Judge orders Colorado baker to serve gay couples

Great Debates
101

There is also the difference between the customer and the subject matter. If a gay couple commissioned a portrait of their dog (no gay content), can they be refused service for being gay vs if a hetero couple commissioned a portrait a gay couple getting married (one is their child, for example and the content is objectionable), under the guise of “I’m an artist”.

So if the cake is a typical wedding cake that the couple plans on sticking a same sex topper on to, then it is the customer, not the art that is the issue.

If the cake is all rainbows and pro-gay slogans, then the art itself has “gay” content, if you will, so it’s the art itself that is is the issue.

102

I’d say when the customer is requesting a certain size, colour, layout, verbiage, and decoration it is clearly a case of the ‘art’ speaking for the consumer. If the baker (or sign maker) made items with no input from the customer and offered them for sale then I could get behind the ‘freedom of speech/art’ argument.

103

dylquesne99, Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Board.

On the SDMB it is possible for people of wildly disparate beliefs to share their own thoughts and contend with those who both agree and disagree.

We do not, however, tolerate hate speech on this board. I am currently undecided as to whether your post constitutes hate speech but that would only be because I’m having trouble understanding your points. That said, though, I’d strongly encourage you to throttle things back a bit. You may feel free to post about your concerns about the masculinity of both gay men and feminists, provided you do so in a thoughtful and respectful way.

I won’t issue you a warning for the above, but it easily could have gone the other way. Please show more restraint in the future.

104

I think we also need a third element: what is the purpose of the art being comissioned? It’s not uncommon for art to be commissioned for a specific purpose and I can certainly understand that an artist might view his work being used for that purpose as a tacit endorsement of that purpose.

So, what we’d have is Customer A commissioning Artwork B for Purpose C. The baker wants to discriminate on the basis of C; you seem to be willing to permit discrimination on the basis of B (and no one is actually arguing for discrimination on the basis of A). I don’t know; refusing to make a piece of art becuase it’s going to be used for something that you object to doesn’t seem extremist to me.

105

Sure. But again it comes to where lines are drawn.

If I am a chef, can I argue that the food you order is a work of art and I therefore will not provide it to you if you’re going to eat it with your same-sex partner?

106

By the by, are you aware that “the Fed” is not “the Federal government?”

107

Your average wedding cake is made by a workman, not an artist. It may take skill, precision and a fair amount of effort to do correctly, but it isn’t a uniquely creative work of art to make a 3 tier Yellow Cake with Lemon Curd filling, white buttercream frosting and 2 colors of flowers and frilly wedding trim. It’s no more artistic than painting a house with the correct color scheme.

Sure, occasionally you get a Cake Boss monster that is a magical work of art, but the overwhelming majority are just a big cake with intricate decoration.

108

You’ve never heard of Chik Fil A, and how they donate to dedicated hate groups, who’s vile campaign of lies and evil helped convince Ugandan politicians to make homosexuality punishable by death?

You didn’t hear republicans claim that not spending your money how YOU wanted to is “against the first amendment”, in an attempt to shame people that were doing a moral, justified boycott ?

You didn’t hear how Chik Fil A did fine, despite the boycott?

Sorry, but the free market doesn’t protect minorities, and anyone who claims it does it throwing them under the bus in order to wank off at the idea of more profits.
And before you try to claim the FRC said they didn’t really want gay people to be murdered, look at the words of their president.

109

it was discussed on this board - pretty sure in this forum - but my search skills are lacking -

110

I think this is exactly where the freedom of speech argument against these laws falls apart - people do not generally view the messages expressed on the top of a commercially purchased cake as representative of the views of the baker. If I buy a “Greatest Mom Ever” cake for Mother’s Day, no one is going to assume that the cake represents the views of the baker on my mother’s skills as a parent. Similarly, if I hire a sign-maker to paint a sign advertising my product, and that sign makes demonstrably untrue claims about what my product does, nobody is going to hold the sign-maker liable for my false claims. And like andros pointed out, it’s pretty easy to claim just about anything as art. The previous example of a hamburger maker versus a cake decorator? When I made the burger, I drew a happy face on the bun with mustard. Now it’s art, and I don’t have to serve it to you, you filthy faggot.

That being said, there is a point where the name associated with a work of art is, itself, part of the value of the work of art. If Steven Spielberg makes a movie about a subject, it’s fair to assume that the movie in some way represents Spielberg’s views on that subject. That should give him a legitimate excuse to avoid accepting a job that required him to a make a movie supporting something he finds repugnant, even if it involves a protected class.

IANAL, but isn’t there something about operating out of a storefront that applies to these sorts of questions?

111

Boy, anti-gay bakers sure do bring out the crazy (that is not in reference to the following quote.)

I think it’s a stretch to say a cake- even the most elaborate- is art. Art has no objective value; a cake is still food underneath. I had the same concerns about the wedding photographer who found herself in the same pickle, because she wasn’t being asked to produce art; she was asked to document an event (albeit in a pleasing manner.)

Who else gets to assert a compelled speech argument? The caterer? The bartenders?* The DJ? Some guy stringing up decorations? And what separates those people from those with religious/ethical objections to miscegenation? At the end of the day, you just have to live with the fact that people you don’t like might occasionally patronize your business.

*alcohol, of course, being the highest form of human expression and thus entitled to whatever protection other forms of art get times ten. :smiley:

112

I guess it depends. If you refuse to serve me and my partner in your restaurant? Clearly a problem. If you refuse to cater our commitment ceremony and create a custom menu? Closer to the line, I think.

I was just going with the cake-as-art premise. Although, I’m not sure that something isn’t “art” just becuase it’s “useful” (I’m having weird flashbacks to IP class and some fancy dishes, but I can’t remember whether we cared about the “art” part or the “useful” part). A photographer is another good example. I’m not sure where the line is (although the “conservative” (?) in me has trouble compelling anyone to perform any service, even though I understand that counter-argument).

I’m more sympathetic when it is a unique product (wedding cake versus twinkie) or a personal service (like a photographer). But, honestly, I dont’t really know.

113

If I’m the “you” (I bolded it) that you are referencing, I absolutely am not in favor of that form of discrimination and my post was not advocating for it. I was speaking in the hypothetical debate about artists rights.

I have spoken out multiple times on this board and in this thread against discrimination of types A, B, and C.

114

I did mean you. And I misunderstood, I apologize (to be clear, by “in favor of” I mean “willing to permit” not that you have personal objection to gay cakes).

I took you to be saying that you would tolerate an objection to the cake based on what the cake was going to look like (i.e., the gay cake), but not based on who was asking for it.

115

Consider the kerfuffle over pharmacists objecting to dispensing birth control. The general consensus (and the law, in states which adopted pharmacy “conscience clauses”) seemed to be that the individual pharmacist could refuse to fill the prescription, but the pharmacy could not.

So maybe the baker can refuse to bake a Gay Cake, but the bakery can’t. A bakery obviously can’t be an artist (though Bricker might disagree). Now, if the bakery only has one baker, well, sucks to be him.

116

I choose not to revist the conscience rights of individuals versus sole proprietorships versus corporations in this thread. However, if we accept the rights of the individual artist not to be compelled to make his cake-art for an objectionable purpose (a big if, I know), then that really has to extend to any bakery in which all the bakers feel the same way (either because there is only one baker or becuase there are a number of them that all feel the same way). The problem with the pharmacist (and it might be a problem with a baker) is if the employer doesn’t care, do you have to accomodate the dissenting baker?

117

You mean if the employer supports the baker’s choice?

118

Me personally? I don’t give a flying fuck, I happen to be bisexual. However more comment at the bottom of the post.

And more post at the bottom.

My example was designed specifically for the whole custom cake aspect.

Yes, that type of action is very passive agressive, they follow the exact order - white cake, brony toppers, buttercream frosting. The protest is in the form they follow the order in - cheap boxed cake mix and premade fake nasty buttercream. They can not be faulted for following the order exactly as long as the fine print didn’t say anything like the finest homemade whitecake flavored with fior di sicilia extract, frosted with the finest homemade buttercream made with Irish artesanal butter. Many people couldn’t honestly tell cheap box mix and crappy tub buttercream - it is what they would be getting from a grocery store or many bakeries, actually.

I would not actually call the process of baking the cake art - baking is frequently called a science [so much can go wrong if you do things incorrectly.] Making the buttercream isn’t an art, it is kitchen chemistry. The art comes in the decoration of the cake [look at cakewrecks for what happens when you are not artistic in the right way!:eek:] It could be said that the averagegeneric wedding cake- plain smooth frosting with wilton type roses around the edges isn’t particularly artistic, but there is a certain small amount of talent needed to do one correctly. I ask you, is it still art if it is made out of crappy tub buttercream? Should an artist be forced to create?

To be blunt about it, just go somewhere else. Why force the issue - if it were reversed and gay was the majority and a cute little hetero couple wanted to get married and you were prejudiced the other way, how would you feel about the nasty dirty heteros wanting you to make their cake urgh! Give your trade to a baker that welcomes it and let the prejudiced one have their own trade. Hell, I had a grocery store half sheet cake my mom bought because I wasn’t intending to actually have a cake. My first wedding was a 5 minute break in the middle of a division party housewarming our new apartment.

119

Why do people keep saying brony?

120

No, I was arguing the hypothetical, not my personal point of view, trying to tease the nuances apart. I think the “type C” you added was along the same lines was what I was trying to discuss.

Personally, I believe that if you are a commercial enterprise and what your client is asking you to do is not illegal or disruptive, you need a more compelling reason to say no than “I don’t like it”. I will admit to shades of gray (do all cake makes have to make raunchy bacholorette penis cakes?), and I can see how content of the cake’s imagery can fall into that area, but for the most part it is pretty black and white.