# Judge orders Colorado baker to serve gay couples **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 8, 2013, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-orders-colorado-baker-to-serve-gay-couples/675792 "2013-12-08T01:57:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 67
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2018, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-orders-colorado-baker-to-serve-gay-couples/675792/1321 "2018-06-10T06:36:22Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Again, they did NOT say the baker had the right to refuse to bake the cake. They said that the State showed religious discrimination in their ruling. Why is that wrong? If a defendant in a criminal trial doesn’t get a fair trial we all agree they should be set free (or at least retried) whether or not they are innocent or guilty. Because they didn’t. They chose to misinterpret comments as being anti-religion, when they were against religion being used as an excuse for discrimination. They simply pointed out the fact that religion has often been used as excuse to discriminate, and said that was horrible. The only good interpretation is that the Court saw that some people would interpret it this way and sent it back so they’d get a better case. The bad interpretation is that they wanted to find proof of religious discrimination. I am religious myself. And I see nothing about what they said as being hateful towards religion in general or any particular religion. And I cannot foresee the ruling going differently based on this technicality. You cannot discriminate due to religion. It’s been established by precedent. Basically, reading along with what he says the state can do, it sure sounds like Kennedy is telling them they have every right to decide that the baker violated the law, and that his reason isn’t sufficient. Saying they can do that means that it’s constitutional. Have there been any changes politically that would likely lead to a different decision? If not, I expect the exact same ruling, just while removing any extraneous statements in case they might be misinterpreted. He’ll say his piece, they’ll say “thank you,” and then he’ll still lose. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2018, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-orders-colorado-baker-to-serve-gay-couples/675792/1322 "2018-06-10T06:41:16Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > But how is that relevant? If it’s allowed under existing law, then I figure it’s legal no matter how many or how few people bother to engage in it; and, if it’s _illegal,_ then I figure it’s illegal no matter how many or how few people bother likewise. Because the law on this specific issue has not actually been decided. Since there are a lot of people who want to use their religion to discriminate against gay people, they’re going to fight their hardest to claim that their issue is different from the one that was already decided. And while I don’t think they should win based on what I know, their chances are not zero. Because the law is still ultimately decided here by what the Supreme Court says. That’s how common law works. Legal precedent is as much a lawmaking tool as legislators. It would be nice if the law were this solid factual thing that people imagine it is. But it just isn’t. It’s always being changed. It’s why conservatives were fighting to hard to get conservatives on the Court, to hopefully change the law about abortion. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2018, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-orders-colorado-baker-to-serve-gay-couples/675792/1323 "2018-06-10T14:42:13Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Tell the baker that. He’s the one who put that forth as a reason, not me. He’s not on the board, just pointing out that he is wrong on that point. If he went back a few decades to a time when homosexualit was actually illegal, then he’d have a point. If a kid wants to marry their teddy bear, that’s not a legally recognized marriage, but it’s still not illegal. > [@jayjay](#): > > There’s still a significant number of religious people who believe God said that gays are icky, don’t serve them. The number of religious people who believe God said that the races must stay separate is much, much smaller and therefore less influential. That is true now, but go back a few generations, and the number of people who felt that they had a religious justification for discrimination based on race was much higher. In a few generations, refusing service based on sexual orientation could be looked at with as much disdain as refusing service based on race is now. (Or we could go the other way, and refusing service based on race could be as accepted as refusing based on sexual orientation is now.) ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2018, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-orders-colorado-baker-to-serve-gay-couples/675792/1324 "2018-06-10T17:31:15Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > He’s not on the board, just pointing out that he is wrong on that point. If he went back a few decades to a time when homosexualit was actually illegal, then he’d have a point. > > If a kid wants to marry their teddy bear, that’s not a legally recognized marriage, but it’s still not illegal. Interesting idea… Tell the court the baker can have no religious objection to the men getting married because they can’t get married. They can pretend to but they can’t (or at least couldn’t back when this happened). Is there a religious objection to be had for make-believe things? ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2018, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-orders-colorado-baker-to-serve-gay-couples/675792/1325 "2018-06-10T17:34:46Z")
Don’t the arguments for Philips’s First Amendment rights ignore the fact that the rights of an individual and the rights of a business are not the same? When a business enters the public marketplace, it’s bound by the laws of commerce. The Supreme Court in Heart of \*Atlanta Hotel \*v. _United States_ has already recognized that the Commerce Clause of the Constitution gives the government the power to to pass laws prohibiting businesses from discriminating against protected classes. Gays have been members of a protected class in Colorado since 2012. If owner Jack Phillips–an _individual_–has religious beliefs against serving members of a protected class, perhaps _he_ could decline to make wedding cakes to members of a protected class, but Masterpiece Bakery–a _business_–could not. If Phillips was the only person in the shop capable of providing the service, then Masterpiece Bakery could hire someone who did not hold this belief. What Masterpiece Bakery could _not_ do was refuse to provide this service, artistic or otherwise, to members of a protected class. Owner Phillips could find a way for his business to provide this “artistic” service, or his business, Masterpiece Bakery, couldn’t operate in the public marketplace. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2018, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-orders-colorado-baker-to-serve-gay-couples/675792/1326 "2018-06-10T20:28:38Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > Don’t the arguments for Philips’s First Amendment rights ignore the fact that the rights of an individual and the rights of a business are not the same? When a business enters the public marketplace, it’s bound by the laws of commerce. The Supreme Court in Heart of \*Atlanta Hotel \*v. _United States_ has already recognized that the Commerce Clause of the Constitution gives the government the power to to pass laws prohibiting businesses from discriminating against protected classes. Gays have been members of a protected class in Colorado since 2012. As others have noted, this decision isn’t an easy one to understand. Think of it as if the CO law had said: _Businesses can’t discriminate against gays, and don’t even think about appealing this on religious grounds, because we know you’re really just a bigot and you’re just following some crap that was invented during the Bronze Age._ Now, that’s an exaggeration, but that law does not treat religion in a neutral way and so could trigger a Free Exercise challenge. In this case, the law wasn’t written to be explicitly hostile to religion, but the state took a stance hostile to religion when they implemented the law in this particular instance. As best as I can see it. ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2018, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-orders-colorado-baker-to-serve-gay-couples/675792/1327 "2018-06-10T23:29:34Z")
But it wasn’t the 2008 Colorado law making sexual orientation a protected class that contained the language. It was the CO Civil Rights Commission’s decision that did. The Masterpiece ruling did not overturn the 2008 Colorado law. The _Commission_’s decision was unconstitutional due to its logic and wording; the law was not. My argument isn’t with the ruling, though, as it was too narrow to serve as precedent. My argument is that a business does not have the same Constitutional rights as an individual. If that were NOT the case, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would have been struck down in _Heart of Atlanta_, where the plaintiff argued his Constitutional right to due process meant Congress could not force him to close his business if he refused to serve Blacks. It was not. Phillips can refuse to serve a customer due to his own religious beliefs and not violate the 2008 CO law. Masterpiece Bakery, however, cannot. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2018, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-orders-colorado-baker-to-serve-gay-couples/675792/1328 "2018-06-11T01:42:25Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > But it wasn’t the 2008 Colorado law making sexual orientation a protected class that contained the language. It was the CO Civil Rights Commission’s decision that did. The Masterpiece ruling did not overturn the 2008 Colorado law. The _Commission_’s decision was unconstitutional due to its logic and wording; the law was not. Yes. That’s why I said “think of as if the law had said”. It was a hypothetical. If the law had said that, the Supremes would have struck down the law. Since it was the Commission that initiated the hostile language in this instance, the Supremes struck down the Commission’s decision, but only as it applied to this instance. They didn’t strike down the law. ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2018, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-orders-colorado-baker-to-serve-gay-couples/675792/1329 "2018-06-11T03:25:32Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Indeed there is almost no way they can say it is the bible and not their own prejudice against homosexuals at work here. > > They are merely finding something to excuse their own foul motives. If it was really the bible motivating them and not personal animus then they’d have to also [hate shrimp](http://biblehub.com/leviticus/11-10.htm) which the bible also says is an abomination (and by my reading also clams/oysters/mussels). I am willing to bet most of them do not adhere to this one. Nor do they stone adulterers, which by the Bible’s wording is obviously required, not merely permitted. ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2018, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-orders-colorado-baker-to-serve-gay-couples/675792/1330 "2018-06-11T03:35:21Z")
There is a potential slippery slope here, which if started, logically ends in a specifically-legislated exception to freedom of religion, in which freedom to even **belong** to [a religion that discriminates on protected grounds] is prohibited. IMO that’s a good thing. ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2018, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-orders-colorado-baker-to-serve-gay-couples/675792/1331 "2018-06-11T06:02:40Z")
> [@DavidwithanR](#): > > There is a potential slippery slope here, which if started, logically ends in a specifically-legislated exception to freedom of religion, in which freedom to even **belong** to [a religion that discriminates on protected grounds] is prohibited. IMO that’s a good thing. Please explain. I’m having trouble with the concept that even belonging to a religion that discriminates on protected grounds would be prohibited, given that membership in numerous groups, such as the KKK, that regularly discriminate is not prohibited. Of course, slippery slope is a logical fallacy, not a sound argument, so maybe you’re being ironic. If so, please excuse. ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2018, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-orders-colorado-baker-to-serve-gay-couples/675792/1332 "2018-06-11T07:03:01Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > Please explain. I’m having trouble with the concept that even belonging to a religion that discriminates on protected grounds would be prohibited, given that membership in numerous groups, such as the KKK, that regularly discriminate is not prohibited. Of course, slippery slope is a logical fallacy, not a sound argument, so maybe you’re being ironic. If so, please excuse. I’m saying KKK membership (and membership in any organization that chooses to discriminate against protected groups) may become illegal in the future, and personally approving of that possibility. The rest of what I wrote may very well be drivel. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2018, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-orders-colorado-baker-to-serve-gay-couples/675792/1333 "2018-06-11T13:27:11Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Indeed there is almost no way they can say it is the bible and not their own prejudice against homosexuals at work here. > > They are merely finding something to excuse their own foul motives. If it was really the bible motivating them and not personal animus then they’d have to also [hate shrimp](http://biblehub.com/leviticus/11-10.htm) which the bible also says is an abomination (and by my reading also clams/oysters/mussels). I am willing to bet most of them do not adhere to this one. And how many of them follow Exodus 22:18: Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live? I would love to see someone try to use that defense in court. > [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Interesting idea… > > Tell the court the baker can have no religious objection to the men getting married because they can’t get married. They can pretend to but they can’t (or at least couldn’t back when this happened). Is there a religious objection to be had for make-believe things? There are still people who believe same sex couples cannot have a “real” marriage. When I asked one why, he replied: They cannot love each other. It’s only lust. ---
**Author:** ![Wolf333](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf333/32/3460_2.png) [@Wolf333](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolf333)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2018, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-orders-colorado-baker-to-serve-gay-couples/675792/1334 "2018-06-11T13:38:49Z")
> [@DavidwithanR](#): > > Nor do they stone adulterers, which by the Bible’s wording is obviously required, not merely permitted. Many of them seem to have any problem with adultery itself. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2018, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-orders-colorado-baker-to-serve-gay-couples/675792/1335 "2018-06-11T13:53:00Z")
But at least they don’t wear blended fabrics. Know how much Jesus had to say about homosexuality? Nothing. Know how much he had to say about loving and helping and respecting our fellow humans? Lots. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2018, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-orders-colorado-baker-to-serve-gay-couples/675792/1336 "2018-06-11T14:08:08Z")
> [@Wolf333](#): > > Many of them seem to have any problem with adultery itself. Is there a missing “don’t” here? It’s fun to point out to the evangelical crowd who condemn homosexuality but merrily support serial adulterers like Donald Trump and Newt Gingrich that homosexuality barely gets a few passing mentions in the Bible, none of which are from God or Jesus, whereas adultery is overtly condemned by God (in the Commandments) and Jesus. This suggests that adultery is considered a much more serious offense by God, and yet it is ignored by those evangelicals in order to focus on homosexuality. Motes and beams… ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2018, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-orders-colorado-baker-to-serve-gay-couples/675792/1337 "2018-06-11T15:13:00Z")
> [@DavidwithanR](#): > > I’m saying KKK membership (and membership in any organization that chooses to discriminate against protected groups) may become illegal in the future, and personally approving of that possibility. The rest of what I wrote may very well be drivel. The Klan is a foolish and disgusting organization that has brought nothing but grief to this country, but the right to assemble and freedom of speech have long been interpreted as the right of association. I’d have to look it up, but there was a SCOTUS ruling in the Fifties involving the NAACP that affirmed this principle, and I don’t see that going away. Double-edged sword that it is, I’m not sure I’d want it to, either. And I don’t think any part of your post was drivel, ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2018, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-orders-colorado-baker-to-serve-gay-couples/675792/1338 "2018-06-11T15:38:20Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > But it wasn’t the 2008 Colorado law making sexual orientation a protected class that contained the language. It was the CO Civil Rights Commission’s decision that did. The Masterpiece ruling did not overturn the 2008 Colorado law. The _Commission_’s decision was unconstitutional due to its logic and wording; the law was not. > > My argument isn’t with the ruling, though, as it was too narrow to serve as precedent. My argument is that a business does not have the same Constitutional rights as an individual. If that were NOT the case, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would have been struck down in _Heart of Atlanta_, where the plaintiff argued his Constitutional right to due process meant Congress could not force him to close his business if he refused to serve Blacks. It was not. > > Phillips can refuse to serve a customer due to his own religious beliefs and not violate the 2008 CO law. Masterpiece Bakery, however, cannot. TRUE STATEMENT: a business does not have the same Constitutional rights as an individual. But I would argue that there’s a specific constitutional right here concerning compelled speech, and that the right of a business to be free from compelled speech is grounded in the First Amendment. I’d further argue that the dividing line is the creation of an artistic product: Colorado can compel a business to sell pre-made items to all comers, and that includes “catalog,” type items that have already been planned and created for the purpose of photographing for inclusion in the catalog. But I contend that Colorado may not, without offending the First Amendment, compel a baker who offers custom designed cakes unique to an individual event to create one if he doesn’t wish to. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2018, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-orders-colorado-baker-to-serve-gay-couples/675792/1339 "2018-06-11T17:02:39Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > That’s not, as far as I can tell, the point. > > Let’s grant, for the sake of argument, that the baker makes wedding cakes that just look like “wedding cakes”. You know: three or four circular cakes, light in color and stacked biggest to smallest from bottom to top, with some white frosting on it in a pattern designed to really make the red strawberries stand out. > > The sort of cake he’d make for me, if I came in and said I was marrying a woman. And let’s say it’s also the _same_ cake he’d flatly refuse to make for a woman, if she came in and said it’s for her marriage to a woman. > > Say the cake is the same; it’s only the customer who differs. What happens? If that same woman came in and said she was buying a cake for your wedding she would get a cake. So clearly, it’s not the customer. It is the event. Of course, 99.9% of the time a customer buying a wedding cake is buying it for their own wedding. So the question really is: Does refusing to make a cake for an event that only a protected class celebrates mean you are discriminating against that class? ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2018, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-orders-colorado-baker-to-serve-gay-couples/675792/1340 "2018-06-11T17:13:07Z")
> [@treis](#): > > If that same woman came in and said she was buying a cake for your wedding she would get a cake. So clearly, it’s not the customer. It is the event. > > Of course, 99.9% of the time a customer buying a wedding cake is buying it for their own wedding. So the question really is: Does refusing to make a cake for an event that only a protected class celebrates mean you are discriminating against that class? Wrong analogy. Right analogy: Does refusing to make a cake for a generic event (weddings for example) if a protected class is celebrating it mean you are discriminating against that class? So the example is not “We don’t make KwaNzaa cakes”, the example is “We only make cakes for white kids birthdays, no cakes for black or Indian kids” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-orders-colorado-baker-to-serve-gay-couples/675792.md?page=66) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judge-orders-colorado-baker-to-serve-gay-couples/675792.md?page=68)