# 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:** 7\ **Page:** 34
**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, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-private-businesses-be-allowed-to-discriminate/724529/661 "2015-08-03T04:25:37Z")
> [@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. > > 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. You are using a different definition of the word event. ---
**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, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-private-businesses-be-allowed-to-discriminate/724529/662 "2015-08-03T04:27:53Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > 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. Yes, its still discrimination. The question we are addressing is whether it is driven by animus against gays or by a religious belief against gay marriage. ---
**Author:** ![Smartass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@Smartass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smartass)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-private-businesses-be-allowed-to-discriminate/724529/663 "2015-08-06T21:58:54Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > 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._ Okay, I’ve slogged through all 13+ pages of this thread, and there’s a key (I think) point here that I haven’t seen addressed, at least not directly… The religious objection here SEEMS to be that SSM is a sin. In which case, I think it would be obviously outrageous to demand that a religious person marry someone of the same sex, since that would be demanding that they commit a sin. It would be clearly requiring them to commit an act that is in conflict with their religious convictions. The leap that I can’t follow is where baking a cake for an SS wedding is committing a sin or “violating” a religious conviction. In my mind, monitoring the sins of other people is just being a busy-body for no good reason (and in direct conflict with the tenets of every Christian denomination that I know of). By way of analogy, I don’t see how it’s any more a “sin” to bake a cake for an SS wedding than it is to [ul] [li]Sell a car to someone who then uses it as a get-away car in committing the sin of “stealing”.[/li][li]Sell bed sheets to someone who then uses them to commit the sin of adultery.[/li][li]Sell a hammer to someone who then uses it to commit the sin of working on the Sabbath.[/ul][/li] And why are SSM weddings being singled out here? Why is selling a product to someone that they use to commit adultery not as offensive of a violation of religious conviction as selling a cake that will be used to celebrate a SS wedding? Since when do we consider selling someone a product as some kind of moral “endorsement” of what they are going to do with that product? Since when does the fact that a religious person views an act as a “sin” entitle them to try to interfere with the ability of _other people_ to commit that sin? It seems to me that the baker in this scenario is acting like “forcing” them to bake a cake is “forcing” them to commit a sin. From my standpoint, all the baker is being asked to do is mind his own business, focus on his OWN sins, and not try to force his definition of “sin” on other people with different religious convictions. Far as I’m concerned that is the crux of the issue. It’s not whether you’re allowed to refrain from SSM if you think it’s a sin; it’s whether you’re allowed to try to force your definition of “sin” on other people. Since when do we think that’s fair? In my opinion, the whole tone of this argument has been based on a religious standpoint of, “How dare you insist that I violate my religious beliefs?” which is, at best, disingenuous. What they really mean is, “How dare you insist that I go along with SOMEONE ELSE doing something that violates my religious beliefs.” To me, that is a big damn difference. Every Christian that I’ve ever spoken to says something like, “We’re all sinners.” My question is, in what version of Christianity does religious “conviction” require you sit in judgment over _other_ sinners? -VM ---
**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:** [August 6, 2015, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-private-businesses-be-allowed-to-discriminate/724529/664 "2015-08-06T22:17:12Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > 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. And the couple was refused a cake because they are gay, and for no other reason. ---
**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:** [August 6, 2015, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-private-businesses-be-allowed-to-discriminate/724529/665 "2015-08-06T22:18:24Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > So white people are better than black people? That is almost the definition of racism. “Almost?” ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-private-businesses-be-allowed-to-discriminate/724529/666 "2015-08-06T23:06:31Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > 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? To add to your post, it’s not just a hypothetical. There are religions that used to believe exactly that. Well up until the success of the Civil Rights movement, the Souther Baptist Church used to believe exactly that. Same with the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa. ---
**Author:** ![boytyperanma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4491bb/32.png) [@boytyperanma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boytyperanma)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-private-businesses-be-allowed-to-discriminate/724529/667 "2015-08-13T22:05:27Z")
ANot her case of the courts disagreeing with people trying to argue religious objection. > **[Colorado Court Rules Against Baker Who Refused to Serve Same-Sex Couples...](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/14/us/colorado-court-rules-against-baker-who-refused-to-serve-same-sex-couples.html?moduleDetail=section-news-0&action=click&contentCollection=U.S.®ion=Footer&module=MoreInSection&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&pgtype=article&_r=0&referrer=)** > > The court said religious beliefs were not grounds to refuse service in a case that involved a bakery’s refusal to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-private-businesses-be-allowed-to-discriminate/724529.md?page=33)