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The law does not prohibit the expulsion of troublemakers from one's place of business.
At least, it shouldn't.
It appears to me to have been a trap where; A- The bakery gets sued for complicity in making a hate speech cake; or B- The bakery gets sued for refusing to be complicit to a hate speech crime.
The owner has legally protected discretion in such matters.
It isn't hate just to disagree with something. It's still a free country----well for now.
I gave this a lot of thought.
the baker sees it as a free speech issue, and the state sees it as a civil rights issue. Both are Constitutional rights. no Constitutional right takes precedence over another.
It is illegal to discriminate against anyone if a business has it's doors open to the public. If the baker can discriminate against gays, then so can a banker, a restaurant owner, or the owner of a bus company. That's a strictly civil rights issue.
If the baker agrees to make a wedding cake, but refuses to put a gay couple statuette on top, or put any mention of the couple as being gay in icing on the cake, then it's his free speech right. He's not refusing to bake the cake, and any wedding cake is nothing but a big, expensive, fancy cake. If the couple wants statuettes, they can always put them on the cake after it is purchased. Making gay statuettes is legal. So is purchasing them.
Where the baker went wrong is asking the couple before he agreed to bake the cake if they are gay. That's where free speech came into conflict with civil rights. This is the principle of the Clinton military compromise of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". If neither side pushes the matter, there is no conflict over Constitutional rights.
The couple did not walk in to the bakery and announce that they were gay. Until the baker asked, all they were were a couple of guys ordering a wedding cake. As far as the baker knew, they could have been the groom's brothers or his best men.
The Appellate Courts have declared that marriage in the United States is a matter of civil law in public affairs, not any church's law, nor any religious believer's law. If it was otherwise, a Jewish baker could refuse a Christian's wedding cake, or a Muslim bakery refuse a Jew's wedding cake. A Buddist baker could refuse all of them.
Under the Constitution, every person has the right to exercise his religion as he chooses, but no religious belief written as law is permitted in our civil laws, period. No church nor any individual can supersede our civil laws. No state can write a religious law that restricts anyone or promotes anyone over anyone else. Federal law takes precedence over state law by the Constitution.
Let's use another example: A tailor who makes Ku Klux Klan robes. The Klan is illegal by law in several states.
But a tailor who makes robes does nothing illegal. He can even be aware that the robe he's making is for a Klan member, and he's still doing nothing illegal. He can even sew Klan patches on the robe, and the guy who made the patch did nothing illegal either. All of it is protected by free speech.
The only thing that is illegal is the buyer's membership in the Klan. If the tailor's door is open to the public, he cannot refuse to make the robe even if he knows the guy who is buying it plans to wear it to a lynching. The robe won't lynch the victim, the man will. And that's all a civil rights issue.
The Klansman and the tailor and the lynching victim all have the same civil rights. The Klansman can say whatever he wants, but if he participates in a lynching, he violated civil rights while retaining his right to free speech. His talk didn't lynch the guy, nor did his robe. His actions did the lynching.
If the tailor refused to sew the patches on the robe, that's his right. With no patches, it could be a school chorus robe or a monk's robe, or a baptism robe. But the tailor cannot refuse to make the robe.
The baker (or the tailor) could always close his doors to the public, refrain from any public advertising that he refuses to bake for gays, and break no laws. As long as the business is restricted from the public at large, it can be operated in any fashion the owner wants as long as no one's civil rights are violated. He just can't advertise his prejudice, expressed through his unwillingness to serve gays, based on his religion.
That violates everyone civil rights, even his own. Tit for tat is not legal in anything, anywhere in this country. Only our laws protect us all equally.
I've read this four times and still don't get what point you are trying to make.
So everyone is ok with the gay friendly bakery refusing service than? That is the main point here.
If one just asks for a cake that says. "I don't agree with so called gay marriages." That would be ok?
This baker did not refuse service Janelle, they offered to make the cake, without the hate message and the means for the purchaser to decorate it himself. That is the main point here, get with the program.
This baker did not refuse service Janelle, they offered to make the cake, without the hate message and the means for the purchaser to decorate it himself. That is the main point here, get with the program.
So everyone is ok with the gay friendly bakery refusing service than? That is the main point here.
If one just asks for a cake that says. "I don't agree with so called gay marriages." That would be ok?
No.
Not everyone agrees, even if the bakery was gay friendly, and refusing to make the cake is not the point that will be argued in the courts.
It is an issue of free speech vs. civil rights, not cakes or what is said or not on them.
Since both free speech and civil rights are Constitutional, and there is nothing in the Constitution that makes one right supreme over another, the matter will be decided on the question of religious belief trumping civil law.
The decision may also draw the line where free speech ends and civil rights begins, or whether there is any overlap, or if there is any grey area between the two. There are lots of grey areas in the Constitution, and lots of areas where different rights may overlap or conflict. That's why the Supreme Court was created.
This baker did not refuse service Janelle, they offered to make the cake, without the hate message and the means for the purchaser to decorate it himself. That is the main point here, get with the program.
No. The cake maker refused to make the cake after he questioned the couple as to being gay. Once he learned they were, he refused to bake a cake for them, and still does.
He never offered to make a big fancy cake with no references to a wedding on it. As of this moment, the baker is still making no wedding cakes at all for anyone, and does not plan to until after the issue is decided in court.
The issue that will be argued is free speech vs. civil rights.
No. The cake maker refused to make the cake after he questioned the couple as to being gay. Once he learned they were, he refused to bake a cake for them, and still does.
He never offered to make a big fancy cake with no references to a wedding on it. As of this moment, the baker is still making no wedding cakes at all for anyone, and does not plan to until after the issue is decided in court.
The issue that will be argued is free speech vs. civil rights.
That's the main point here. Get with the program.
This thread is about a baker who refused to put a message of hate on it about gays, not about a christian baker who refused to bake a cake for a gay couple, that is the main point of this thread, Get with the program. The baker this thread is about said he would bake the cake, but without the message of hate on it, he did not refuse service. Geez, who is not reading this tread from the beginning.
Well you either do the whole service (some people could not write on a cake or it would look terrible) or you don't do the service. You can't have it both ways.
Personally I am for businesses having the option of doing the service or not but some people don't think that way and want to sue a company instead of going elsewhere.
YES! Finally they will get a taste of what its like to have your livelihood threatened by someone that doesn't agree with you.
homosexual marriage is not a subject I care about at all. Truly while I think based on the legal merits homosexual marriage should be recognized by the government, I just don't think its this great injustice if it's not given all the real issues in this nation.
I mostly think of gay marriage as upper income white homosexuals wanting to join the club.
But conservatives are so full of hatred and venom. It's amazing.
If it's not black Americans they hate, its Mexicans, if it's not Mexicans, it's single moms, if not single moms then poor people, if not poor people then Muslims, if not Muslims then homosexuals.
I say this sometimes, now they really have a lot of white homosexual characters on tv, I think there are more white homosexual characters than all people of color characters on tv combined.
Then I see what conservatives have in store for homosexuals, which is shame, labeling them as deviants, mentally ill, needing to be fixed, not fit to be around children, not fit to be on tv at all, etc and I say I hope homosexuals get every right they want.
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