# question for liberals; you've won, now what? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 20, 2014, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-liberals-youve-won-now-what/701915 "2014-10-20T14:23:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![babygoat666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/2acd7d/32.png) [@babygoat666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/babygoat666)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-liberals-youve-won-now-what/701915/221 "2014-10-21T20:36:15Z")
Should a janitor should be able to refuse to clean a site before a same-sex wedding is held there? I’m sure God would appreciate the spite. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-liberals-youve-won-now-what/701915/222 "2014-10-21T20:36:28Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > I think a person’s right to follow his own religious beliefs is trumps all. No, it truly does not; religions that advocate human or animal sacrifice, to use an extreme example. > [@magellan01](#): > > For a person to be asked to act in a way that goes against their religious conviction requires an overwhelming argument. No, it does not. ---
**Author:** ![babygoat666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/2acd7d/32.png) [@babygoat666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/babygoat666)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-liberals-youve-won-now-what/701915/223 "2014-10-21T20:38:37Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > By that same logic, someone could say, “I mean, just swear an oath. It’s just an oath. What religious conviction would be broken here, anyway?” > Whether a religious conviction would be broken is heavily subjective based on that person’s perspective. Not swearing to God, clearly. Is this a whoosh? No one’s advocating forcing the baker into homosexuality. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-liberals-youve-won-now-what/701915/224 "2014-10-21T20:41:38Z")
> [@babygoat666](#): > > Should a janitor should be able to refuse to clean a site before a same-sex wedding is held there? \*\* I’m sure God would appreciate the spite.\*\* Who decides that? ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-liberals-youve-won-now-what/701915/225 "2014-10-21T20:43:19Z")
> [@babygoat666](#): > > No one’s advocating forcing the baker into homosexuality. No, but the baker would be forced to assist something he does not religiously support - a homosexual wedding. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-liberals-youve-won-now-what/701915/226 "2014-10-21T20:45:53Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > No, but the baker would be forced to assist something he does not religiously support - a homosexual wedding. And if his religion opposed cakes for interracial marriages, black people or women would it be OK for him to refuse them too? ---
**Author:** ![babygoat666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/2acd7d/32.png) [@babygoat666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/babygoat666)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-liberals-youve-won-now-what/701915/227 "2014-10-21T20:46:30Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > No, but the baker would be forced to assist something he does not religiously support - a homosexual wedding. No one forced him to open a place of public accommodation. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-liberals-youve-won-now-what/701915/228 "2014-10-21T20:58:01Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > I think a person’s right to follow his own religious beliefs is trumps all. For a person to be asked to act in a way that goes against their religious conviction requires an overwhelming argument. If your religious convictions prohibit you from operating a commercial service or place of public accommodation with equal access to your facilities and services for all clients, then you should honor your religious convictions by finding another line of work. Same goes not just for bakers opposed to gay marriage but also for pharmacists who think birth control is a sin and vegetarian supermarket checkout clerks who believe eating meat is immoral and teetotaling taxi drivers who don’t want to transport luggage containing liquor. **If you have a job or a business that involves providing legal goods or services to the general public, you are not ethically entitled to deny certain services to certain members of the public because your religion forbids it.** And if you insist that you **are** entitled to do so, then you can’t complain if people who disagree with your imposing your religious discrimination on your customers consider themselves entitled to boycott your business. If people keep their religious convictions in their private life, they have a right to expect that they shouldn’t be discriminated against in the workplace because of them. But if they insist on obtruding their religious convictions into the workplace via selective refusals to do their job, then they’re the ones doing the discriminating. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-liberals-youve-won-now-what/701915/229 "2014-10-21T21:00:43Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > It’s not as simple as that. I know you’d like it to be, but it’s not. It’s not either/or. It’s the combination of the two. I have no problem with people getting drunk; I also have no problem with people driving cars. But when it’s both of those things, I, and I assume, you, would have a problem. Even if there were no law against it. Where this analogy fails is that drunk people driving cars **objectively increase risks for themselves and other people**. This is about what actually happens. Whereas same-sex marriage **objectively does not increase risks for themselves and other people**. So yes, although I object to car-driving when done by drunks, that’s not the same thing as objecting to marriage when done by gays. The latter is discriminatory. If drunks were a protected class, you’d have a point. You don’t. > [@](#): > > I think a person’s right to follow his own religious beliefs is trumps all. Of course you don’t think that. You don’t even think a person’s right to follow his own religious beliefs trumps paying taxes–or do you think that Quakers should be able to decrease their tax burden by the amount of the US military spending? Trumps all my foot. You likely just think that discrimination against traditionally persecuted minorities is not a big enough issue that we should have laws against it. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-liberals-youve-won-now-what/701915/230 "2014-10-21T21:02:02Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > No, but the baker would be forced to assist something he does not religiously support - a homosexual wedding. Bullshit. Quakers are forced to assist something they do not religiously support, i.e., warfare, but the baker is forced to do no such thing. A bigot baker always has the choice not to open a public accommodation. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-liberals-youve-won-now-what/701915/231 "2014-10-21T21:04:19Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > I think a person’s right to follow his own religious beliefs is trumps all. For a person to be asked to act in a way that goes against their religious conviction requires an overwhelming argument. For instance, it goes against the religious conviction of Quakers to swear to God. So they are able to affirm a position. This goes back to George Washington during the Revolutionary War when inhabitants of Westchester County (NY) had to take an oath of allegiance. A gay couple having to go to the baker down the street does not qualify as some huge burden. Do you believe the same should apply to a cake-maker who has sincere religious beliefs against interracial marriages or Jewish marriages? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-liberals-youve-won-now-what/701915/232 "2014-10-21T21:07:12Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Where this analogy fails is that drunk people driving cars **objectively increase risks for themselves and other people**. This is about what actually happens. Whereas same-sex marriage **objectively does not increase risks for themselves and other people**. So yes, although I object to car-driving when done by drunks, that’s not the same thing as objecting to marriage when done by gays. The latter is discriminatory. There’s also the little matter of legality. We as a society, via our elected representatives and the courts that condone their actions, have decreed that combining drinking with operating a motor vehicle is unacceptable. It’s not a question of whether we’d personally tolerate it “even if there were no law against it”; we as a society have decided that we **won’t** tolerate it, and hence there **is** a law against it. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-liberals-youve-won-now-what/701915/233 "2014-10-21T21:20:21Z")
> [@babygoat666](#): > > No one forced him to open a place of public accommodation. But that is question begging. The laws (in those states/localities) prohibit discrimination based upon the sexual orientation of the customer, not upon anything which may be related to sexual orientation. If the baker refuses service to gay people, then that is a violation of the law. It does not follow that the baker must bake cakes for all homosexual related activity imaginable. If a heterosexual man tries to buy a cake for his homosexual brother’s SSM, is the customer being discriminated against based upon sexual orientation? Of course not. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-liberals-youve-won-now-what/701915/234 "2014-10-21T21:26:39Z")
So if a baker says that he is not prejudiced against a particular minority, but he simply doesn’t believe that such minorities should be allowed to eat the cakes he makes, are you saying that’s okay? As in: “I will happily employ Zoroastrians. However, I have a religious objection to Zoroastrians eating sweets. Therefore, I will not sell cakes for Zoroastrian consumption. If a Zoroastrian seeks to buy a cake for consumption by non-Zoroastrians, that’s okay too.” Is it acceptable to not sell cakes on Zoroastrians on the basis that they might take the act of eating the cake? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-liberals-youve-won-now-what/701915/235 "2014-10-21T21:30:17Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > If the baker refuses service to gay people, then that is a violation of the law. It does not follow that the baker must bake cakes for all homosexual related activity imaginable. Nobody’s asking him to bake cakes for “all homosexual related activity imaginable”. They’re simply asking him to bake a **wedding** cake, which is a recognized and advertised part of the products and services he offers to the general public. It is none of his business whether the clients who order one of the wedding cakes that he offers for sale to the general public are Jim and Nancy, or Lee and Chris, or Mary and Amy, or Thomas and Kristof. As other posters have noted, if the baker happens to be religiously opposed to interracial marriage and procreation, would that make it okay for him to refuse to bake one of his advertised birthday cakes for a mixed-race child? ---
**Author:** ![babygoat666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/2acd7d/32.png) [@babygoat666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/babygoat666)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-liberals-youve-won-now-what/701915/236 "2014-10-21T21:31:35Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > But that is question begging. The laws (in those states/localities) prohibit discrimination based upon the sexual orientation of the customer, not upon anything which may be related to sexual orientation. > > If the baker refuses service to gay people, then that is a violation of the law. It does not follow that the baker must bake cakes for all homosexual related activity imaginable. > > If a heterosexual man tries to buy a cake for his homosexual brother’s SSM, is the customer being discriminated against based upon sexual orientation? Of course not. I believe some Christians interpret the Bible to mean that they shouldn’t commit homosexual acts. I don’t believe any religion on Earth prohibits baking a cake which will be served at an event in which two people commit their lives to one another. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-liberals-youve-won-now-what/701915/237 "2014-10-21T21:33:12Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > As other posters have noted, if the baker happens to be religiously opposed to interracial marriage and procreation, would that make it okay for him to refuse to bake one of his advertised birthday cakes for a mixed-race child? Good luck getting an answer to _that_ one, no matter how many times it is asked. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-liberals-youve-won-now-what/701915/238 "2014-10-21T21:45:16Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > I think a person’s right to follow his own religious beliefs is trumps all. [Oh really?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=575113) Magellan01: > [@](#): > > So, this woman, Imane Boudal, is suing Disneyland for her “right” to wear a hajib. She is a hostess at Disneyland’s Grand Californian Hotel. When she showed up with her hajib, she was told that she would have to work in the back, or go home. So, she sued. This seems completely asinine to me. Disneyland is a theme park, with cartoon characters reflecting their brand running all over the place. It seems perfectly logical that they would want the only extra-necessary clothing or accessories be Disney-centric. So, I’ll leave Miss Doubal with a hearty “fuck you” and move to the larger discussion. Magellan01[again](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12819527&postcount=21): > [@](#): > > Her actions point to the notion that her religious expression must be embraced by all. And to have a problem with some aspect of that expression is a violation off her rights. Can you just be honest? Just say you want Christians to be able to force their religion on others, but you are against Muslims and other religions from doing the same. Shout about how America is supposedly a Christian nation, and some other bullshit. I’m not going to respond to any reply you make to this post. I’ll just let Past Magellan01 [argue](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12819773&postcount=41) against you. Magellan01: > [@](#): > > So it’s the stupid vs the bigoted. If that’s the case, I’m going to have to go with the bigoted. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-liberals-youve-won-now-what/701915/239 "2014-10-21T21:46:25Z")
> [@babygoat666](#): > > I don’t believe any religion on Earth prohibits baking a cake which will be served at an event in which two people commit their lives to one another. And even if it does, the baker has officially disclaimed any allegiance to any such religious prohibition the moment he takes out his first ad announcing _“Bob’s Bakery, Wedding Cakes Our Specialty”_. If a core part of your fundamental business model is your declared willingness to bake and sell to the general public cakes which will be served at events in which two people commit their lives to one another—i.e., wedding cakes—then you are not ethically entitled to pick and choose which members of the general public you will sell them to. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-liberals-youve-won-now-what/701915/240 "2014-10-21T21:47:31Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > I think a person’s right to follow his own religious beliefs is trumps all. For a person to be asked to act in a way that goes against their religious conviction requires an overwhelming argument. For instance, it goes against the religious conviction of Quakers to swear to God. So they are able to affirm a position. This goes back to George Washington during the Revolutionary War when inhabitants of Westchester County (NY) had to take an oath of allegiance. A gay couple having to go to the baker down the street does not qualify as some huge burden. Would you extend this position to philosophical beliefs? I’m a utilitarian. Should my right to follow my own philosophical beliefs trump all? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-liberals-youve-won-now-what/701915.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-liberals-youve-won-now-what/701915.md?page=13)