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Furthermore, there is a distinction between not serving someone because they are gay (or making a cake for a gay person), and not making a wedding cake for a gay marriage. Just like there is a distinction between making a cake for a German person and making a cake decorated to honor Adolf Hitler.
Adolf Hitler?
I think you've made what many people would consider a valid point in the first sentence. A gay person comes into a bakery and buys a cake; fine. A gay couple tries to order a cake for their wedding; not fine.
I don't agree with the point I think you're making there, but I understand it.
But then there's the second, unfortunate example with Hitler.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bangorme
Furthermore, there is a distinction between not serving someone because they are gay (or making a cake for a gay person), and not making a wedding cake for a gay marriage.
Just like there is a distinction between making a cake for a German person and making a cake decorated to honor Adolf Hitler.
I've bolded several words in your post to help illustrate just how awful that sounds:
Gay is to gay marriage as German person is to Adolf Hitler.
I've bolded several words in your post to help illustrate just how awful that sounds:
Gay is to gay marriage as German person is to Adolf Hitler.
A straw man argument, which is an unfortunate tactic often used by those trying to impose their will on others. There was no association between gay anything and Hitler in my post. Its intent was to point out the absurdity of the argument being used by those trying to coerce, intimidate and threaten people willing to express their religious beliefs.
Let me make it simpler: WHAT'S ON THE CAKE IS THE ISSUE, NOT THE CAKE. Sorry to highlight it, but I guess it had to be explained at that level.
I've bolded several words in your post to help illustrate just how awful that sounds:
Gay is to gay marriage as German person is to Adolf Hitler.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bangorme
A straw man argument, which is an unfortunate tactic often used by those trying to impose their will on others. There was no association between gay anything and Hitler in my post. Its intent was to point out the absurdity of the argument being used by those trying to coerce, intimidate and threaten people willing to express their religious beliefs.
Let me make it simpler: WHAT'S ON THE CAKE IS THE ISSUE, NOT THE CAKE. Sorry to highlight it, but I guess it had to be explained at that level.
Let's review.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bangorme
Furthermore, there is a distinction between not serving someone because they are gay (or making a cake for a gay person), and not making a wedding cake for a gay marriage. Just like there is a distinction between making a cake for a German person and making a cake decorated to honor Adolf Hitler.
What's on the first cake would be two brides, or two grooms, or illustrations and text that would make it clear that the wedding cake was made for a same-sex wedding.
What's on the second cake is some version of "Happy Birthday, Adolf Hitler."
You are saying, literally, that your first example illustrates a distinction that is "just like" the distinction illustrated in your second example.
You may not have thought you were saying or implying any association between "gay" and "Hitler", but in reading your post, I clearly saw that association. The deliberate use of "Adolf Hitler" in any attempt to illustrate anything but inhuman behavior is at best unfortunate, and often shameful.
I won't say anything else about this. It makes me feel sick.
There is no distinction between making a cake for an organization that you find morally reprehensible, or a for the celebration of some act you find morally reprehensible. Trying to make that distinction is just sophistry. It really doesn't matter what YOU think is right and wrong. The making of a cake is a contract between two entities. Both should have the right to chose whether or not they want to enter into a contract. This isn't a debate about the "rightness" of gay marriage, but the RIGHT of someone to have a moral and religious objection to it, and run their business according to that objection.
In most regards, they do have a right to choose whether or not they want to enter into the contract.
There are two issues, however. First, if you allow a business owner to turn down a customer because the customer is gay or because he/she doesn't approve of gay marriage, you eliminate the "right" to choose for the gay couple. It's a precedent that says any business that doesn't approve of gays/gay marriage can say "straights only!" and get away with it. Legally, the theoretical gay couple who owns a bakery couldn't refuse service to a Catholic or refuse to make a cake for a Catholic wedding because Catholics are protected against discrimination under the law. In many cases, gays are not. Why should one party be able to discriminate, but if the tables are turned (and the gays are the business owners catering a religious ceremony), one cannot? There's nothing equal or fair about it.
Second, there are always ways to refuse service or business to customers without bringing religion or sexual orientation into it if the owner really wants to. Refusing service on the basis of "religious beliefs" or "sexual orientation" is either a stubborn move or a downright stupid one on the part of the business owner even if it's not illegal (yet). If they are truly offended and they really don't want any part of the marriage, they can simply say, "sorry, we're slammed and can't take new orders right now." Done. They've managed to avoid "participating" (I hate using the word because it's a freaking cake... they're not actively "participating") AND avoid offending the couple and causing a stir. If they take that approach, they save face and so does everyone else.
My personal feeling is that even deflecting the order by saying "we're slammed" is sleazy, but this is the real world and it it's really that awful for the business owner to do the cake, they don't have to. You talk about "shoving gay marriage" down everyone's throat (more on that in a second), well publicly denying service to a same sex couple is shoving religious beliefs down everyone's throat. There's no need for it and thankfully, they got burned for doing it.
This "religious freedom" B.S. is just a blatant means for someone to discriminate against gays in the name of God. Theoretically, it opens a big can of worms. There are many, many things that the Bible denounces, yet they're everyday occurrences (even among Christians). Legislation supporting the right to refuse based on religious beliefs allows business owners to refuse service for essentially anything. Aside from same sex couples, women are really open to be discriminated against because of laws like that. For example, a business could essentially refuse service because a woman is showing ankles or wrists (scantily dressed, according to the Bible). A woman could be refused because she's wearing gold earrings or has braided hair ( "that women should adorn themselves modestly and sensibly in seemly apparel, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly attire"). They could turn down a divorcee or anyone who married somebody who has been divorced. Of course, these things aren't really of concern because the legislation is specifically targeted at alienating gays. Still, it's the definition of slippery slope.
Still, I get the biggest kick out of Christians who feel they should be able to deny service based on "religious beliefs." What ever happened to "Judge not, that ye be not judged?"
Quote:
Furthermore, there is a distinction between not serving someone because they are gay (or making a cake for a gay person), and not making a wedding cake for a gay marriage. Just like there is a distinction between making a cake for a German person and making a cake decorated to honor Adolf Hitler.
This is contradictory to what you just said. If the wedding of a same-sex couple is "morally reprehensible," then aren't you essentially saying gays are morally reprehensible (in this case, the "organization"). As far as the Christian argument against gay marriage goes, it's homosexuality that is the "sin," the wedding (which is only in the eyes of the law anyway- not the Church) is essentially just a part of it. Trying to draw a distinction between being gay and a gay wedding from the opposition's perspective is a laughable nitpick. You've thrown "straw man" and "sophistry" out there, but this paragraph of yours is the biggest offender. And you make a hitler reference for good measure and Greene Gene is making the straw man argument? Come on.
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In practice, this whole discussion is designed to shove gay marriage down the throat of people that have religious objections to it. Who would eat a cake baked by someone against their will? I wouldn't, and neither would anyone else. It would be funny if is wasn't so obviously authoritarian.
No. It's not. It's designed to attain equality for a group of people that has been discriminated against for decades (centuries, really). It has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with our country taking the steps necessary to make sure that this minority has the same protections as any other under the law. It's about being equal, not favoring anyone or shoving anything down anyone's throat. Favoring same sex couples would be doing something like saying that they don't have to pay taxes... you know, like the Church doesn't. You can object for religious reasons until you're blue in the face, but religious views, while protected under the law (as they should be), should have no influence on it.
As with your KKK example, the neo-Nazis are an organization that promotes hate and violence as well as discrimination. A Jewish business owner could easily decline to do the work (legally) out of fear of violence against them.
So if it’s a fear of harm, declining the service is okay, but if it’s a matter of conscience, then buck up and bake the cake?
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Originally Posted by lrfox
The Athiest is a different story. For starters, I think the atheist should be open to accepting the business because the catering isn't going to determine the results of the event and well, money is money. I also feel a little less sympathy in that situation because the local Baptist minister is a majority entity supporting legislation to deny equal rights to a minority group. It's also a gray area and wording is important. If the Atheist restaurateur said "I won't serve Christians because it's against my beliefs," They're discriminating against someone based on religious affiliation and that's discriminatory and illegal and they should be punished.
However, if they say, "We won't work for anyone who is trying to deny equal rights to a minority group," then I think they're within their rights. Religion, at that point, is out the window. It becomes about the business supporting equal rights- not denying services to a religious group. It really doesn't matter whether it's a Baptist minister, Neo Nazis, or KKK if you phrase it that way.
The BEST option (and this should apply to the pizza place in Indiana) would be to say, "sorry, we are booked up that day!" At the end of the day, a business is a business and getting involved in controversial issues like this rarely ends up going well. You're either crucified on social media and in the court of public opinion, or you're nailed legally. The expression, "there's no such thing as bad exposure" is no longer true considering how fast these things can go viral.
You were making a good argument till your last point, when you tipped your hand and lost me entirely. You seem to agree that there are times when someone ought to have a right to refuse a service. But in order to make all the lawyers happy, they need to obfuscate and dodge or outright lie about the real issue and make it about something else.
I reiterate my original comment: That’s messed up. You want laws on the books where people of conscience have to lie to remain in compliance. That is all kinds of messed up.
It reminds me of the old comment: When you ignore the Big Laws, you don’t get freedom or anarchy. You get Small Laws. If obeying a law (small law) means you have to lie (breaking a Big Law), then your small law is firetrucked up from the get go.
We have now become a nation obsessed with small laws, and because we can’t obey the Big Law: Love thy neighbor, we now get to be buried in all the small laws, and in order to assuage our conscience, we have to lie --- even to ourselves --- to get away with it.
That’s messed up.
And for the record, I do think the Christian-owned bakeries are wrong in not serving gay couples. If it’s a matter of conscience, then according to the Sermon on the Mount, they shouldn’t refuse to bake the cake, they should bake them two cakes. So I do disagree with them. I just don’t want to live in a country that would make criminals out of them.
Personally, I don't see any of this as much of an issue. It's still just a publicity grab for a guy that lives in the middle of nowhere and rides on the pendulum that swings WAY over there. My question is WHY can't he come up with legislation that would be useful to the people of Maine, rather than jump on the Arkansas-Indiana-Oklahoma bandwagon. If he thinks we need that kind of thing so bad, he might start looking west.
So if it’s a fear of harm, declining the service is okay, but if it’s a matter of conscience, then buck up and bake the cake?
Yes, I think it's pretty fair to say there's a big difference there, no? If there is a fear of harm, especially one with precedent (i.e. antisemitic violence toward Jews), it's absolutely fine to decline service. The idea of the KKK ordering cake from a Jewish bakery seems straight out of an episode of Family Guy (read: terribly unrealistic), but if it ever happened, it would be grounds for calling the police. The KKK member might even end up in trouble for harassment.
The "issue of conscience" is debatable. I think minority groups (and not hate groups or terrorist groups like the KKK) deserve legal protection from discrimination. We're not talking about the KKK who has a violent history of hate or a guy who's on trial for mass murder. We're talking about sexual orientation here. If you open a business that profits from serving the public, you should be required to serve the public so long as "the public" A) can pay for the product or services and B) isn't doing anything else to disrupt the business (i.e acting in a way that endangers people around them, is unhygienic, etc.). If you have an issue with a minority group that may utilize your business, it's time to consider a new line of work. Or suck it up and deal with it.
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You were making a good argument till your last point, when you tipped your hand and lost me entirely. You seem to agree that there are times when someone ought to have a right to refuse a service. But in order to make all the lawyers happy, they need to obfuscate and dodge or outright lie about the real issue and make it about something else.
People love to debate politics and morals as if everything is black and white. It's not.
I do think there are times when it's OK to refuse service. If a customer is causing a scene that's taking away from normal business, it's ok to refuse them service. If a customer walks into your store visibly ill or unhygienic, it's ok to refuse service. It's not ok to refuse service to any minority group because you don't like them or their lifestyle.
I don't see it that way. If you legally allow businesses to refuse products or services to homosexuals because of a "religious conflict," you're essentially paving the way for any business to openly discriminate against that entire group of people.
What I suggested above is already pretty commonplace for small businesses. If they have an issue with a customer, they find a way to cease the working relationship and come up with a professional reason to do so (even if it means exaggerating the workload or busy schedule). The problem any business runs into is when they start citing personal reasons for not working with a customer. Once a business owner or manager mentions anything personal about a customer they're not interested in working with, it almost always ends badly. If, as a manager, I say "Jane Doe was a bitter, unreasonable, angry person and I couldn't work with her," I almost instantly become the bad guy (regardless of whether or not the customer is or isn't all of those things). Why? Because I made it personal. The best approach is to create a professional reason to move in a different direction. Is it 100% honest? No. But it happens all the time.
Furthermore, as long as there's legal protection for the minority group in place, most businesses with an "issue of conscience" will eventually work with that minority group. If the hypothetical bakery we've been talking about here always said "we don't have time, sorry" to every gay customer, it would catch up with them and they'd get in trouble (as they should). The "sorry, we're too busy" right now is essentially a get out of jail free for an every now and then situation. The minority group still has the legal protection so if the business always does this to gay people, they'll be held responsible. Without legal protection, anyone can discriminate.
Again, this is the real world. Not every same sex couple is reasonable. Some are obnoxious and difficult to work with. If the business owner can find a professional reason to refuse service, then use it! If it develops into a trend, the law will protect the offended parties.
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I reiterate my original comment: That’s messed up. You want laws on the books where people of conscience have to lie to remain in compliance. That is all kinds of messed up.
Nope. I want laws on the books that protect all minorities and individuals from discrimination. I also think that a business should be able to find professional reasons to refuse service when necessary. Some people are just too difficult to work with. If the refusals show trends of singling out certain minority groups, then there's a deeper issue that should be dealt with according to the law.
Quote:
And for the record, I do think the Christian-owned bakeries are wrong in not serving gay couples. If it’s a matter of conscience, then according to the Sermon on the Mount, they shouldn’t refuse to bake the cake, they should bake them two cakes. So I do disagree with them. I just don’t want to live in a country that would make criminals out of them.
For the record, I think a Gay owned bakery that refused service to a Christian couple should be held just as accountable as the Christian owned bakery refusing service to the gay couple. I don't think discriminatory behavior should be punished criminally (with jail time), but rather handled as civil cases with fines for violations. Among other things, jail time is costly to taxpayers and simply not worth it. We live in a country with a variety of nationalities, ethnicities, religions and lifestyles. Our laws should protect each of them.
If you open a business that profits from serving the public, you should be required to serve the public so long as "the public" A) can pay for the product or services and B) isn't doing anything else to disrupt the business
I think that the owner of a private business has the right to choose who he will and who he won't take money from. If I walk into a restaurant and the owner says "Get out, we don't serve ugly people here", that's his business. I'll go somewhere else, if he doesn't want my money that's fine and dandy with me. His choice, and he has every right to make it.
"No. It's not. It's designed to attain equality for a group of people that has been discriminated against for decades (centuries, really)."
The baker sells cakes to people who come into his bakery. A reporter asked a hypothetical question and the press went nuts when the baker answered. The baker said he would not participate in a ceremony that is forbidden in his religion. Another group that is discrinated against is pedofiles. The baker would be justified in refusing to make a cake for a NAMBLA convention. A different baker might refuse to bake a cake for a group of bear guides because he disapproves of bear hunting.
Nobody should be compelled to support an activity he finds to be repulsive. Just say, no.
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