# Should private businesses be allowed to discriminate **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 8, 2015, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-private-businesses-be-allowed-to-discriminate/724529 "2015-07-08T00:03:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 33
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-private-businesses-be-allowed-to-discriminate/724529/641 "2015-07-29T23:11:37Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > The logic is that the disfavor goes to the event, not toward the individual. Why is it okay to refuse to marry someone, but not okay to to otherwise be part of the ceremony? The events are baking a cake, hiring a person, providing a loan, and supporting an adoption based on a personal disapproval of the marriage of the couple. So you have still provided no reasonable distinction or reasonable logic to distinguish among the various denied actions. > [@magellan01](#): > > I see that a reasonable argument can be made as to what constitutes a “wedding”. Miller and you I think want it to be defined narrowly as the ceremony/exchanging of vows. But that does not seem to agree with what what most people view as their “wedding”. If Carl says, “I was at Joe and Karen’s wedding”, that VERY likely means that they were at the celebration, the reception, with cake and dancing, etc. It most likely does NOT mean that they were in the church and then went home while everyone else went to the reception. Pretty much irrelevant to the discussion. The people who are actually participants in the marriage are the spouses and the official witness. No one else is actually engaged in the marriage. Everyone else is merely an audience or a service provider for the celebration surrounding the marriage, not a participant. If the bakers want to drop off the cake and go home, they are free to do so. If the caterer chooses to ignore the toasts and dancing, that is the caterer’s privilege. In neither case are they being compelled to participate in the marriage. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-private-businesses-be-allowed-to-discriminate/724529/642 "2015-07-29T23:19:43Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Question: An interfaith couple are getting married: one is a Jew, the other a Catholic. They have an idea for some of the flower arrangements, they want some to be in the shaper of a Star of David and other to be in the shape of a Catholic Cross. Okay, Selma, the Jewish bride-to-begoes to a florist she really likes, who unbeknownst to her, is a devout Jew, and has religious objection to Jewish woman marrying non-Jewish men. Should he be forced to create the flower arrangements? He has no legitimate moral argument against making the arrangement unless he explicitly limits himself only to weddings of Orthodox or Hasidic Jews that conform to Jewish Law. He may grump and grumble and tear his beard, but he has no right to refuse the arrangement. What is the moral principle on which he stands? If he makes arrangements for Christians or Muslims who are not marrying Jews, (or for Reform Jews), he has already demonstrated that his morality is not endangered by providing services outside Jewish Law. He is not a participant, in any case. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-private-businesses-be-allowed-to-discriminate/724529/643 "2015-07-29T23:20:11Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Sure, they’re different. How are they different in a way that’s significant to your argument? Again, the point I’m arguing against is the idea that what these bakers object to is the event, not the person. There’s nothing inherent in that argument that requires the event be special or momentous. There’s no reason, as far as I can see, that the argument could not be applied to any sort of event, regardless of size or import. > > Maybe you misdeed this: > > [QUOTE=magellan01] > Secondly, do you not see that some events have religious connections and other do not? Getting on the bus to go to work, uh, no. It’s an article of my faith that the superiority of the white race over the black race was ordained by God, and that attempts at so-called “equality” are an affront to the natural order placed upon us by the almighty. But it’s not that I have anything against black people, you understand - I just object to the practice of treating them like they’re as good as white people. You can tell that I’m okay with black people, because I let them ride on my bus. But only at the back, so they don’t take up all the good seats that belong to their betters. Any black person that insists on sitting at the front of my bus is violating my religious freedoms. What argument do you have against that, that does not apply in equal measure to arguments against marriage? [/QUOTE] I have to stop rolling my eyes every time I see people try to equate gayness with blackness and slavery and Jim Crow. I’d love a simple acknowledgement that SS marriages are, in FACT, redefining what marriage means. Now, I know you’re okay with redefining it, and so are tons of other people, and it’s a 100% valid position, but that does not get away from the fact that it is different. With your position, you’re stuck suggesting an equivalence between the religious and traditional view of marriage being a union of one man and one woman, and the _notion_ that the main argument against blacks and whites marrying was rooted in religion. That is not the case. It was rooted in racism, a bigotry that is antithetical to the founding of the country. The Christian view of marriage as being between one man and one woman is not in any way challenged by the skin color of the participants. One man, one woman. Now, I absolutely do grant that this presents a problem in that, as you just offered, someone can declare their belief (or prejudice) to be religiously based. But we have that problem right now, don’t we? While we make allowance for sincere religious beliefs, surely the courts have had to tell someone that their supposed religious belief was bullshit. Or, at the very least, that it would be too difficult for society to accommodate it. I’d be interested to see how the courts have handled that. But, for me, I think the right thing to do is to give the benefit of the doubt to the religious belief and not force people to do things against their moral conscience. Obviously if the belief states that I must eat my first child or mutilate my child in some way, it’s easy to tell that person, "Sorry, we can’t accommodate your religious belief. But if it’s something as simple as baking a cake for a SS or interfaith wedding, seems like the reasonable thing to do would be to tell the people involved, “Don’t ruin your day or their lives. Go to another baker.” ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-private-businesses-be-allowed-to-discriminate/724529/644 "2015-07-29T23:26:37Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > . . . “Don’t ruin your day or their lives. Go to another baker.” Don’t rock the boat; sit in the back of the bus. To you, the comparison to race-based discrimination is eye-rolling, but to most of us, it’s very much the same. A bigot is trying to deny equal access to public accommodation on the basis of group membership. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-private-businesses-be-allowed-to-discriminate/724529/645 "2015-07-29T23:28:49Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > The logic is that the disfavor goes to the event, not toward the individual. Why is it okay to refuse to marry someone, but not okay to to otherwise be part of the ceremony? > > I see that a reasonable argument can be made as to what constitutes a “wedding”. Miller and you I think want it to be defined narrowly as the ceremony/exchanging of vows. But that does not seem to agree with what what most people view as their “wedding”. If Carl says, “I was at Joe and Karen’s wedding”, that VERY likely means that they were at the celebration, the reception, with cake and dancing, etc. It most likely does NOT mean that they were in the church and then went home while everyone else went to the reception. It doesn’t matter whether people consider the “wedding” to be only the church, or whether they include the reception. The argument is regarding what constitutes “participating”. The officiant is clearly participating and I haven’t seen anyone suggest that a priest or rabbi or other non-government officiant shouldn’t be able to decline to participate. The baker, however, is no more participating in the event that the company that made the speakers the DJ uses is participating in the event. The baker is simply providing a product that is used at the event - he or she isn’t even present at the event. I can see how the baker _might_ object to writing " Congratulations on your wedding, Tom and Steve" - but the solution to that is to provide only normal wedding cakes with no inscriptions to both opposite and same-sex couples ( I have literally never seen a wedding cake with anything written on it and cannot even imagine where you would fit writing on most of the cakes I’ve seen.) ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-private-businesses-be-allowed-to-discriminate/724529/646 "2015-07-29T23:30:00Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > He has no legitimate moral argument against making the arrangement unless he explicitly limits himself only to weddings of Orthodox or Hasidic Jews that conform to Jewish Law. He may grump and grumble and tear his beard, but he has no right to refuse the arrangement. What is the moral principle on which he stands? If he makes arrangements for Christians or Muslims who are not marrying Jews, (or for Reform Jews), he has already demonstrated that his morality is not endangered by providing services outside Jewish Law. He is not a participant, in any case. This has two parts. One is that you seem to be able to easily insist that a Jewish businessman cannot be okay with cakes for all sorts of wedding except those which involve a Jew and a person of another faith. I have no idea how you think you can make such a sweeping statement. I have Jewish friend who’ve had relatives that have refused to even attend their interfaith wedding, even though they’ve had no problem going to Christian weddings. Second, you, too, see intent on defining the participation in the event as narrowly as possible. I guess you would hold that if your not being asked to be part of the religious ceremony, keep your convictions to yourself. Hell, maybe you;'re of the mind that if you’re not the one performing the ceremony, keep your mouth shut. Well, let me ask you. Who other than the priest being asked to perform a SS or interfaith wedding would be allowed to have a religious belief or crisis of conscience that would allow him to not participate in any part of the wedding day. As far as the “wedding” being restricted to the ceremony itself, as opposed to the reception, etc., see my response to **Miller**. You seem to want to craft the definition in a way that would be foreign to almost everyone. At least here in the U.S. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-private-businesses-be-allowed-to-discriminate/724529/647 "2015-07-29T23:34:37Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > The events are baking a cake, hiring a person, providing a loan, and supporting an adoption based on a personal disapproval of the marriage of the couple. > So you have still provided no reasonable distinction or reasonable logic to distinguish among the various denied actions. You are correct, there are no differences in what you describe. But we we;re not talking about “baking a cake”, generically, are we? No, we’re not. We’re talking about _baking a wedding cake for a SS wedding._ Odd that you missed that in the discussion. 😉 > [@tomndebb](#): > > Pretty much irrelevant to the discussion. The people who are actually participants in the marriage are the spouses and the official witness. No one else is actually engaged in the marriage. Everyone else is merely an audience or a service provider for the celebration surrounding the marriage, not a participant. If the bakers want to drop off the cake and go home, they are free to do so. If the caterer chooses to ignore the toasts and dancing, that is the caterer’s privilege. In neither case are they being compelled to participate in the marriage. They are if you compel them to be part of the celebration. You’re asking them to play a part in a celebration that they have religious objection to. And for no reason ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-private-businesses-be-allowed-to-discriminate/724529/648 "2015-07-29T23:35:40Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Don’t rock the boat; sit in the back of the bus. > > To you, the comparison to race-based discrimination is eye-rolling, but to most of us, it’s very much the same. A bigot is trying to deny equal access to public accommodation on the basis of group membership. Is a Catholic priest who refuses to perform a SS wedding a bigot? ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-private-businesses-be-allowed-to-discriminate/724529/649 "2015-07-29T23:41:54Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > It doesn’t matter whether people consider the “wedding” to be only the church, or whether they include the reception. The argument is regarding what constitutes “participating”. The officiant is clearly participating and I haven’t seen anyone suggest that a priest or rabbi or other non-government officiant shouldn’t be able to decline to participate. The baker, however, is no more participating in the event that the company that made the speakers the DJ uses is participating in the event. The baker is simply providing a product that is used at the event - he or she isn’t even present at the event. You overstate the case so grossly here as to allow me to discount it as nonsense. If you’d like to present another comparison, I’ll consider your point. > [@doreen](#): > > I can see how the baker _might_ object to writing " Congratulations on your wedding, Tom and Steve" - but the solution to that is to provide only normal wedding cakes with no inscriptions to both opposite and same-sex couples ( I have literally never seen a wedding cake with anything written on it and cannot even imagine where you would fit writing on most of the cakes I’ve seen.) This is interesting. First, I’d ask you to clarify something: would you be okay with the baker not having to write “Congratulations on your wedding, Tom and Steve”? ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-private-businesses-be-allowed-to-discriminate/724529/650 "2015-07-29T23:42:40Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Second, you, too, see intent on defining the participation in the event as narrowly as possible. I guess you would hold that if your not being asked to be part of the religious ceremony, keep your convictions to yourself. Hell, maybe you;'re of the mind that if you’re not the one performing the ceremony, keep your mouth shut. Well, let me ask you. Who other than the priest being asked to perform a SS or interfaith wedding would be allowed to have a religious belief or crisis of conscience that would allow him to not participate in any part of the wedding day. Lots of people who do actually participate - the guests. Or the caterer/baker/DJ who is exclusively available for events taking place in the synagogue/church hall and doesn’t work anywhere else. But if you open a business as a wedding photographer or a baker who sells wedding cakes who will work anywhere within a specified geographic area , then you don’t get get to discriminate based on your religious beliefs where sexual orientation is a protected class. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-private-businesses-be-allowed-to-discriminate/724529/651 "2015-07-29T23:46:06Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > This has two parts. One is that you seem to be able to easily insist that a Jewish businessman cannot be okay with cakes for all sorts of wedding except those which involve a Jew and a person of another faith. I have no idea how you think you can make such a sweeping statement. I have Jewish friend who’ve had relatives that have refused to even attend their interfaith wedding, even though they’ve had no problem going to Christian weddings. Don’t twist my statement. The overwhelming majority of Jewish bakers will bake for anyone. However, you set up the weird situation where a baker was refusing services only to mixed marriages and, since Jewish bakers overwhelmingly have no objections to that practice, I noted that the only way he could put forth a legitimate moral or religious claim was if he, in fact, limited his business to one exclusive subset of marriage, since his refusal is based on a claim that is clearly NOT part of Judaism. If you are going to twist a scenario into a pretzel in order to support your argument, I am going to point out any flaws in your argument–and have done so. > [@magellan01](#): > > Second, you, too, see intent on defining the participation in the event as narrowly as possible. Of course. That is the only legitimate approach. The Oregon bakers and Arizona florists never claimed that they would refuse services to a birthday party or a retirement party or a _bon voage_ party for a homosexual couple. They objected to Same Sex Marriage and that is defined as the union of two persons with a witness for the state. That is the only thing to which they objected, so why would I wish to broaden the scope of the discussion beyond its natural bounds? Miller and I are not crafting the discussion in a way that others do not see, we are addressing the actual substance of the issue. If you have evidence that people are refusing to provide services to activities in which homosexuals engage where that refusal is based on actual moral grounds, feel free to provide it. Otherwise, you are simply trying to drag a red herring through the discussion ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-private-businesses-be-allowed-to-discriminate/724529/652 "2015-07-29T23:53:19Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > With your position, you’re stuck suggesting an equivalence between the religious and traditional view of marriage being a union of one man and one woman, and the _notion_ that the main argument against blacks and whites marrying was rooted in religion. That is not the case. It was rooted in racism, a bigotry that is antithetical to the founding of the country. The Christian view of marriage as being between one man and one woman is not in any way challenged by the skin color of the participants. One man, one woman. Considering that the Constitution explicitly made race-based slavery legal, I think it’s hard to argue that it was antithetical to the founding of the country. But that’s neither here nor there. And I didn’t say that racism in the US was rooted in religion, merely that quite a lot of bigots and slaveowners used religion to justify their discrimination. Just as, today, a lot of bigots and homophobes use religion to justify their discrimination. You’d like to draw some sort of bright line, between the sort of discrimination that you disapprove of, and the sort of discrimination you personally practice. But no such bright line exists. It’s all discrimination, and it’s all equally wrong, and there’s no semantic crutch you can find that will change that. > [@](#): > > Now, I absolutely do grant that this presents a problem in that, as you just offered, someone can declare their belief (or prejudice) to be religiously based. But we have that problem right now, don’t we? While we make allowance for sincere religious beliefs, surely the courts have had to tell someone that their supposed religious belief was bullshit. Or, at the very least, that it would be too difficult for society to accommodate it. I’d be interested to see how the courts have handled that. We make allowances for sincere religious beliefs, when those beliefs aren’t causing undue harm to other people. And yeah, I know what you’re going to say: “It’s just a cake! Where’s the harm in not getting a cake?” Except it doesn’t stop at a cake. If a baker can ignore anti-discrimination laws because of their religious convictions, why not a landlord? Or a banker? Or a doctor? The law in question isn’t about cakes, it’s about equal protection. Why should only bakers get a special exemption from that? ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-private-businesses-be-allowed-to-discriminate/724529/653 "2015-07-29T23:54:57Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > You overstate the case so grossly here as to allow me to discount it as nonsense. If you’d like to present another comparison, I’ll consider your point. Overstated how? The baker produces a cake and is not him/herself present at the site of the wedding. The speaker manufacturer produces the speakers and is not present at the wedding. Someone made every single item that is used at the wedding, from the dishes to the napkins to the wine to the favors to the paper used to print the invitations. Why is the baker a participant, but the others aren’t? And it’s not because the cake is custom-designed - plenty are ordered from a fairly limited selection of designs and are no more custom-designed than a cake from Baskin Robbins. > [@](#): > > This is interesting. First, I’d ask you to clarify something: would you be okay with the baker not having to write “Congratulations on your wedding, Tom and Steve”? As long as he _also_ doesn’t write “Congratulations on your wedding, Amy and Steve”, I’m fine with it. Also fine with the baker not baking wedding cakes at all and restricting himself to birthday , retirement and bon voyage cakes… ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-private-businesses-be-allowed-to-discriminate/724529/654 "2015-07-29T23:55:28Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > As far as the “wedding” being restricted to the ceremony itself, as opposed to the reception, etc., see my response to **Miller**. For the record, I’m not hanging my hat on what does or does not constitute participation in a wedding. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2015, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-private-businesses-be-allowed-to-discriminate/724529/655 "2015-07-30T00:35:50Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Is a Catholic priest who refuses to perform a SS wedding a bigot? Yes. But so what? He has that right. ---
**Author:** ![sinjin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sinjin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sinjin)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2015, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-private-businesses-be-allowed-to-discriminate/724529/656 "2015-07-30T02:59:48Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > “And the icing should say ‘LESLIE AND ASHLEY’.” > “Okay, now you’re just screwing with me.” We have male cousins and uncles named Leslie and Laverne and Clementine. How about Stacey, both girl and boy on that one. How about Pat, hahahahaha. Leslie and Ashley back in civil way days would have both been boys. How creepy is that? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2015, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-private-businesses-be-allowed-to-discriminate/724529/657 "2015-08-03T04:12:41Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > You didn’t answer the question. Is someone who objects to letting black people sit at the front of the bus objecting to the person, or to the “event” of a black person sitting at the front of the bus? That would be discrimination against the person. They are being told to sit at the back of the bus because they are black and for no other reason. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2015, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-private-businesses-be-allowed-to-discriminate/724529/658 "2015-08-03T04:18:01Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > What do you believe is reasonable about it? > > What would be the difference between the baker who refuses a wedding cake for a same sex marriage and a banker who refuses to provide a loan for a house to a same sex couple The banker is discriminating against the couple because they are gay. A better analogy would be a banker that refused to finance a gay wedding. Or perhaps refusing to finance a business that promoted a gay lifestyle, no analogies are perfect i suppose. > [@](#): > > and an employer who will not hire a homosexual in order to avoid providing insurance for a same sex couple or an adoption worker who will refuse to provide assistance to a same sex couple looking to adopt? Once again, that is discrimination against the individual. > [@](#): > > What is the logic behind their purported argument? > Refusing to marry someone of the same sex? That is fine. You mean I can refuse to be the officiant at a gay wedding but I can’t refuse to be the caterer? > [@](#): > > Beyond that, there appears to be only personal disfavor rather than logic. Since when did religion depend on logic? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2015, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-private-businesses-be-allowed-to-discriminate/724529/659 "2015-08-03T04:21:42Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Well, yes, every moment in time _can_ be defined as an event. That’s why your (and **Damuri** ’s) defense is so meaningless. There’s absolutely no difference between calling a marriage ceremony an event, and calling eating at a lunch counter an event. If one can be excused from accusations of bigotry by saying it’s the “event” of marriage you object to, and not the person, why could someone not make the exact same excuse when it comes to segregated water fountains, redlined real estate, or not letting women vote? Why does the logic you’re using apply to weddings, but not those other things? Because you are taking things to ridiculous extremes. By saying that every moment in time is an “event,” you are using the term event differently than I am. A biracial wedding is an event. The people who would not bake a cake for a cake for a biracial wedding would probably not bake a cake for a black wedding either. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2015, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-private-businesses-be-allowed-to-discriminate/724529/660 "2015-08-03T04:24:36Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Sure, they’re different. How are they different in a way that’s significant to your argument? Again, the point I’m arguing against is the idea that what these bakers object to is the event, not the person. There’s nothing inherent in that argument that requires the event be special or momentous. There’s no reason, as far as I can see, that the argument could not be applied to any sort of event, regardless of size or import. > > It’s an article of my faith that the superiority of the white race over the black race was ordained by God, and that attempts at so-called “equality” are an affront to the natural order placed upon us by the almighty. But it’s not that I have anything against black people, you understand - I just object to the practice of treating them like they’re as good as white people. You can tell that I’m okay with black people, because I let them ride on my bus. But only at the back, so they don’t take up all the good seats that belong to their betters. Any black person that insists on sitting at the front of my bus is violating my religious freedoms. So white people are better than black people? That is almost the definition of racism. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-private-businesses-be-allowed-to-discriminate/724529.md?page=32) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-private-businesses-be-allowed-to-discriminate/724529.md?page=34)