I’m not talking about gays. No even if you think I am, I’m not.
The protected class that Ms Zealot has an issue with is race. Race is a protected class in all of the US. Ms Zealot says she lives in the US, it doesn’t matter where in the US she lives.
The Civil Rights Act absolutely applies, now can you please stop trying to claim I’m making an argument based on sexual orientation as a nation wide protect class.
If you’re going to offer works of art for sale to one group of people, you can’t change your mind and decide not to sell them to another group, within the legally protected classes.
You can’t say, “Ooh, my artistic integrity is compromised by a black customer,” and argue that the Civil Rights Act “forces you to create.”
You opened a store and put up a menu? Then you will serve customers equally.
What “white lie by omission” do you have in mind? A guy asks to buy a cake, and his sister is with him because she’ll be picking it up later. They had no intention to lie. They came in, did their business openly and honestly, and both parties were satisfied.
It’s the baker’s own stupid fault if he made an assumption.
Your case is getting thinner and thinner. It’s like one of those coins that’s so thin you can read the obverse through the reverse. Unless a gay carries a sign-board around with him at all times – “For Lo, I am Gay!” – then he’s “lying” by omission. What a silly assumption that is.
Oops, I am. If a guy is, say, a painter, and offers to execute highly artistic and skilled portraits, in return for money, as a business – then “artistic expression” is not a good enough reason for him to say, “Whites only.”
(Obviously, if this worked, every bigot would immediately claim that his business, from baking cakes to pouring concrete, was “artistic expression.”)
This thread is about gays. See the OP. Specifically, same-sex marriage and bakers and cakes.
You are talking about gays. Did you forget? Here’s you, in post # 425:
You’re the one who keeps bringing up race in a thread about discrimination based on sexual orientation. One is protected under the Civil Rights Act, and one is not. But you keep posting as if the same rules apply to both.
But, just for curiosity or devil advocate, if he worked from home and worked for cash and filed no tax returns and had no business licence, it would be pretty hard to prosecute him…
I do not think, believe or assume sexual orientation is a protected class throughout the US. I have never said, posted or claimed sexual orientation is a protected class throughout the US.
You are the only person who truly believes otherwise.
In the specific example in the OP about discrimination against gays the OP refers to a case in Oregon where sexual orientation is a protected class.
The title of the thread is ‘Should private businesses be allowed to discriminate’ not ‘Should private businesses be allowed to discriminate against gays’
You seem to think you have me in some sort of gotcha and harping on this will somehow bolster whatever argument you are trying to make. I don’t even understand what you are trying to argue in relation to the thread. Perhaps you should focus on that rather then the mistakes you’ve made in reading comprehension.
Seriously? You are going to cite a post in which I specifically told you personally I was not talking about gays as an example of me talking about gays?
So, let’s say I am an artist who has painted only white people all my life, and have never painted a black person. My skill set is just not developed in terms of getting darker skin tones accurately, so I kindly ask a potential black client to find another artist. He refuses to do so, insisting that I paint his portrait. Am I required to spend time making sure I am able to get darker skin tones right? Can I ask him to sign a disclaimer that he won’t reject the painting afterwards if the skin tone looks wrong?
What if I specialize in painting the female form, or painting children or dogs. Am I required to paint a man or an adult pr a human?
Well actually dark skin tones are much easier to paint. But to answer your hypothetical with a hypothetical, If I teach guitar, and I’m a “tough guy” and I think the piano is “for wimps” and I can barely even PLAY the piano and a wimpy looking person comes up to me and asks me for piano lessons and I tell them I can barely even play the piano and they say you are the greatest musician I have ever heard even if you you are not an expert at the piano I sill want piano lessons, well, yeah, I’d kind of be a jerk to not give them a piano lesson.
In the scenario you set up it seems Leviticus Bakery was an obvious Christian fundamentalist business, the kind of place where the owners put their faith into most aspects of their lines and would not want to bake a cake for a gay wedding. Your characters devised a situation in which most people especially of the Christian fundamentalist variety would assume the couple the cake was being made for was heterosexual. They did not do their business openly and honestly anymore than a guy selling bricks packaged in sealed Sony camcorder boxes is doing his business openly and honestly.
No you wouldn’t, they’d be jerks for expecting you to perform a service you don’t want to offer.
I think this trying to set the law as ‘if you are capable of offering a service you should be required to do so.’ That’s going over a line I’m not willing to consider.
I shouldn’t be able to force my grocery store into carrying kosher products I wish to by nor should I be able to force an artist that does nude portraits of women to do a nude of myself.
You know, I was very specific, for a reason. I put the “piano players are wimps” in there for a reason… to illustrate that when most people refuse to do something they have an undeclared bias. I get really suspicious whenever someone says to me:
“Robert, here is this totally hypothetical situation where I am not doing anything wrong at all now please listen to my example and tell me why after listening to my totally hypothetical situation where I am not doing anything wrong… why Robert why!!! why do you still think I’m a bigoted asshole!!!”
You shouldn’t assume that all Christians, or all evangelical Christians, are anti-gay bigots. Doing so is wrong. If a baker wants everyone to be aware that they intend to discriminate, the onus is on them to broadcast this intention.
Then we have been having different conversations. People have been bringing up constitutional principles like equal protection and the first amendment in the federal context.
I don’t know. Maybe but probably not.
When there is specific legislation that makes sexual orientation a protected class, then I would agree that a bakery cannot discriminate against people based on sexual orientation.
I would also submit that this is the minority of states and having protected class status in states that are already in favor of gay rights is not where gay rights are most in need of defense.
There is a difference between knowingly aiding and abetting in the commission of a sin and being deceived into doing so. If they were tricked and deceived then the sin belongs entirely to the gay couple.