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They are talking about something a little different there, where laws are not ‘written’. They mean ‘unwritten law’.
I completely agree, but I was trying to look at it from the other side
It’s a bad argument.
Just trying to extend sciurophobic’s logic to other situations. If it’s OK for a baker to refuse a Satanist, it should be OK for a pump jockey or fast food slinger, and it should be OK for a baker to refuse a Jew.
Yes. He can refuse anyone he wants to.
No. Let me try again.
Scenario 1:
Satanist customer: I’d like a cake. I’m throwing a birthday party.
Christian baker: You’re a Satanist. I don’t like your religion. Go away.
My conclusion: The baker is in the wrong. He’s discriminating against a member of a protected class.
Scenario 2:
Satanist customer: I’d like a cake. I need it for a Black Mass.
Christian baker: That would be blasphemous. My religious belief is that I can have no part of it.
My conclusion: I’m not sure. Is the Satanist being discriminated against, or is the baker making a legitimate business decision?
An image came to my head, an old shop with a sign reading: “No Libertarians allowed”. The perfect crime.
Fair enough.
Or a black person, or a woman, or an old person. This is what we’ve already decided as a society is intolerable.
Are you talking about the logic sciurophobic is proposing, or about what you believe he should be free to do (which he is not)? A few extra words would make your commentary a lot clearer.
He is free to turn around and simply walk away. He does *not *have to offer a reason or have one. This is a free country! That’s what ‘freedom’ means! He certainly does not have to blame the other party. He could use the George Costanza approach: ‘It’s not you, it’s me’.
Again… not really true. You can turn away any individual you like, but you cannot make a habit of turning away people because they belong to a protected class.
No cake for you!
I went to get pizza last week and they had no dough. True story. It’s café that serves pizza on Tuesday and Thursday only, and the delivery did not come.
The funny thing to me about the title of this thread is that, of the people I know who are gay, the ones I don’t gel with are the ones who are too nice, to the point that it starts feeling awkward. I know the stereotype is that gay men are bitch and gay women are brutish, but I’ve never encountered that situation in real life. Perhaps it’s because they know what it’s like to be treated poorly.
Gay men aren’t different from any other group in terms of diversity. Some of the nicest and most polite people I’ve met are gay, and so are some of the biggest jerks. And in both cases I wouldn’t assume that being discriminated against has anything to do with it. There are so many things that shape our personalities that it can be hard to find a common thread like that in a large group of people.
I wonder if Melchior is taking the system whereby, when no statute governs, judges make rulings on the basis of common practice, which then becomes precedent – or the precedent system itself – along with the fact that legislatures sometimes take it upon themselves to codify custom as statute, and concluding that law and custom are the same.
I’m seeing hints of SovCit logic there as well.
Well, I’m talking about more primitive stages of society where there was no ‘written’ law. Marriage customs date from prehistory.
As an atheist, I wouldn’t be comfortable with any of the putative religious bakeries I postulated, and I would avoid patronising them. But I do think it would be a way to deal with the issue without forcing people to violate their consciences.
Two points in response to that:
(1) Whatever it “stems from”, what it ultimately becomes is determined by legislatures and courts.
(2) The customs around marriage have changed many times over the years, and most recently they have changed to include same sex couples. (I would predict that polygamy is likely to be the next such change.)
“Legitimate” is in the eye of the beholder; but I do think it should be constitutionally protected. I don’t want to see people who make art on commission be required to commission works that they find repugnant. Whether I personally agree with their repugnance is not really the appropriate litmus.
One quick defense against satanic or phallic cakes is to have a catalog of cakes: the customer can choose model A, model B, or model C. No customization.
The problem, of course, is that the baker then must never make exceptions and do customizations for anyone, because if he bends his rule for one group, and not for another, he’s risking committing actionable discrimination.
Still, as it goes, it’s a foolproof defense.