Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, Round 2

[Neo-Scholastic]

I can see the difference. What I disagree on is that a cake for a gay wedding is promoting a message with which they disagree. A cake isn't a message. I'm not even sure you could call it a symbol. It's a cake. It's food. It gets looked at and then eaten.

I fully explained the difference in a very long post further up. TL;DR. No one disputed the argument,as I presented it (in response to you actually) for why the cake indeed serves as a symbol. Communion wafers are food too. I find it hard to believe you would not consider them symbolic in certain contexts. Flags are just pieces of fabric sewn together. Paintings are just dirt and oil daubed on rough cloth. Ever hear of private-labeling? A supplier makes a generic product, like breakfast cereal, and the seller puts his brand name and logo on it. So your basic sugary cereal gets marketed as "Fruity Loops" or something. But a seller could ask to have it branded anything they wanted, like "Queer Cheer O's". Following your line of reasoning, the supplier could not refuse, because, it's just cereal.

Do you honestly believe that the person complaining about Philips actually followed through with another baker because he or she really and truly wanted that particular cake design? Elegant Bake Shop is 1 block away and Azucar Bakery is less than 5 minutes away from Masterpiece. Either one would probably been willing.

I've seen this brought up a few times in the thread, that because an activist purposefully tried to get rejected for a cake, means that the rejection is somehow less "not OK". I find the argument confusing at best. The reasoning for the person going there, whether they had an ulterior motive or not, should not be relevant to the outcome. The law is tested by people challenging it. Do you have a problem with the fact that Rosa Parks planned her protest? That she was practically hand-selected to be the face of anti-segregation? You shouldn't, because whether or not she was trying to get arrested to raise awareness is not relevant to the fact that the law was unfair and unjust.

Whether or not it is "not OK" legally remains to be seen. If Philips is indeed within his rights, as many like me believe, then the lawyer is engaged in an act of anti-Christian harassment. My point is not that testing a law is in-and-of itself unacceptable, but the compassion to Rosa Parks is not a fair one. The civil rights movement was against wide-spread government oppression by discriminatory laws enforced by the police. A very small family-owned business hardly constitutes a threat to civil society. Civil disobedience is generally directed at an oppressive government, not other citizens.

The larger point is that there are no heroes in this situation. Philips isn't the most sympathetic character. And the lawyer is a real scum bag. He or she repeatedly made bogus requests knowing that there would be no consequences. True civil disobedience entails risk. Rosa Parks could have gone to jail or worse.