The baker wouldn’t sell the exact same cake to anyone, straight or gay. Each cake is a custom creation.
Hm.
Do you not agree that the line of argument is pervasive in liberal rhetoric and policy?
Or
Do you not think liberals will apply this hammer of all nails to the cake business?
If it’s the former…
If it’s the latter, don’t you think the liberals up in arms about this will eventually apply this argument to support their case?
I’m mostly in agreement with you. I don’t have an issue with a baker making principled statements such as “I won’t put rainbows or pride ribbons on any cakes wedding or not.” I’m kind of stuck on the whole I’ll make a nautical cake for Amanda and Keith but not for Frank and Jimmy. I don’t really see that much difference between creating a custom themed cake and offering from a pre-determined selection of themed cakes. I assume that the baker came up with original themes for the book at one point. To be honest I would be more sympathetic to a baker refusing to create a design provided by the client than to a baker refusing to theme a cake for the client.
And for whatever it’s worth, the baker also refuses to make anything with alcohol in it, any alcohol-themed decorations on cakes, and refuses to create Halloween-themed cakes, again arising from his religious views.
Could he refuse to make a custom Samhain-art-themed cake if a pagan coven wanted to celebrate that holiday?
That’s interesting, because my reaction is completely reversed: I think the difference that should offend our view of the First Amendment is the attempt to order creativity from someone’s unwilling hand. The baker who merely robotically inscribes the design given to him by a patron is not creating any expressive content.
I work in a store owned by Hasidic Jewish people. If someone was buying a gift bag that said “To The Happy Couple” and mentioned it was for a gay (or lesbian) couple, could we refuse to sell it to them? HELL NO!
The former.
Yes, I think the trend of the discussion is to agree with this illustration.
What we’re discussing now is: if the store designed custom one-of-a-kind gift bags, personalized with art that reflected the artist’s vision and portrayal of a “happy couple,” theme, then could the artist refuse to create such a work?
This is not a technical limitation of cake-making. There is nothing stopping you and I from bringing the same specs to a baker.
Yes. And…?
Not sure I follow what you are suggesting.
That seem like a strange judicial hook to hang your hat on. If it could be proven that such towns would not pop up, then you’d be OK with discrimination against gays just because they were gay. Seems to me that there is justice in an action or not justice, and it shouldn’t depend on vagaries of situations like that which could very well change. Or, you are setting up a judicial mandate for the entire country because there might a handful of towns “somewhere” where gay people can’t find a hotel room. Not to mention that we no longer live in the world of mom 'n pop hotels, but the exit of every interstate you’re going to find is dotted with Holiday Inn or Best Western or some other national chain.
Your rationale for justice seems rooted in a time long past. To me, that sounds like: We don’t allow slavery not because slavery, itself, is bad. We don’t allow slavery because it would likely fall disproportionally on blacks. No. We don’t allow slavery because slavery is wrong. Period.
Then the objection is not to the custom message if the baker will bake the cake for me but not for you.
I’m also not a fancy law-talkin’ guy, but isn’t this line of argument already addressed within the jurisprudence around racial discrimination?
If a black couple went to a bakery and said “we met on a sailboat, so we’d like to have a cake in the shape of a sailboat.” The cake maker couldn’t get away with saying “that requires creativity by me, and since I’m religiously opposed to black people getting married in the eyes of God, then you can’t compel me to create this cake for you, which I would gladly make for a white couple.”
Could they?
I thought the scenario in this lawsuit was more along the lines of “We are not making a cake that shows two black people getting married. We aren’t making it for black people, and we aren’t making it for white people.”
That was my understanding, but I could be wrong.
This is not actually addressed by the jurisprudence around racial discrimination. Remarkably few cases of racial discrimination (that I can find, anyway) relate to compelled artistic speech.
The baker is creating custom cakes. His message differs for each customer. He (theoretically) draws his inspiration for the opposite sex couple’s wedding cake in part from his religious belief that a marriage of a man to a woman represents God’s plan in action. No such inspiration animates his attempt to create a same-sex themed wedding cake.
None of this prevents him from making the same cake for both.
If it’s the same cake, then it’s not a customer cake.
What if an inter-racial couple ordered a black-and-white cake? Or an inter-faith couple ordered a cake with a cross and a Star of David on it? Or a gay inter-racial inter-faith couple wanted a cake to be made?
The minds boggles.
Is a plate of BBQ ribs a custom artistic creation? Can a BBQ restaurant refuse service to someone because they don’t want to create custom art for a gay person or a black person or whomever?