Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, Round 2

[Tiberius]

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.

If the cake had any important role in the wedding ceremony, I'd agree with you. It doesn't though. At best, it's a tradition for weddings, but you can have a wedding without one. You can't say the same thing about communion wafers, they are an important part of the communion ceremony.

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.

The lawyer would only be engaged in anti-Christian harassment if: (1) she was doing it repeatedly, which remains to be seen, and (2) if she was purposefully targeting him because of his Christian beliefs, as opposed to her actually believing that he was being discriminatory and breaking the law. I'm not saying it's impossible for her to be anti-Christian, by the way, just that it takes far more than what you have suggested to conclude that.

I think your choice of phrase "Civil disobedience is generally directed" is important. Generally doesn't mean exclusively. So yes, sometimes civil disobedience can be directed at other citizens.