That strikes me as backward. This ruling, it seems to me, is saying you don’t have to promote ideologies you don’t agree with. If someone wants a communist cake and you’re anti-communist, you tell them to go find a baker who either likes communism or at least doesn’t feel so strongly about it as you do. If someone wants a cake that celebrates the Bible verses that denounce homosexuality, and you’ve got a rainbow pride sticker on your window, you can tell them to go hang. And if you believe homosexuality is morally wrong (or just that gay marriage is), you can tell a gay couple you’ll sell them any generic product they like, but not a specially commissioned one whose sole function is to celebrate the thing you consider a moral “abomination”.
If I were the baker, I’d not want to create a cake celebrating the child marriages I described upthread, or a genital mutilation (including routine circumcision of a baby boy, as at a bris), or one of those “promise ring” ceremonies evangelical Christian fathers do with their daughters. Those are just off the top of my head; I’m sure I could think of more over time. If the Court is going to rule that bakers do have to create custom works of art celebrating some of these things, they need to require they celebrate all of them, as long as they are legal. And that strikes me as a tougher pill for people to swallow, in the end, than just letting them refuse as the case may be.
The only other avenue I can imagine is for the courts (meaning the state in the sense of the government) deciding that among those ideologies and practices that are legal, some are good and some are only tolerated—and that bakers can be forced to create cakes to celebrate the good ones but not the only tolerated ones. That strikes me as deeply antithetical to the First Amendment, and to the kind of notions of free speech similarly advanced by great thinkers such as John Stuart Mill. And there is specific Supreme Court precedent on this point, probably from many decisions but certainly very eloquently from Justice Robert Jackson’s majority opinion in W. Virginia v. Barnette (1943):
“If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”
As I posted above, I’m a store cashier and we always have to keep a man about who can work the register to accommodate the Jewish, Muslim and Christian men who ask for a male cashier. Apparently it’s legal, but once again, I don’t have to like it.
No, the ruling was excruciatingly narrow. It just said that the Commission, in making its decision, was open hostile towards religion. Kennedy explicitly said that had that not been the case, he might have ruled differently. The baker won this case, but not because the legislation was deemed bad. Only the way the Commission implemented it.
I would certainly guess it’s legal for your employer to make this accommodation, but the question in my mind is whether the store is required to make this accommodation for people. I would expect the answer to be no. I wouldn’t think a business owner would have to have a male cashier available at all times just to serve a specific segment of the market who desire it. The fact that you owner/manager makes the effort seems to be a business and profit decision.
And the fact that you italicized *Christian *leads me to believe that you might think certain Jews and Muslims have a valid reason to request a male cashier but certain Christians do not. That doesn’t make much sense to me, either.
As a non-religious person who finds all sorts of religious restrictions (dietary restrictions, prayer practices, clothing oddities) nonsensical (bordering on absurd), I struggle to understand how any of this is any different than plain old bigotry or personal preferences. Regarding a cake baker, for example, I think it’s his right as a business owner to grant or refuse service to anyone, regardless of reason, and the issue shouldn’t be tied up in terms of religious freedom or discrimination to protected classes. I realize this stance doesn’t sit well with either side who wants to get worked up, but I tend to go with the live-and-let-live outlook.
I italicized Christian because I was responding to md2000, whose post only mention Jewish & Muslim men. Believe it or not, some Christian men have the same belief about not interacting with women.
I had not actually heard of a Christian case or sect. (Except maybe the vice-president) Some treat women as not equal, but I hadn’t heard they refuse to be served by a woman. I’m not in a hurry to meet any…
A private business may make whatever accommodations it might feel it wants to keep fussy customers. They should keep in mind, for example - that if a female clerk feels that they were not promoted to manager because those customers also interact with the manager from time to time - she may have a discrimination case. It’s a tricky line to walk.
One key item here is the actions of “serve” vs. “create”. The Supremes managed to bypass coming to a judgement on this issue. You cannot refuse to serve based on “protected class” - restaurant, hotel, store, taxi, bake shop, etc. The question is whether an artist can be compelled to create… and of course at which point it morphs from “serve” to “create”. The clarify too for SlackerInc, I guess the other issue is to what extent the refusal of service is for specifically blanket refusal to accommodate a specific protected class (race or religion or preference, say) vs. refusal to celebrate an aspect of that situation that they find offensive.
Are you saying there’s majority support for protecting bakers who refuse to make a “Leviticus” cake (as long as it was worded more carefully), but not protecting those who don’t want to make one celebrating a gay marriage? That would seem to very clearly violate the “fixed star in our constitutional constellation” I cited above. Which is their right; but it would surprise (and yes, disturb) me very much.
There is still a big difference between making a cake with a message plainly visible that you disagree with, and refusing to make anything you normally make, due to someone being in a protected class you disagree with.
Sure, but this baker said he would gladly sell them any of his other items. He wasn’t saying “I don’t like gay people, so I refuse to sell them brownies” but rather “I think gay marriage is wrong, so I refuse to make a custom cake designed specifically to celebrate a gay marriage.”
If they showed him a picture of a cake they liked, and asked him to replicate it without anything “gay” (two men’s names, or a male-male topper) on it, I think they would be on much surer footing to report him for a civil rights violation if he refused solely because he knew who was buying it.
As I understood it - they never got to the design phase of the project. When they told him who the cake was for, he said “no”, or words to that effect. He would not make ***any ***cake design for a gay couple’s celebration.
So there was no indication that he was being asked to create something identifiably gay - no rainbow flag, no Adam & Steve cake topper, etc. Just - the cake is for you two? Bugger off!
So the dispute is not about the design or message content, but that the customers were of a particular bent, so to speak. You last paragraph half applies - he refused solely because he knew who was buying it - and also that it was a wedding cake.
What he offered for sale instead was any non-wedding-cake products in his store.
I’m saying exactly what I said. If conditions changed enough for Kennedy to flip, I think we can assume that the so-called liberal justices who concurred with him would also flip making it 5-4 against some future Colorado baker who received a non-hostile evaluation from the Commission.
He refused to make a cake regardless of design… based on who was getting married.
As for the Leviticus question - places like Disneyland refuse to embroider names on mouse ears based on perceived offensiveness. If a black person asked for a hat labelled “Niggah!” (Because that’s what his black buddies called him) I suspect that Disney would say no. Is that discrimination or simply good taste? How about no confederate flag symbols? Whereas some T-Shirt stores have no problem selling blatantly offensive shirts…
I have trouble imagining a Leviticus quote on topic that would not be somewhat offensive to the point where any business would be justified in refusing to make it… Even if it were simply “I don’t want to be drawn into the middle of a religious dispute.”
We don’t need to worry about that one until and unless some state passes a law prohibiting discrimination against adults who marry minors. Don’t see that happening anytime soon.
It seems that some people have gotten the issue twisted.
We don’t need to worry about that one until and unless some state passes a law prohibiting discrimination against adults who marry minors. Don’t see that happening anytime soon.
It seems that some people have gotten the issue twisted- it’s not about whether the baker has to bake cakes he doesn’t agree with , or bake them for people he doesn’t like. It’s about whether he is exempt from generally applicable laws which prohibit discrimination based on certain criteria. So he could refuse to bake a cake for a Republican that he would be willing to bake for a Democrat- unless a particular place prohibits discrimination based on political affiliation ( which few do )