Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, Round 2

[Angrboda]

The law is not based around "whatever", but instead on deeper meanings such as discrimination.

The baker should be entitled to bake.  That alone is the point.  When the baker includes politics, he includes his prejudice.

So does the law say a Baker is allowed to refuse services only to some causes/events and not others, and then list all the acceptable ones?

From my reading of the court opinion, a baker may not refuse to provide service to a protected class if his religious objection violates a neutral and generally applicable law, such as Colorado's law concerning public accommodations. What wasn't decided, however, is whether there is a free speech exception to be made, and whether such an objection applies in the case of the baker. If baking a cake is an artistic expression, it would seem to fall under the purview of free speech, and the court has historically ruled that speech cannot be compelled. So that issue is outstanding in this case.

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Oh come now you evil atheist....  can you think of anything more evil, more despicable, more un-american than asking a baker to bake cakes for money ?

Unamerican is using government power to compel labor from people and forcing them to express values violating their conscience.

Compelling labor? The baker has already committed to serving protected classes by hanging out his shingle. The state doesn't consider that compulsion. You shouldn't either, but I realize that if you can twist words to argue your conservative and Christian talking points, that's what you will do. Whether he is being compelled to express any values or not is still to be decided by the courts. Personally I'd rather not have the courts deciding which products are examples of free expression or not, but that seems the road we're headed down.

[Catholic_Lady]

Part of me though, wants that to be allowed so the baker's racism can be exposed and his busyness boycotted and go down in flames.

This didn’t happen in the past though, and there’s no reason to think it would happen today. Racists have their supporters, and often people won’t care or can’t boycott. If you live in small town America and there is one grocery store, owned by a known racist, it’s difficult to depend on any white families to boycott his business, because they unfortunately rely on it. The civil rights act was brought about to try and prevent this kind of behavior in the first place, and it worked. Business owners cannot legally discriminate towards people based on skin color anymore.

I need to get going, but do definitely want to come back and talk about this bc I am on the fence about it and can see pros and cons and arguments to both sides, depending on which extreme is taken.

Maybe a real quick response would be that marriage itself is considered a religious sacramental ceremony to a lot of people, and so they have certain beliefs surrounding it. Particularly that it is a union between one man and one woman, and that's it. Graduation doesn't have ties to any sort of deep seeded sacramental or religious beliefs, neither does it make sense that it would. So I would call BS on the person who tried to pull that card.

The problem is marriage is considered a religious ceremony by every religion, and it has deep societal ties that predate most religions. Whether you approve of it or not, marriage is now a legal institution as well. You can get married without having to set foot in a religious building.

Now, wedding cake doesn’t have any religious connotations to my knowledge. Why should providing a wedding cake, or any catering for that matter, even come close to entwining with a potentially sacred ceremony?

Or to put it another way, how is the ceremony legitimized in the eyes of a believer who opposes the religious / sacred nature of the event by the presence of a cake.

To add to your point about it being a religious ceremony. Should this baker be allowed to refuse a cake to a straight couple who are atheists? Or who have married before (assuming he is Catholic)? Also, if he does provide cake to atheist couples, or non-Catholic couples, does it change your opinion if he still refuses to provide cake to gay couples? That is, if he is clearly only discriminating against gay couples, should that be legal?

I can understand a minister/pastor  being allowed to deny the actual service by the way. I don't think anti-gay priests should be forced to perform same-sex marriages, nor do I think Catholic priests should be forced to perform marriages of previously married people. However there is a gargantuan difference between a priest, who performs a vital role in the ceremony, and a baker, who provides the fucking dessert.

Let me make it clear that I'm not saying I agree with refusing to make a gay wedding cake. Only with the freedom to legally refuse to. Personally, I would still make that cake. I was only differentiating a college graduation with a wedding, and explaining why refusal to service a cake to one stems from pure racism against the person graduating, while the other may stem from legitimate moral/religious beliefs about marriage itself being between one man and one woman. And that is because marriage has for a very long time, and still has, strong associations to religion... while a college graduation has not. So, right or wrong, it makes sense that a person may have a moral/religious opinions on marriage itself. Graduation? Not so much.  

So if anyone tried to say they were refusing to make a cake for a black person's graduation party on the grounds that "black graduations" (which isn't even a thing) is somehow against their moral and/or religious beliefs, I would call BS. I would say that baker is discriminating against the person, and not the event itself, since there is no association between graduation and religion.

That's all I was saying. Whether or not making a cake for an event necessarily means you "support" or "take part" in the event, or whether there is any connotation there, I guess depends on how the person themselves feel about it. Like I said in another post, personally I can think of some events I would not want to make cakes for because it would in fact make me feel like I was contributing in some way to something I was deeply opposed to.  

To add to your point about it being a religious ceremony. Should this baker be allowed to refuse a cake to a straight couple who are atheists? Or who have married before (assuming he is Catholic)? Also, if he does provide cake to atheist couples, or non-Catholic couples, does it change your opinion if he still refuses to provide cake to gay couples? That is, if he is clearly only discriminating against gay couples, should that be legal?

To people who have been married before, yes, they should be allowed to refuse to service their wedding. Though I don't know why a couple would walk in and mention that this is their second time getting married, but if they did, yes, I think legally the baker should be allowed to refuse. As for the rest, as far as I know, it isn't against any religion for atheists or people who are not of a particular religion to get married. So I would probably lump this in with the graduation scenario. The question would have to be asked, is the refusal based on the people themselves? Or on a real moral/religious opposition towards the event itself? 
Perhaps the best way to handle completely off the wall scenarios like the ones above would be to take them to court and let them figure out whether there is legitimate religious and or moral beliefs behind it. 
Just as we can think up scenarios where a baker refuses to make a cake for a black person's graduation party, we can also think up scenarios where a baker refuses to make a cake for a white supremacist gathering. I am curious to know where you would draw the line and how you think this should be handled, legally.

[edited because I don't proof read before posting lol]

[Mr.wizard]

I don't think I fully understand the issue.

Was the cake ultimately refused because of the identity of the person, or something about the cake that expressed trans pride?

I have to say, there are some perfectly legal things that I, if I were a cake maker, wouldn't be willing to write on a cake.  "Congratulations on your son's circumcision," maybe, since I think that's a barbaric practice.  If pedophilia was somehow legalized (say if it was conducted under the auspices of a Church as "religious expression"), and I knew a cake was intended to be served at a pedophilia party, I might say, "Fuck you guys, you assholes don't get any of my delicious cake!"

What I don't understand is how any of this comes up in this particular case.  The gay wedding I get-- the baker is likely being asked to put two grooms on the cake, and the baker doesn't want to do it.  But in this case, how does the trans issue come up?  It seems to me very likely that someone, knowing the religious proclivities of the baker, is baiting him/her by injecting sexuality into a business transaction that wouldn't require it.

My question would be this: should a cake maker be allowed to refuse to write a message ON the cake if they want?  Can they just bake a generic cake, and give the person ordering a tube of stuff to write with?

I do think the cake maker has the right to refuse to write anything vulgar but if there are messages he refuses to write it should be the same for everyone. For example "Congrats Tom and Alex" cannot only be available to straight couples, and "happy birthday Jennifer" cannot only be available to people who aren't transgender.

[Angrboda]

I doubt that people ordering a cake for a second marriage bother to tell him that it's for a second marriage.

This person went out of the way to say it had to do with being transgender. They're trying to stir up shit.

Then perhaps, in order to maintain his status as a Good Christian in the eyes of the Lord, he should be screening all potential customers before consenting to provide his services.  I’m sure he’d be aghast at the thought that he was unknowingly complicit in sending out any kind of message that didn’t comport with his religious values, yeah?

Yeah, the day he starts screening applicants to be sure this is their first wedding and not their second, then he can bitch.

I don't agree with the free speech claims anyway, but it's an unsettled area of law. But really, how much "speech" is involved in baking a pink cake with blue icing? That's just bullshit on the face of it. But at the same time, we either have to adjudicate business by business or rule, contrary to precedent, that the production of a good or service doesn't qualify for an exception to a generally applicable law based on the free speech clause of the first amendment as well. I don't see the latter happening.

[The Grand Nudger]

I don't think I fully understand the issue.

Was the cake ultimately refused because of the identity of the person,

aaaayup. 

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"Congratulations on your son's circumcision,"

Perfectly allowable, by us law.

If pedophilia

also perfectly allowable, by us law.

[Cecelia]

I'm going to open up a bible store, and sell bibles as toilet paper. If anyone says they're going to use them in an objectionable manner -- e.g. using it to preach -- I will refuse to sell it to them.

[Cod]

An average sized land mammal that's making money from baking?

[Angrboda]

But...there’s no fundamental difference between a same-sex wedding and a hetero wedding either. It’s only an issue of the sex of the partners.

What if the baker’s religion told him that graduation ceremonies for blacks were against God? Does that change the issue for you?

I’m trying to understand what difference there is. At some point in your mind it becomes not ok. What is the differentiator?

I need to get going, but do definitely want to come back and talk about this bc I am on the fence about it and can see pros and cons and arguments to both sides, depending on which extreme is taken.

Maybe a real quick response would be that marriage itself is considered a religious sacramental ceremony to a lot of people, and so they have certain beliefs surrounding it. Particularly that it is a union between one man and one woman, and that's it. Graduation doesn't have ties to any sort of deep seeded sacramental or religious beliefs, neither does it make sense that it would. So I would call BS on the person who tried to pull that card.

Even in that case, the Christian prohibition is against same-sex acts, not against same-sex unions. The bible didn't foresee that development, and so it is silent on that score. Given that the bible is silent on whether same-sex marriage is or isn't a valid sacrament, it seems rather obvious that the baker was originally objecting to the homosexual orientation of the customers. One can infer that Christianity condemns same-sex marriage, but it's not a direct and obvious reading of the bible, anymore than that God approved of chattel slavery can be directly read in the bible. One has to take the sanction about homosexual acts in the bible and extrapolate from that to reach an opposition to the sacrament being applied to same-sex unions. Similar problems hold with a Catholic conception of the sacrament, as natural law is a philosophical position, not a biblical one. The Catholic church can, and an individual baker also can believe whatever they want regardless of whether it's biblical or not, but then you have to open up the whole can of worms as to what is protected in terms of religious objections. If I claim to be a religion of one person, can I use that to exempt me from any law I see fit just by changing my beliefs to suit?

[Cecelia]

If you're getting your morality from the bible, chances are you aren't a very moral person tbqh.

Let's not forget that this is a book that condones rape and slavery.  A book that inspired an entire organization who's long covered up child molestation within their own organization.  Maybe it's time to seek morality from a better source?

[The Grand Nudger]

Even in that case, the Christian prohibition is against same-sex acts, not against same-sex unions.  The bible didn't foresee that development, and so it is silent on that score.  Given that the bible is silent on whether same-sex marriage is or isn't a valid sacrament, it seems rather obvious that the baker was originally objecting to the homosexual orientation of the customers.  One can infer that Christianity condemns same-sex marriage, but it's not a direct and obvious reading of the bible, anymore than that God approved of chattel slavery can be directly read in the bible.  One has to take the sanction about homosexual acts in the bible and extrapolate from that to reach an opposition to the sacrament being applied to same-sex unions.  Similar problems hold with a Catholic conception of the sacrament, as natural law is a philosophical position, not a biblical one.  The Catholic church can, and an individual baker also can believe whatever they want regardless of whether it's biblical or not, but then you have to open up the whole can of worms as to what is protected in terms of religious objections.  If I claim to be a religion of one person, can I use that to exempt me from any law I see fit just by changing my beliefs to suit?

US law doesn't give a fuck about any of that.  I know..I know, you put alot into that...still...it's true, and worth stressing.