This thread is not about “workplace discrimination”. Why are you insisting that it is?
Business discrimination, then.
(Is the question of workplace discrimination settled, then? No one here suggests that private businesses should be allowed to discriminate in hiring and workplace behavior? Great! I’ll take that as a victory.)
Words have meaning. “Workplace discrimination” generally refers to discrimination in hiring, promotion, salary, job duties, etc.
I’ve never heard of “business discrimination”, and I doubt others have, either.
I’d like to repeat my question from post 281:
Do you feel the same way about the Civil Rights Act’s classifications, or just sexual orientation? That is, should a free-exercise religious claim allow one to discriminate on the basis of race, religion, or national origin?
“Public accommodation” is the phrase used by the Civil Rights Act, and state laws like Oregon’s.
Which federal laws?
Beg your pardon: no, no Federal laws protecting gay public accommodation. I was conflating two issues, as there are Federal laws protecting black, Jewish, Hungarian, and women customers.
I would say “no, you don’t have to cater for Westboro Baptist.” You’re refusing to cater to them because they’re bigots, not because they’re Christians. Presumably, you would similarly refuse to work for an anti-gay rally put on by a purely secular organization, as well.
He was willing to serve the heterosexual woman until he found out the cake was ultimately going to a gay couple. That shows that the bias is, indeed, towards the individuals - as soon as he found out who the individuals involved were, he refused the work.
Also, the fact that the baker was willing to serve the gay couple in non-wedding related contexts does not mean he’s not a bigot - any more than a bus company being willing to seat blacks in the back of the bus, but not in the front, meant that they weren’t prejudiced against blacks. Bigotry comes in many shades and flavors. It is not at all uncommon for a bigot to be okay with a particular group, so long as that group “stays in its place.” A white person who gets along fine with black subordinates at work, but cannot abide working under a black manager is a bigot. A baker who doesn’t mind selling croissants to gay customers, but refuses to sell them wedding cakes, is likewise a bigot.
You made me snicker here, Miller. You seem overly eager to prove whether the baker is a bigot or not…to assign an ad hominem to him for some reason. Are you of the mind that people you don’t agree with or don’t like are not protected by the law? You might want to glance at the thread title to acquaint yourself with what is actually being discussed. Do you support the work of the ACLU to protect KKK marches? The right for Phelps to protest? And if you don’t, do you at least understand that those two groups, assholish as they may be, have people supporting their legal rights and they are not vile people for doing so?
Now, you said:
He was willing to serve the heterosexual woman until he found out the cake was ultimately going to a gay couple. That shows that the bias is, indeed, towards the individuals - as soon as he found out who the individuals involved were, he refused the work.
Would you say that this is also an accurate representation of the events:
He knowingly and wiling served the lesbian couple many times. He only declined to make them cake for their SS wedding. That shows that his bias is NOT towards gay people, as he had served them many times before, but against the particularevent, the SS wedding - which ran counter to has religious beliefs.
Tell that to Lester Maddox.
Lester Maddox was certainly an Axe Holder.
The ad hominem being what, “bigot?” I’m assigning it to him because it best describes his actions.
What? I don’t understand what any of that has to do with my post. I think the baker’s refusal to bake the cake is bigotry. It’s a form of bigotry that, in some states, has been made illegal. I’d like to see it made illegal in all states. I don’t think people opposing this idea are necessarily bigots or assholes (although, naturally some of them are). I think they’re misguided, in that I don’t think the baker’s rights have been violated by making him comply with the law.
I fully support and deeply admire the ACLU for standing up for the speech rights of even deeply evil organizations like the KKK or Westboro Baptist. I have no idea what the relevance of the ACLU is to my post. As far as I’m aware, the ACLU has supported the plaintiffs in this case, not the bakery.
Considering that it takes precisely the opposite position of what I actually wrote, no, I would not agree that that is an accurate representation of the events. The baker is not objecting to the event: he has no issue with marriage or wedding cakes in general. He objects to a certain class of people being able to participate in weddings. That he is willing to serve them in other capacities does not excuse or exculpate his bigotry in the issue of marriage. It just means that he is less bigoted than he possibly could be.
There are multiple different protected classes under various laws. And the federal courts have evaluated cases at different levels of scrutiny for one protected class as opposed to another.
As odd as that sounds, it means certain protected classes get less protection under federal law. For example, racial discrimination is subject to strict scrutiny. But discrimination based upon age is subject to intermediate scrutiny. Does that mean that should a case present itself in which a racial discrimination claim is pitted against an age discrimination claim that the racial discrimination claim would win out as it is “more protected”? Maybe.
Per the RFRA, laws targeting religious beliefs and practices must stand up to strict scrutiny. But that is the same level of scrutiny that race or national origin classifications are subject to. Is it a wash and the court must use some other means of resolving such cases?
Finally, currently sexual orientation is not a protected class under federal laws. There is a very recent case from the EEOC equating sexual orientation discrimination as being a types of sex discrimination. (That runs counter to decisions in prior lower court cases.) Even with that, sex discrimination is only subject to intermediate scrutiny. Perhaps the religious discrimination complaint wins out in a conflict with a sexual orientation discrimination complaint?
But it’s their sincerely held religious beliefs that you object to as being bigoted. And for that reason you would, and should, lose a religious discrimination case for refusing to serve the WBC on those grounds. At least if we’re going to hold that the catering venture is a public accommodation.
Cuts both ways.
Iggy’s right here. We cannot refuse service to members of WBC, no matter how bigoted they may be.
We can insist they not engage in bigoted speech during their duration in our shop. If they say, “God hates fags” out loud, we can say, “None of that kind of talk in here,” and we can make that stick.
But we can’t discriminate against them solely on the basis of their religious affiliation.
This disappoints me. Sure we disagree on the SS marriage issue, but I like too think you’re one opt the more level-headed people here. I can see how BOTH statements are accurate representations of the events. Can you not even see it from the other standpoint? Even if you can, it doesn’t mean that you must come out in favor of the baker. It merely means that you can see that we have two competing rights at issue here. That is the reality of things and the crux of the issue. The fact that you think that only your interpretation can be an accurate one shows that you’re not looking at things cleanly and fairly. I do realize that this issue is one that may affect you personally, but can you really not see how those two statements can both be accurate representations of the vents in my hypothetical?
I understand the opposite view just fine. There’s a lot of people who want to discriminate against gay people, but don’t want to think of themselves as bigots. So they go to elaborate lengths to create explanations for why it’s totally legit, and not at all bigoted, to treat gay people as second class citizens.
Luckily, I’m not under any obligation to buy into their bullshit. You cannot separate someone’s opposition to SSM from their views about gay people as a whole. You cannot “object to the event” while still claiming to have no prejudice against gay people. “Objecting to the event” is prejudice against gay people.
But I’m not rejecting it because it’s religious, I’m rejecting it because it’s bigoted. If I’m Jewish, I can’t refuse to cater for a Muslim party just because they’re Muslims. But I can refuse to cater if they’re organizing a “kill the Jews” rally, because that’s something I’d refuse to do for anyone, not just Muslims.
I realize your rationalization, but it just doesn’t work as a legal matter.
There is a fine line between protected religious expression and secular political activity. And if we are going to say that a particular business is a public accommodation then it is both religious belief and religious expression that must be protected.
Otherwise you get the business owner who argues that he will tolerate Jewish beliefs because he has to but will refuse to serve anyone wearing a yarmulke because that is expression. Doesn’t work.
I don’t believe this to be the case, but let’s assume that you are correct in that any opposition to SSM means that someone has a prejudice against gay people. SO WHAT?! You’ve now moved into the territory of thought crime, Miller. As you may know, there is no law against thinking that gay people—or any other group—are second-class citizens. We are allowed (for now, anyway) to dislike, despise, or otherwise think ill of any group. We just can’t act in a way that discriminates against individuals based on their membership in a protected class.
The baker in question has demonstrated by his actions that he has no problem serving gay individuals. But he does have a specific religious/moral problem with SS weddings, which is an event. As far as I know, “events” do not have rights, nor are they “members” of a protected class.
What you want to do is 1) define any action that may align with bigotry as bigotry, then 2) outlaw bigotry, and finally, 3) outlaw any action that may align with bigotry.
This leads to the possibility of a scenario in which you have a religious baker who knowingly serves gays every day, but feels morally compelled to not in any way support SSM, being forced to act in a way that violates his religious conviction.
Revisiting my hypothetical in which Sue wants to gift Joe and John with a wedding cake, how would Sue, a heterosexual, sue the bakery? On what grounds? She’s not gay, she’s not a member of a protected class. What is her standing? How has she been damaged? I bring this up again because I think it demonstrates that is is perfectly possible to separate out the event, that one can have different feeling about gays generally and the event specifically. That they are not one and the same.
Tell me, do you think that baker should also be forced to make the “Happy Divorce” cake? Or how about a cake for a polygamous wedding? Again, let’s say that Bob and Ann and Carol go into his bakery almost every day. But when asked to make a cake that says, “Congratulations on your wedding day, Bob & Ann & Carol”, the baker says that doing so violates his faith as it presents a version of marriage that does not comport with his religious convictions. Should he be forced to make the cake? What would be the grounds of the lawsuit against him?
Finally, do you grant the religious baker any allowance as to what type of cake he might decline to make on religious grounds? If so, what may some of those exceptions be?