, and who Christ would likely not recognize as His followers. There are in fact a very great many Christians who really do try to live the way Christ said to, with all that staying humble and loving each other and helping the poor stuff. They just don’t get in the news very much.
My sense is that the actual Jesus would disapprove strongly of the economic policies of the GOP, but would in fact also not abide the sexual politics of Democrats. He didn’t even believe in divorce!
Because Republicans/conservatives don’t get divorces?
The most conservative Christians I know believe in “Biblical marriage”: no divorce unless there is some extreme situation like ongoing violence that doesn’t respond to therapy. And of course Catholicism doesn’t recognize divorce either, although they are getting promiscuous with the annulments these days.
I definitely feel confident Jesus would be more comfortable with the conservative position on homosexuality, trangenderism, etc. But again, on economics: the denouncement of “hypocrites” in the Beatitudes sounds just like a lot of the Christian Right today.
I don’t care about who you know, you suggested divorce is the purview of Democrats. Are you suggesting Republicans don’t divorce? Or were you stuffing straw into some jeans and a battered flannel shirt?
This I agree with, after all, he certainly had a lot to say about it. Er, I mean, he was definitely all about judging and persecuting the carnal sinners. Er…no, wait–he hung out and defended the carnal sinners, but kicked ass on the economic ones. Or maybe I’m misremembering–it was a couple thousand years ago.
Now this I totally agree with. Because I’m not seeing anything about hypocrites in the beautitudes, and a whole lot of praise for those who endure various forms of deprivation–confirming “a lot of the Christian Right today” is fully unaware of the beautitudes, word or even spirit.
Are we talking about historical Jesus magically transported in time from his place on the cross to today, really old Jesus that has lived for 2,000 years, reincarnated Jesus who died 2,000 years ago but who has come back to today, or a brand new Jesus born into today’s world where there never was a Jesus and who is shaped by today’s mores? I think each of those actual Jesuses would probably have very different views.
If that was my game, why would I have said what I did about the Beatitudes? :dubious: I’m just trying to call it as I see it. Since I’m not a Christian, it’s not relevant to my own life what Jesus would or wouldn’t like; but it’s a passably interesting historical/philosophical question to chew on.
I’ve got some equally valuable theories about my imagined Benjamin Franklin’s potential thoughts on colored marshmallows.
Jesus was a communist - Sell all you have, give the money to the poor and follow me. “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” Not to mention trashing the merchants in the temple forecourt. So almost everyone who claims to be Christian is cherry-picking to avoid the full doctrine… but I digress.
Everything I have read said the cake guy made artistic custom cakes, each one a one-off work; not “check the catalog, pick cake A, B, or C and icing colour and type of marzipan flowers.” In fact they didn’t even get that far, when they mentioned who the cake was for he told them he couldn’t do it. And again, if you google images you will se several of him working on a few cakes and they are not the cliché layer cake with icing draperies and generic icing roses. I haven’t seen anything other than this discussion that suggests he was a “pick one form the catalog” service.
There’s a whole business of creating special and custom wedding cakes, even a reality show about fancy cakes on TV. They are far more creative and unique than traditional bakery catalogs. If this is the case for him, (And if he was good enough to charge a serious premium for his talent) the guy WAS an artist. I might consider it like the artist who illustrates books - they pick an choose commissions, accept or reject, and do what they think works for them.
There’s a whole spectrum - on one side is lily-white with artists who pick an choose what they work on and what it says based on their own creative motivations and inspired by the customers they choose, and at the other extreme is pitch-black mindless bigots running a commodity business. The job of a judge is to decide whereabouts in the grey area the line falls.
Like I said, I can’t believe I defend this idiot (honestly I don’t, I just see the Supremes’ point. they didn’t even get into this issue, they just said the Colorado commission didn’t give decent deference to his sincere beliefs)
Well said. And shame on anyone who said “catalog” if there was no factual basis behind that claim.
A more interesting tack for determining discrimination too, would be “how often do you tell straight couples that you can’t d their commission because it’s not artistic enough?” Sorry, we don’t do bland traditional wedding cakes here… If the business is first-come first-serve with no discrimination as to what was wanted in a cake, then it is discrimination to refuse the commission. IMHO, although I’m not a Supreme Court judge, the nitpick is - you are not refusing a commission because of the cake design requested, but because of the customer who is asking. It is completely different than refusing, say, to do a Halloween cake because that celebrates the devil’s night… In that case, it’s the content of the cake, even if a sweet old lady is asking and she doesn’t have green skin.
Though I feel no shame, no matter what you wish upon others, I will admit that I was conflating this case with the other case.
In this case, there was no discussion of the cake at all, as they were denied service at the outset when the baker found out that they were gay. So, it was not a custom creation that they were ordering either, as the baker never found out what it was that they wanted.
I think I will continue to reserve my shame for bigots and racists. You can heap shame upon those who make a mistake on a messagebaord, if that is where you think it is better directed.
It’s a decent argument, but even a straight couple with an unimaginative commission will get the “Masterpiece” flourishes in the final product. The real issue, I think, is whether an artist can be forced to accept a commission to put a happy spin on what the artist does not consider a happy occasion. (I assume a gay couple would not accept a forlorn lamentation of a cake.)
I think a better example would be child marriage, legal in many states. In Tennessee in 2001, three 10 year old girls married men aged 24, 25, and 31: More than 200,000 children married in US over the last 15 years | The Independent | The Independent I can easily imagine a baker being appalled by such a wedding and refusing to make a cake for it, and the courts affirming their right to refuse based on a conscientious objection, despite it being a legal marriage.
But that is the essence of anti-discrimination law. You can refuse to serve someone or make them a cake because you don’t like Harvard grads, or people with face tattoos, or it’s the guy who won’t keep his dog from going on your lawn. You cannot refuse to serve someone because you don’t approve of mixed-race marriages, or Catholic marriages, or (where covered by law) gay marriages.
The law would not force someone to serve or make cakes in that case. What would happen is you pay the fine or whatever penalties, and after a barrage of such cases, maybe decide that this profession is not for you. The reality of the wedding service business today is that some of the couples may not be what some people approve of.
IIRC, until God corrected himself in the 1960’s, he told the Mormons that black people were not the same and not to be part of his church. Still, if a religion today held discriminatory views on race would we tolerate it? Should we? A really good example is the more extreme Jewish (and Muslim?) types where the men do not want to be served by a woman or sit next to one. To what extent should this be accommodated? (One is tempted to make a vice-president joke here but it is GQ)