I have always felt that if a business owner wanted to discriminate, that should be their right. I think that people should be able to choose who they want to do business with, and if I have a particular talent that I sell, I should be able to choose who I perform that talent for or who I make something for. (Private practice) lawyers get to choose their clients, don’t they?
Obviously the government cannot discriminate, but I feel that private businesses should be able to choose who they serve. If Phelps Bakers refuses to make a gay cake, then people can go to their prefered social media site and say “Phelps Bakers discriminates against gays! If you support equal rights, please go to Rainbow Bakers instead!!!” … and vice-versa. I feel that this is something that the free market can and should handle.
I was planning on first asking if private businesses COULD, before debating the SHOULD, but the story seems to indicate that businesses are getting in trouble for refusing to make a same-sex marriage cake. I don’t understand why this couple didn’t just find a more gay-friendly baker, and then tell everybody what jerks the homophobic bakers were being. Religious Beliefs, Gay Rights Clash in Colorado Court Case Over Cake
This was inspired by a FB debate by some Christians who claimed that the SCOTUS ruling on same-sex marriage was going to force them to go against their religion. I pointed out that they would not be forced into a gay marriage, and they brought up the cake thing. I said that I agreed with them that a baker shouldn’t be forced to make a cake that they didn’t want to, but that equal right was far more important than a baker having to make a cake with 2 grooms on the top. [I guess I’m really trying to just head off the people who assume I’m a homophobe based on this. I support and celebrated this ruling. I just have always thought that private business should be able to chose who they serve, and that it should be OK to be an asshole business owner.]
Haven’t we discussed the add infinitum here already?
There are people here who support it but most of SDMB seems to be against it. The problem that I see is in small towns, what happens if it becomes very popular to turn away a certain customer? What if all the restaurants, or most of them, don’t want to serve “people who look like illegal immigrants”??? In a larger town there may only be one such shop if it is a narrow or specialized service. If there is only one shop in town that provides service and they do not want to serve [Y] category of people, people in category [Y] now have to drive to another town to receive service .
The free market will take care of it. There are now doubt plenty of bakeries that will be more than happy to serve those gay couples who desire to marry. The current lawsuits filed against Christian bakeries are just the latest way that individual gay couples can obtain social status and signal their righteousness to the rest of progressive America.
The entire debate over gay wedding cakes is just a way for gay people and their fellow travelers to get revenge on conservative Christians. There’s no meaningful debate because wedding cakes are nearly a commodity and are easily replaceable.
Moreover, there’s almost no possibility than any major or publicly traded company could successfully discriminate on any category. Discrimination is bad for business because it pointlessly drives away potentially profitable transactions and any corporate management that tried to do so would surely find themselves swiftly excommunicated by shareholders from the company they once run.
It depends on how private. Does your business need the public streets and sidewalks for it’s customers to get there? Is it a corporation? Is it a licensed, certified, or otherwise regulated business? Are you using that internet that I pay for in my phone bill?
So if you can be so private that you are not consuming any extra public resources at all, then sure, discriminate to your heart’s content.
Except in small towns. There are two bakeries in this town I live in, 20,000 people in the city, 30,000 in the county as a whole. The issues of cakes has never come up as far as I know but it’s not a town where it is “accepted” to walk around an be flamboyantly gay. I think your idea that they can allways just go to another shop is not accurate.
What is wrong with that? It wouldn’t even be an issue if their status was not already in question by conservatives.
Yes, it is payback. For decades of mistreatment. I’d say your concern here is for the wrong people.
Like post a sign that says We Choose not to serve, gays, blacks, Jews, or whatever?
Because if you are, I’m pretty sure the free market will indeed solve the problem swiftly indeed.
Of course most people might choose to discriminate against businesses that are being hateful to others. You okay with that discrimination? Or are you just looking to dish it out?
I wouldn’t worry about that. Gay people already cost straight people about 100K (per gay person) in lifetime HIV costs. And thanks to Obamacare, those costs are born by the population at large—that is, straight people.
You create an impossible dichotomy where any use of public resources, no matter how meager or inconsequential, gives progressives a right to enforce equal treatment of different groups. Most of those things you mention are either public goods provided by government wherein corporations pay their fair share (i.e. sidewalks paid for by property taxes and public streets paid for by gas taxes) or services paid for solely by the business itself (i.e. internet access is a private agreement between an ISP and a corporation, certification is paid for by the business in question). What’s more, this demon is one of progressive’s own creation; liberals support endless public spending projects and regulation of private enterprise, then turn heel and insist that this government involvement gives them the prerogative to further involve themselves in someone else’s affairs.
Just as it is possible to support gay marriage without being gay, and possible to support the right to abortion without desiring abortions yourself, it is possible to support the right to discriminate without wanting to do so. It’s absolutely fine if the public chooses not to patronize businesses that discriminate.
Sure it is. But the fight isn’t over. In fact, it’s hardly even begun.
AFAIK, bakers are still not required to make a cake “with 2 grooms on the top”. They might choose to not carry that item. And, Kennedy did NOT elevate gays to a “suspect class”, so they don’t automatically get heightened scrutiny at the federal level anyway. In some states they are a “suspect class” but in some they are not, so it depends on which state you live in whether or not a baker would required to serve gay customers. But even then, they aren’t required to carry all possible cake toppings.
So? It’s not like every town is expected to provide every type of service those there might need or want. There are towns, I’m sure, that have no bakeries, and people have to travel to a neighboring town. Also, there are many towns which people go out of their way to get to because the bakery there has better cakes, ignoring their hometown baker. You seem to be apply a standard that shouldn’t be applied.
I can not possibly fathom how you can say it is ok if they have to go to the next town for service, but, that is precisely what you are saying, is it not? Going to another town for a service because that shop in that town does a better job is different than going because you were discriminated against. Going to another town for service because there is no such store in your town is different than going because you are discriminated against.
I think that having such a sign would save them the trouble of telling potential customers “no thanks”. In the olden days word would get around, but these days, everybody would know because a bakery choosing to not make a birthday cake for a kid with a middle-eastern sounding name would go viral on FB. While I suspect a suspect that a savvy atheistic baker would way “WTF do I care if they want angels on the cake? It’s money”, I think he should be able to say “I don’t do religious stuff” and turn down that money for as long as his business can survive with such a stupid business model.
I’ve mentioned several times on this thread but these is going to be a difference between a town with 20,000 people and a town with 100,00 people. Discrimination in a small town that is geographically isolated is not going to produce a “huge uproar” on Facebook.
Well, obviously some private businesses are allowed to discriminate. Ever seen a gym that only serves women? I doubt that the dating services on gay websites offer much to heterosexuals. And my local barbecue place probably doesn’t serve much that Orthodox Jews can eat. Plainly the debate is not over whether businesses can discriminate, but over which businesses can.
Those of us that bother to read our history know for a fact the free market did not work to end discrimination. In many cases it worked to encourage businesses who would not have adopted bigoted policies to adopt them as a means to compete in a marketplace full of bigoted people.
Please stop trying to volunteer minorities to be part of your free market experiments.
It seems that the problem with my position is that we would have to draw a line between essential services (obviously an ER doctor can’t say “I don’t work on xxxxx”) and far less essential services (I can’t think of any example less essential than cakes)
If a huge business like Wal-Mart can say “we won’t make Confederate flag cakes”, why can’t a family owned bakery say “we won’t make gay wedding cakes”?
In any case, I’m with the OP. I’ll take freedom over forced cake-baking.
I’m also noting some hyperbole on the issue. A bakery in Oregon supposedly caused “emotional trauma” and “physical injury” to a lesbian couple by refusing to bake a cake, according to the government. What physical injury they caused is not stated. As for emotional trauma, I wish someone would traumatise me so I could get a six-figure sum from them.