Compelling someone to be creative is just nonsensical. Can they also be compelled to not screw anything up? To be creative to a certain level of creativeness?
But I still wonder why on earth anyone would want someone to bake their wedding cake, when they knew that person didn’t want to. Has no one seen The Help??? Minnie’s Chocolate Pie, anyone?
I agree about slavery, but this particular issue is related to how one handles what can reasonably be thought of as their own affairs – who to do business with. I don’t see it as an issue of the past – in all likelihood, sundown towns still exist in some form (Vidor, TX is an example that I’ve frequently mentioned on this board), even if they are less violent or less overt in their discrimination than in the past. I think the only justification for requiring individuals and businesses, by law, to do business with people they would otherwise not want to, is to eliminate the possibility that some folks wouldn’t be able to meet basic needs while traveling or going about their lives.
I can’t imagine how it could be proven that sundown towns would never appear again – all that’s needed, in essence, for a small sundown town, is that the single hotel proprietor in town (or if there are 2 hotels, then both of them, etc.), or single restaurant, or single gas station, refuses to serve a certain class of people.
A custom cake is one you haven’t made again…yet.
I almost posted “please don’t bring up Vidor, TX” again, but I thought: No, that was so laughably presented as an existing sundown town the last time that surely he won’t bring it up again. So, no, I’m not going to engage in a debate that quickly turns into “but some folks in Vidor are not very nice to black people!!” as if that somehow proved Vidor was a sundown town. I’ll just say that the last time you brought this up, I linked to a google map of the town and asked you which of the hotels on that map would not allow blacks to stay there overnight. You were unable to point out a single one. Here it is again if you want to take another crack at it.
“I can’t imagine it, therefore it couldn’t exist” is not much of an argument.
I doubt I even tried, but it’d certainly be a good and worthwhile experiment to send some black travelers to try and stay in Vidor and see how they were treated (anecdotally, black people that live nearby have told me personally that there were always no vacancies for them or other black folks). My characterization of Vidor is based on both personal experience traveling through (and seeing prominent white supremacist symbols routinely), talking to black people that live nearby, the unlikelihood (and nigh-impossibility without racism, IMO) of an all-white town in that very-black region of the country, and the research of Civil Rights historians. It’s far, far more than “some folks aren’t nice to black people”.
If you think that “sundown towns” = “hotels don’t give rooms to black travelers” and there’s nothing more to it, then I think you have a lot to learn about sundown towns, which can be more or less severe in various circumstances. If Vidor serves black travelers but somehow doesn’t allow black people to live there (and all attempts to integrate the town have failed, including recent efforts in the 90s) it’s still a sundown town, even if it’s not quite as bad as past sundown towns that wouldn’t even allow black travelers to stop.
If it existed, I’d look at it and evaluate it and maybe reconsider my position. I don’t know how else to respond.
John Mace I looked back at the thread from a few months ago in which we discussed sundown towns, and you weren’t nearly so dismissive – it seemed to be more a disagreement of semantics (as to what qualifies as a sundown town), not whether black people actually had a chance to live and thrive in Vidor (which pretty clearly to me doesn’t seem to be the case, even if they might now be able to stop and shop without being lynched). Based on my reading, reasoning, and common sense, if black people (or some other group) don’t really have a chance to live and thrive in a certain town or community, then it’s reasonable to characterize it as likely to be a sundown town.
Let’s revisit what started this conversation:
Right – that’s the real, large-scale danger of sundown towns. They can still exist today, even with laws and protections – but it’s much, much harder to maintain informal and illegal covenants “under the table”, with the implicit but necessarily unwritten consent of law enforcement and other authorities, then it would be without these sorts of legal protections from the Civil Rights and other anti-discrimination laws. Modern suspected sundown towns may just surreptitiously prevent black people (or other groups) from buying or renting property in town, but allow them to stop and even stay temporarily – bad enough, and it could be much, much worse without such legal protection and illegality of this kind of discrimination.
I will say that when I first found out about Vidor (late 90s – I learned by traveling through the town multiple times, and talking to other Louisianans and Texans about it), I was shocked that such a place still existed in America. I’m still just as dismayed, but no longer quite as shocked, that such injustice still is a significant part of so many Americans’ lives.
The selling point for his CUSTOM cake business is that he does not make the same cake for multiple customers.
Have you ever watched “Ace of Cakes” on Food Network? You seem to not really grasp what the business is doing.
I’m not sure what the sailboat cake has to do with anything. If I went to a baker and told him I wanted a cake shaped like a sailboat, I can see a few possible responses. He might say “No, all of our cakes are cylinders, because it’s easier to make them that way, but you have your choice of flavors and icing colors”. He might say “Hm, yeah, I think I could do that. That’d be about the same size as one of our medium cakes; would an extra $5 for the more complicated design be reasonable?”. He might say “Well, I’ve done some custom shapes in the past, but a sailboat sounds like it’d be beyond my level of ability. You might try the other cake store down the road.”. He might say “I’m not sure how I’d make that, but I’m up for a challenge. Do you have a design for such a cake?”. All of those would be reasonable responses. But a reasonable response would not be “Well, that depends. For what occasion am I making it? I’m willing to make that cake for some customers, but not for others.”.
Again I’ll ask: have you ever watched Ace of Cakes, or Cake Boss, or any similar show which gives a look at the business model followed by these folks? People don’t visit them to get “A cake shaped like a sailboat.” The prices charged by Charm City Cakes: $300 is the start, the bottom cake line, and “Our handcrafted creations require a serious amount of time to make,” and “Custom cakes start at $300 and increase based on intricacy of design, size, and complexity.”
The idea is not that you tell him what cake to make – the idea is that you tell him what your event is, and he dreams up a custom cake that incorporates his vision of how that event should be displayed in fondant and icing.
But he could make it for both. Or either, if that’s part of the marketing appeal. There are any number of pictures of cakes on the internet, from that show (and elsewhere if you prefer something that looks more edible). Perhaps you could find one that illustrates your point.
OK, then, you tell him that the event is a wedding, and that the newlyweds first met on a sailing trip, and whatever other details are relevant. And if the baker then has to ask the genders of the couple before deciding whether to serve them, that’s illegal discrimination.
Why does this matter in this case?
To further muddy the waters, I’ll throw this out:
My grandmother owned a cake and candy shop in California. My mother learned enough of the trade that she’s done a few dozen wedding cakes over the intervening years. It was almost always for friends and family and for free, but at least in her typical practice, it was a bit more complex than just “order a cake”. There were discussions and back-and-forth with the bride or couple on the finer points of the design, flavors, etc. The cakes she made could also not just be boxed up and thrown in the back of a truck and driven across town. They had to be set up on-site. It was pretty common for her to stick around to give tips to the couple on cake cutting, and to cut up the sheet cakes in the kitchen for the guests too. Perhaps all of this is a bit too much of Mormon quirkiness, but the point I’m getting to is this:
Some services require significantly more participation in the event than simply shipping a cake with “Andy and Matt” on it. My mother’s cakes routinely made her a fairly integral part of the wedding. She would meet with the bride and groom frequently, she was there at the event before-hand, during, and after (to clean up). It wasn’t a business for her, and she never got asked to make a cake for a gay couple (and I don’t know what her answer would have been if she had), but it’s not too difficult to imagine a similarly-situated but for-profit cake maker who would be uncomfortable with their level of involvement in a gay wedding. The same is probably true of a for-hire pastor, photographers, musicians, or similar jobs that require a degree of participation in the event. Do / should those people have any protection in the law for their beliefs / comfort level? Any thoughts? Legal insight?
Just to be clear here, it would be legal for the baker to refuse to make this cake for an Aryan Nations couple, or a Trump supporting couple, or a couple who is overweight. It would NOT be legal to refuse based on the customer’s race or religion. And, in Colorado, it’s not legal to refuse based on the couple’s sexual orientation. Those are classes protected by civil rights laws. We give businesses quite a bit of freedom to choose whom they serve, just not if the reasons for not serving involve certain protected classes.
In Colorado, the situation would be the same as whether the cake maker gets to choose to make a cake for a black couple (or interracial couple) based on their race. If the business can’t say “sorry, I don’t do cakes for black people’s weddings because of my religious beliefs,” then they couldn’t say it for gay people either.
Bricker, I’ve never seen the TV show you’re referring to - are you saying that the cake maker involved in the Supreme Court case is the same person who has a TV show? I’m not clear on why you bring it up.
And it’s this very law that is now under review by the Supreme Court, right?
I don’t presume to speak for him, but I believe he’s using the TV shows as a readily-recognizable example (well, not that readily apparently) of the sort of creative effort involved in making the cakes in question. They’re more like cake artists than line workers in a cake factory. I don’t believe any of the television personalities from the show have a direct connection to this Colorado baker or the lawsuit.
Nope. It’s pretty clear I lack the ability to convey the concept here, so I’ll just stop trying.
Just an illustration of the type of business in play here, because much of the commentary seems to picture customers selecting items from a shelf or a catalog page, and the frequent return to the question of why the baker can’t just make a copy of whatever he’d make for someone else.
But it’s clear I’m not good at explaining this concept.