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I have said that a baker should be allowed to refuse to participate in a same sex marriage for religious and moral reasons. That is not the same thing as refusing to serve a man who walks in holding hands with his boyfriend.
It is exactly the same thing! Unless the baker is being asked to officiate the wedding, play piano, sing, give a speech, I don't know... participate in some way.
Otherwise there is absolutely no difference in a gay couple asking for a multi-tiered, fancy, white cake and a gay couple asking for a multi-tiered, fancy, white wedding cake. It is customers asking for a cake.
But just so I understand your position, is it correct that you would be opposed to:
Refusing to rent to a gay individual or couple?
Refusing to issue or witness lawful legal documents as required by a job, elected, or appointed position?
Refusing to treat medically or take as a patient a homosexual individual, couple, or children of homosexuals?
Refusing or terminating employment based on sexual orientation?
Because it seems to me that the amount of kerfluffle you and Jeff are raising must be based on a broader principle here, and not specifically bakers making wedding cakes... Maybe I am wrong, though. Maybe it is all about cakes and will have no effect on equality under the law, medical treatment housing or employment discrimination... Somehow, though, that doesn't seem likely.
It is exactly the same thing! Unless the baker is being asked to officiate the wedding, play piano, sing, give a speech, I don't know... participate in some way.
No...if a KKK member walks into a bakery and asks the baker to bake a cake for their rally, I see no reason the baker shouldn't be allowed to refuse to participate. Do you?
Why should they be able to? Under what grounds?
If the cake itself is objectionable, and not something they choose ot make, sure. But if the customer casually drops the conversation bomb that this vanilla cake with white frosting ( no chocolate round here!) is to celebrate their dear Grand Dragon's 50th anniversary of his first lynching, what business of the baker's is it? Customer wants a cake. Sell them a cake.
So is it only a problem if the baker has to be onsite? Is that your contention? One can split hairs about exactly what constitutes participation, but if I recall the refusal to bake the cake was not based on having to be present at the celebration. They simply did not want to allow one of "their" cakes to be used for that purpose. And that is clearly discriminatory.
No...if a KKK member walks into a bakery and asks the baker to bake a cake for their rally, I see no reason the baker shouldn't be allowed to refuse to participate. Do you?
For the how many times the KKK is not a protected group. I see no reasons why a baker should not bake a cake for a rally, unless they want offensive wording placed on it. And that difference has been explained to you and Jeff so many times I think you are just unwilling to accept it. Why you two think that business owners deserve lots more rights than everyone else is also confusing.
You still have not answered my question. You want the fundamentalist Christian bakers to be able to be exempt from the law for baking a cake but not from having to serve them donuts if they just walk in holding hands. OK I get it you should be able to not bake the cake in your world but I have exteme difficulties in figuring out what you would or would not allow to be discrimianted against. Any change in the law has to be some what specific. Would you allow a JW gas station owner to refuse to sell fuel to the local EMS vehicle because they do blood transfusions?
If I was a commercial photographer in your community and you asked me to come in a document your sermons, as much as I do not think I would like or agree with them the least little bit, I would not discriminate based on my beliefs. In the Oregon case the couple were already married and it was only for a reception to be held locally that they wanted the cake so in essense the cake was not really even part of the marriage ceremony just the celebration for family and friends, most likely many Christians included. The mother of one of them was a customer at the bakery. Even if the bakery stayed in business those people would not support such a disrepect for the law and for them.
Does it extend beyond refusing to serve same sex marriage? What else would your religious rights allow some one to refuse to sell a product that they sell to everyone else?
For the how many times the KKK is not a protected group. I see no reasons why a baker should not bake a cake for a rally, unless they want offensive wording placed on it. And that difference has been explained to you and Jeff so many times I think you are just unwilling to accept it. Why you two think that business owners deserve lots more rights than everyone else is also confusing.
Good grief, what does it take for people like you to understand why it is morally wrong to force someone to engage with a person who identities with something that is a direct offense to their religious beliefs? In that sense, the KKK analogy perfectly matches, but you run to the legal argument escape route. I don't flipping care that they aren't a protected group. The government could change that reality in a day with a new law. That doesn't change the MORAL SITUATION.
Quote:
Originally Posted by badlander
You still have not answered my question. You want the fundamentalist Christian bakers to be able to be exempt from the law for baking a cake but not from having to serve them donuts if they just walk in holding hands. OK I get it you should be able to not bake the cake in your world but I have exteme difficulties in figuring out what you would or would not allow to be discrimianted against. Any change in the law has to be some what specific. Would you allow a JW gas station owner to refuse to sell fuel to the local EMS vehicle because they do blood transfusions?
We don't want to serve immoral ceremonies or activities. It's as simple as that, but you have to take it to extreme unrealistic scenarios like EMS trucks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by badlander
If I was a commercial photographer in your community and you asked me to come in a document your sermons, as much as I do not think I would like or agree with them the least little bit, I would not discriminate based on my beliefs.
Well good for you, but I don't believe you should be forced to do it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by badlander
In the Oregon case the couple were already married and it was only for a reception to be held locally that they wanted the cake so in essense the cake was not really even part of the marriage ceremony just the celebration for family and friends, most likely many Christians included. The mother of one of them was a customer at the bakery. Even if the bakery stayed in business those people would not support such a disrepect for the law and for them.
My understanding is same sex marriage wasn't even legal in the state during the time when this all started. How can they discriminate against someone who didn't even come into the store?
Quote:
Originally Posted by badlander
Does it extend beyond refusing to serve same sex marriage? What else would your religious rights allow some one to refuse to sell a product that they sell to everyone else?
I'm sure if a customer wanted catering for a swingers party, the Christian baker would refuse.
We don't want to serve immoral ceremonies or activities. It's as simple as that, but you have to take it to extreme unrealistic scenarios like EMS trucks.
Jeff, you still haven't answered my question from the other day, which is basically the same question as badlander is asking.
OK, you are a retail business owner who doesn't want to "serve immoral ceremonies or activities". We all get that by this point. Exactly how are you proposing to qualify your customers? Why don't you want to answer this simple question? Is it really beyond your capacity to put yourself in the shoes of this hypothetical business owner and ask yourself "now, exactly how would I go about determining whether I am participating in "immoral ceremonies or activities" by selling something to my customer"?
If the cake itself is objectionable, and not something they choose ot make, sure. But if the customer casually drops the conversation bomb that this vanilla cake with white frosting ( no chocolate round here!) is to celebrate their dear Grand Dragon's 50th anniversary of his first lynching, what business of the baker's is it? Customer wants a cake. Sell them a cake.
-NoCapo
You don't think the baker should be allowed to refuse to cater a rally that they are morally opposed to?
OK discriminating against EMS is not allowed discriminating against cake buying is allowed. But where are YOU drawing the line between the two. Of course the EMS is an extreme example however neither you nor Vizio actually state what you really want other than the right to discriminate based on your own religious and apparently non religious beliefs. But under your wording that a person does not have to sell a product to a person who is using that product in what they consider an immoral activity and who are we to say that blood transfusions are not immoral? Is it just because they do not go against your beleif. Why even have anti discrimination laws if you can get out of them by just saying you do not agree with them. And no one has yet answered why only business owners get to discrminate under your view.
Again other than discriminating against same sex marriage services what would you allow or maybe better to ask what can one not discriminate against.
And Jeff they did go into the store with one of the women's mother who is a customer or was a customer at that bakery. Many people do get married in areas quite far away from where they are from. In this case the two women get married in a state other than Oregon and came to Oregon to have a wedding reception in the town where her mother lives and perhaps she has lots of friends and family there too. So there was reception for their wedding but not at the same time or place as their wedding. My wedding reception was not in the same town as I got married as we went to an even smaller place for the convience for my wife's family. In our case it was the same day.
Still waiting for you to condemm those two threatened the same sex couple with death or for those who published their names and addresses.
Jeff and Vizio: where do you stop or limit the ability for a person or a business to discriminate?
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