Yet, at the same time, when they “don’t want to create” solely on the basis of the class of person of the customer, they are breaking the law.
You can’t “be an artist” who only paints portraits of white people. That is an illegal business model.
Cite? Is portrait painting a public accommodation?
Running a business is. You can’t run a business, but only serve white customers.
I am afraid that this model for an argument is not going to go very far. Aside from restrictions on sacramental participation, the RCC has not tried to impose rules regarding matrimony on the general public (at least in a very long time).
A priest would be prohibited from witnessing a marriage where one or more participant was divorced without the marriage being annulled and persons in such a state are expected to refrain from receiving the Eucharist, but they are still allowed to walk into a church, be buried in a Catholic cemetery with the celebration of a Mass, (they will not be receiving communion, of course), and other practices. A baker who refused to prepare a wedding cake for the event would be regarded as more than a bit odd and would only have the support of his parish or diocese if the pastor or bishop was a bit of a crank.
It depends on what kind of business it is.
It’s possible to construct a hypothetical business that could legally choose to serve only white customers. For example, imagine a caricature artist, who draws his customers his a unique interpretive style. He could certainly (if foolishly) say that he can’t do dark tones, and doesn’t wish to try adapting his artistic style to dark skin tones.
According to who?
Plenty of Christian sects don’t accept the idea that divorce and remarriage is sinful. Why must the baker reject that teaching? Why must he adopt your ideas in order to be consistent?
No, he’s not. He’s just saying he won’t make them a cake. He’s not stopping them from doing anything. It’s this law, in fact, that purported for force HIM to act.
Just curious, were there other bakeries nearby?
Yes. Two tenths of a mile away; Elegant Bakery at 3355 S Wadsworth Blvd at 3278 S Wadsworth Blvd. (The shop in question was at 3355 S Wadsworth Blvd).
I’m not convinced in the slightest. This seems like no more than a paltry excuse to justify racism, in exactly the same way the “artistry” argument is a justification for homophobia (and racism.)
If you are running a licensed business, and you say, “No, I will not serve blacks,” you are in violation of U.S. law.
You’ve said that twice now. Do you have a cite?
Discrimination against a protected class in a public accommodation is clearly illegal. Title II of the Civil Rights Act defines “public accommodation” as:
“Each of the following establishments which serves the public is a place of public accommodation within the meaning of this title if its operations affect commerce, or if discrimination or segregation by it is supported by State action:
(1) any inn, hotel, motel, or other establishment which provides lodging to transient guests, other than an establishment located within a building which contains not more than five rooms for rent or hire and which is actually occupied by the proprietor of such establishment as his residence;
(2) any restaurant, cafeteria, lunchroom, lunch counter, soda fountain, or other facility principally engaged in selling food for consumption on the premises, including, but not limited to, any such facility located on the premises of any retail establishment; or any gasoline station;
(3) any motion picture house, theater, concert hall, sports arena, stadium or other place of exhibition or entertainment; and
(4) any establishment (A)(i) which is physically located within the premises of any establishment otherwise covered by this subsection, or (ii) within the premises of which is physically located any such covered establishment, and (b) which holds itself out as serving patrons of such covered establishment.”
Under which of these would you maintain that “portrait painting” falls?
And of course it’s used to justify racism. Racism isn’t illegal, just stupid.
There is no force being applied here. Opening a business, joining a religion, being a bigot; all of these are voluntary actions. To open a business then complain that one is forced to adhere to the rules of doing business is silly. Does one go into business then complain that one shouldn’t be forced to pay employees for their labour? Probably, actually. But would anyone take such a complaint seriously? No.
That’s not an accurate statement of the law. It’s generally accurate, to be sure, but not absolutely accurate.
You acknowledge that there is force being applied – the business owner is “forced to adhere to the rules of doing business.”
Those rules, however, are more complex than you imagine them to be. For example, the rules enacted by a state can’t violate the state’s constitution, or the federal constitution. The total set of “rules,” includes the union of all those rules.
Here, the business owner claims that, as an exercise of the right of free expression granted by the First Amendment, to not engage in compelled speech. He says that a rule forcing him to apply his artistic talents to cake creation when the cake advances a view he abhors is an example of compelled speech.
And several people are taking that complaint seriously.
I did not acknowledge it, and I did not address the laws. I addressed your claim that volunteering to adhere to them, whatever they might be, constitutes being forced to do something. The claim is false, since the business owner voluntarily became such.
I thought this was about following a religion’s alleged teachings (don’t know of a religion that requires one to open a bakery then refuse to serve gay people), not arguing that one can discriminate because they think gay marriage is abhorrent. Turns out its about feelings after all, and the guff about religion is just a blatant appeal to a false authority, i.e., “God Hates Fags”.
And the person who doesn’t serve black people is simply saying they won’t serve black people.
Except that’s not true. They are discriminating and making it harder for black people to have the freedoms that other people enjoy. They are, in fact, limiting what black people can do. That’s why we passed civil rights laws in the first place.
What’s more, when they go to court about it, they are trying to force the law to align with their beliefs. The law says he shouldn’t do this action, but his beliefs say he should. So he is trying to fight that law and get it overturned. He’s trying to force it where gay people have to face discrimination.
People do not live in isolation. What he is trying to do affects the entire community. A community that voted for a law that says that discriminating the way he is doing is wrong.
And, yes, this means people were forcing their beliefs when they forced states to allow same sex marriage. It’s not the forcing that makes it wrong. It’s the discrimination, of which laws were passed to prohibit. You get to force people to follow the law.
This man discriminated against these people due to their sexuality. He was not made to write something he did not agree with. He was just expected not to discriminate in offering his services, because the law says so. He is trying to use his religion as a way to avoid having to follow the law, by getting the courts to invalidate the law he doesn’t want to follow.
Catholics don’t acknowledge divorce, although they do have a process of annulment, but many Christian denominations do allow divorce. Are you aware of that? Besides that, a person’s religious beliefs are personal. I don’t think you’re going to get many SCOTUS justices who are going to insist that people must adhere to the canonical religious beliefs of a particular religion or else. Surely we don’t want the courts getting involved in what a Catholic must believe vs what an Episcopalian must believe. I sure don’t, but YMMV.
That is a great argument, IF, and only if, the rules are the same for all businesses. If a state decides that one type of business can pick and choose their customers but another can’t, then there’s legitimate room there to ask for a religious exemption. Does Colorado require tattoo artists to do any tattoo a customer requests? If not, then they can’t require a cake maker to make any cake a cutomer requests.
Secondly, if there are legitimate secular reasons to refuse to make a certain product that you offer, then religious reasons have to be permitted for refusal as well. Secular interests and religious interests are equal under the 1st amendment. Anything else is viewpoint discrimination, which also runs afoul of the 1st amendment.
The Colorado Civil Rights Commission directly ruled that a company can refuse to make a cake with a viewpoint against homosexuality. But that you can’t refuse to make one endorsing it. That’s viewpoint discrimination, open and shut, 1st amendment violation even if you don’t bring religious freedom into it.
It should be noted that cakes for gay marriages aren’t the only thing he has refused to make. So he does have a consistent set of beliefs which he applies to his business dealings. He doesn’t just have a bee up his butt about gays.
He doesn’t do alcohol themed cakes, he doesn’t do divorce cakes actually, or Halloween-themed cakes. He’s also closed on Sunday.
There is no question that this is a Christian business.
See, the big problem with having a principle that there should be no exceptions to business regulations is that you basically say that people who actually BELIEVE in their religion shouldn’t have businesses. In a world where so many corporate executives are amoral and think only of the bottom line, we need more people of faith in business, not less.
Except that “the community” may not pass a law that violates a person’s First Amendment rights. The Court will decide if Colorado violated said rights, likely by next Spring.