If nothing else, a SCOTUS opinion will hopefully explain that there is a bright line rule between public accommodations and those businesses which are too “expressive” to qualify.
As the various hypotheticals thrown out show, this case isn’t really about LGBT rights. It’s about civil rights. Exactly the same analysis would apply in a case where a baker refuses to bake a cake for an Islamic wedding on religious grounds.
What if you live in a rural area and there are no other cake makers in the area but the one who hates gay people?
What if there is a marked quality difference between the master cake maker who hates gay people and the other cake makers in an area?
I’m saying that’s the petitioner’s argument in this case.
No. McDonald’s doesn’t advertise artistic, one-of-a-kind Big Macs; their model is actually that the Big Mac you buy in Boise is identical to the Big Mac you buy in Boston.
Sure, and if a given artist in that business refused to work with McDonald’s because he was uninspired by the unhealthy food and could not create an appetizing display, McDonald’s could not compel him to work.
I hope that the Court does not adopt your proposal.
You are correct but then that is not discrimination of the sort the courts do not like.
I suspect you already knew that though.
Oy. What if I had a sick grandmother, and couldn’t leave her side to go to the next town to see another baker?
What if you were a guest at a wedding, and you knew the guy who baked the cake hated the bride (for whatever reason), and had been compelled to bake the cake under duress. Would you eat a piece of cake?
You wondered why someone would use a baker who did not like them.
I gave you some that are reasonable (not everyone lives in cities with access to dozens of bakers). I think they are sufficiently good reasons but perhaps you do not.
Besides, would you expect the Supreme Court (or indeed any court) to rule that the plaintiff use a different baker and leave it at that?
Also, I would eat a piece of cake from the person compelled to bake it because if they fucked with the cake in some way I would probably have a good cause for a lawsuit.
Yeah, it’d be ironic if after being forced to comply by a civil judgement, a baker mixed poison into the cake and invited civil and criminal liability.
It’s like bane, on your wedding day.
I do not. Firstly, the idea that there is some isolated village somewhere that just happens to have a stupendous baker is pretty far-fetched. But also, think about what you are doing the next time you respond to this thread and consider how that might inform you of alternative places to get a wedding cake.
No
Wow. You’d eat something that you have good reason to believe was tampered with because if anything happened, you might be able to sue someone for it. OK.
Why did black people want to eat at lunch counters when it was obvious the owners didn’t want them to eat there?
“Good reason”? Is having to comply with the law a “good reason” to do such a thing? Man, is God love or what?
Actually, there’s good reason to believe the food was not tampered with, considering the penalties involved. I gather it’s reasonably safe to assume the baker might be homophobic, but not psychopathic. We operate daily on the assumption that the people around us are reasonably aware of the consequences of our actions, else we’d be paralyzed by doubt.
No, I don’t operate on the assumption that people who hate me and are forced BY ME to do things they don’t want to do will do so without malice towards me. You are either fighting or ignoring the hypothetical.
I was having dinner with a buddy once, at a not so fancy place. He ordered a steak and then ended up sending it back 3 times (I do not exaggerate). I advised him not to eat it after it came back the 3rd time. YMMV, or maybe you’ve never worked in a kitchen.
Well, the baker can be as malice-ridden as he likes, but the penalties for selling an adulterated cake will nevertheless be extreme. I suppose if the court ruling had made the baker decide to utterly abandon his carer in baking, there might be some risk.
No big deal. I likely wouldn’t have pursued the case to SCOTUS, myself, just publicized the baker’s bigotry at length on social media and sought other sources for my cake.
I’d be willing to bet there are plenty of stupendous bakers in remote areas. Indeed without access to a wide variety of baked good there are probably plenty who taught themselves and do it at home. Grandma’s apple pie and all that.
I watch cooking competitions on occasion and every once in a while an amazing baker pops up out of nowhere. They may not be common but they exist.
Huh? There are isolated paces where there aren’t many choices if you want to buy a wedding cake. A friend got married in such a place recently. There were only two bakers willing to deliver a wedding cake to her wedding. And one of them served them stale and uninspiring cake for the sample. I find it rather easy to imagine there are places where there’s not a lot of choice if you want a wedding cake. And one bigoted baker could mean you couldn’t have a wedding cake.
Are people still seriously arguing in favor of “separate but equal?” If you’re straight, you have your choice of any of five bakers, but if you’re gay, you are limited only to three.
As for race, that was solved by the 14th amendment. Many of us believe the same amendment should be used to protect gays.
(It is not at all impossible to find people who have strong religious beliefs about blacks; there are churches who hold that being black is the mark of the curse of Ham – and even some who hold it is the Mark of Cain. There is no reason to permit people to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation that does not apply also to race.)
Many of us believe that substantive changes to law should come from legislators.
Well, Elane Photography lost in New Mexico, and the Supremes declined to hear an appeal.
Wedding photographers Jonathan and Elaine Huguenin declined to photograph a same sex commitment ceremony and told Vanessa Willock and Misti Collinsworth that they only photographed traditional weddings. When pressed for clarification they said they did not photograph same sex ceremonies.
It is a different court, so nothing is certain, but I think photographer involves way more expression than baker, and it also involves way more engagement in the procedures. The photographer has to actually attend and watch the ceremony and festivities and work on the actual photos of the couple.
The baker, on the other hand, might never even know that the cake is for a same sex couple. I bet most wedding cake bakers never even meet both halves of the happy couple. If one wanted a cake made in a small town with only one fabulous but gay-hating bakery, it would probably be frightfully easy to get a cake from them…one of the couple could just go in and order it. They could take an opposite sex friend with them for cover, I guess…but that would probably be overkill.
You give them money and they bake you a cake, they don’t even have to come to the wedding.
Yes. They didn’t decide the merits.
Now they have accepted a case. What signal, if any, do you take from that?
Well, it helps if they knew you were coming.