Pedophilia - The Next Taboo To Fall?

[seer]

Absolutely. However, the imposition is very very tiny - to sell for profit an item he was in the business of selling for profit. Such tiny impositions are widely considered justifiable because the cumulative effect on minority group members who repeatedly experience such discrimination can be severe. But yes, I 100% acknowledge that an imposition is occurring... it is simply a very very tiny and justifiable one.

That is your opinion, one which I do not share. I do not believe that any man should be forced, under threat of penalty, to serve another man. A little bit of slavery is still slavery. And remember the two bakeries in question of late did not prevent gays from shopping in their store - they just did not want to make a cake specifically for a homosexual marriage. And there were plenty of bakeries in those respective towns who gladly would and did. So there was no actual harm to the gay couples in question.

Compare to major and unjustifiable impositions - e.g. slavery, concentration camps, removing basic human rights from people (e.g. freedom of religious worship, to have sex, to marry, etc), and the difference is stark.

You are still upholding the principle of forced labor, no matter how "tiny." And who knows how tiny this loss of freedom will remain in the future.

[One Bad Pig]

The baker will never get over the mental anguish of knowing a gay person's day was made mildly better by the fact that they ate a piece of cake the baker baked.

You should know better than this, Starlight. This was never about merely baking a cake for a gay person, but about having the baker's name associated with something which the baker disapproved (namely, gay "marriage").

[Cow Poke]

was the fault of Christians. And that where such things occur today it still tends to be the fault of Christians.

Given that the dominant prosperity and blessings of the West were grounded in Christians honoring their God, it's reasonable to say that the blessings of God were the 'fault' of Christians, and the overall decay of morality and civilization is the fault of those who oppose Christians.

[Cow Poke]

The baker will never get over the mental anguish of knowing a gay person's day was made mildly better by the fact that they ate a piece of cake the baker baked.

The gay person could buy a cake and eat it and never complain, and everybody would be happy! Instead, he/she has to get the cake in a manner that inflicts difficulty on the baker.

[rogue06]

You should know better than this, Starlight. This was never about merely baking a cake for a gay person, but about having the baker's name associated with something which the baker disapproved (namely, gay "marriage").

Exactly. After all why would you insist on forcing someone to do something they don't want to do when there are scores of others eager to do the job? Someone who is forced to do something they don't like is obviously not going to do as good a job as someone who is enthusiastic about it or even just neutral. This reveals that the motive has nothing about having a nice cake or great wedding photos but is all about rubbing someone's nose in something.

That this is indeed the case is clear especially when you add the "Jesse Jackson factor" into the mix. The Rev. Jackson, a civil rights activist and one time presidential candidate, recounts in a 1969 interview for Life magazine how when he was younger and working in a restaurant in South Carolina he would spit onto the food he served to white people. With that in mind, why would anyone want someone who vehemently disagrees with what you are doing making the food to serve at your wedding?

[Cow Poke]

Exactly. After all why would you insist on forcing someone to do something they don't want to do when there are scores of others eager to do the job? Someone who is forced to do something they don't like is obviously not going to do as good a job as someone who is enthusiastic about it or even just neutral. This reveals that the motive has nothing about having a nice cake or great wedding photos but is all about rubbing someone's nose in something.

That this is indeed the case is clear especially when you add the "Jesse Jackson factor" into the mix. The Rev. Jackson, a civil rights activist and one time presidential candidate, recounts in a 1969 interview for Life magazine how when he was younger and working in a restaurant in South Carolina he would spit onto the food he served to white people. With that in mind, why would anyone want someone who vehemently disagrees with what you are doing making the food to serve at your wedding?

Because in every liberal there's a control freak tyrant wanting to be in charge... like Tazzy being the sole arbiter of "what's under discussion".

[Starlight]

This was never about merely baking a cake for a gay person, but about having the baker's name associated with something which the baker disapproved (namely, gay "marriage").

I have been to plenty of weddings, and I never once knew the name of the baker of the cake. So I can't really make sense of your sentence, other than to conclude any baker who thinks this way must be completely and utterly self-delusional about the extent to which they are relevant to any wedding.

If they were being asked to get same-sex married, then the statement of "no I have a religious objection to that sort of thing" makes sense. If they were being asked to perform the ceremony, then such an objection also makes coherent rational sense.

But I would regard the supposed baker's behavior as being just plain insanely irrational - given their religious opposition to same-sex marriage, it doesn't make logical sense to not bake a cake. At that point we seem to have moved well outside of reasonable actions based on religious beliefs, and firmly into the realm of "how can I make life difficult for gay people?"

[Starlight]

That is your opinion, one which I do not share. I do not believe that any man should be forced, under threat of penalty, to serve another man. A little bit of slavery is still slavery.

I do not accept your claim to believe this, because I know you are not a libertarian, and that is the key principle of libertarianism.

I think in practice you are totally fine with forcing other people to do things especially when it furthers your religious agendas. And so your pretense of objection to even the tiniest bit of forcing someone to do what they were already in the business of doing, rings very hollow and hypocritical here.

You are still upholding the principle of forced labor, no matter how "tiny." And who knows how tiny this loss of freedom will remain in the future.

Given that the reason that people are okay with it is because it is so tiny, it doesn't really make sense to ask whether it will remain tiny in future. If it is ever not tiny, people will no longer be okay with it.

[seer]

I do not accept your claim to believe this, because I know you are not a libertarian, and that is the key principle of libertarianism.

I think in practice you are totally fine with forcing other people to do things especially when it furthers your religious agendas. And so your pretense of objection to even the tiniest bit of forcing someone to do what they were already in the business of doing, rings very hollow and hypocritical here.

Nonsense, this has been my position for years. You have never heard me say otherwise. But again, this is why you leftists are totalitarian in principle and practice, and it's unamerican.

Given that the reason that people are okay with it is because it is so tiny, it doesn't really make sense to ask whether it will remain tiny in future. If it is ever not tiny, people will no longer be okay with it.

If you support the principle, you support the principle, no matter how limited it presently is.

[Cow Poke]

I have been to plenty of weddings,

I seriously doubt that. (unless, like me, you think 1 is "plenty")

and I never once knew the name of the baker of the cake.

Too busy looking for the Exit, eh?

I've been to literally hundreds of weddings, most often "on the inside", not just sitting in the back. It is not all that unusual for a guest to say, "mmm, this is good cake, who baked it?" Or, "wow, that's a beautiful cake, who did it?" (Sometimes, it's a family member or family friend -- my baby sister bakes dozens of wedding cakes, but quite often a very expensive professional product)

So I can't really make sense of your sentence, other than to conclude any baker who thinks this way must be completely and utterly self-delusional about the extent to which they are relevant to any wedding.

WOW! Do you have any idea how much a real wedding cake COSTS? (not at all unusual to be $2-$12 a SLICE!) These aren't just your basic cake mix in a rectangular pan, Star. They can be MONSTROSITIES!

if they were being asked to get same-sex married, then the statement of "no I have a religious objection to that sort of thing" makes sense. If they were being asked to perform the ceremony, then such an objection also makes coherent rational sense.

But I would regard the supposed baker's behavior as being just plain insanely irrational - given their religious opposition to same-sex marriage, it doesn't make logical sense to not bake a cake. At that point we seem to have moved well outside of reasonable actions based on religious beliefs, and firmly into the realm of "how can I make life difficult for gay people?"

Well, the whole premise of your post is downright goofy -- maybe they do things differently in NZ, but, here, there's quite a bit of emphasis on...

the dress
the photographer
the cake (and/or catering)

[Starlight]

Do you have any idea how much a real wedding cake COSTS?

I've heard weddings tend to be ridiculously expensive because everyone from venue-hire to caterers immediately doubles or triples their normal prices the moment they learn it's a wedding. I suspect a "wedding" cake costs between twice and ten times as much as an exactly equivalent normal cake for that reason.

It is not all that unusual for a guest to say, "mmm, this is good cake, who baked it?" Or, "wow, that's a beautiful cake, who did it?"

~shrug~ I don't tend to like wedding cakes, because I have a very sweet tooth and they're normally disappointingly not entirely filled with chocolate, caramel and cream, and are normally boringly cake-like, and I generally could not care less what they look like. I find that middle aged women often think it's polite to make conversation by inquiring who was responsible for putting various parts of the wedding together, because that way they can compliment those people, but I think you're mistaken if you think that indicates sincere interest on their part in the actual answers - they are engaging in social etiquette for the sake of doing so, not a pursuit of information.

And literally nobody associates the name of the person who made the cake or whatever with characteristics about the people getting married. If the man turns out to beat his wife, nobody sane says "well the name of the baker who baked the wedding cake is now mud". Or if it's an interracial wedding nobody says "I better find out the name of the caterer to make a mental note of their tolerance of interracial marriage." The cake-bakers name will become highly relevant if they give the guests food poisoning because that will be newspaper headlines; or if the cake tastes totally amazingly the best ever they might get a little more future business because a few guests might actually take the unusual step of asking who baked the cake and actually caring about the answer. But anyone who says that the baker's name is associated with the gender of the people who are getting married, is just making a claim that seems utterly nonsensical to me.

here, there's quite a bit of emphasis on...

the dress
the photographer
the cake (and/or catering)

Yeah women tend to care quite a bit about those things. I remember mum always asking me "what color were the bridesmaids wearing" after I mentioned I'd been to a friend's wedding, and of course I'd have zero clue.

I am partial to good food though, so I always pay high attention to the quality of the catering, and the part of any wedding I would most remember afterwards is generally food quality (well, along with the extent to which the ceremony itself was boring/terrible/actually somewhat enjoyable). Although despite my love of food I've never once ever learned the name of a single catering company... even when I attend a nicely catered wedding there seems little point to me finding out the name of the catering company because I don't ever run events that need caterers.

[Cow Poke]

I've heard weddings tend to be ridiculously expensive because everyone from venue-hire to caterers immediately doubles or triples their normal prices the moment they learn it's a wedding. I suspect a "wedding" cake costs between twice and ten times as much as an exactly equivalent normal cake for that reason.

It's not a "wedding" cake -- it's a WEDDING CAKE, to the Bride.

Obviously, you are not schooled sufficiently on American weddings to comment further.

[seer]

It's not a "wedding" cake -- it's a WEDDING CAKE, to the Bride.

Obviously, you are not schooled sufficiently on American weddings to comment further.

Don't they have the TV show Bridezilla down there? No wonder why they are so culturally backward...

[Starlight]

It's not a "wedding" cake -- it's a WEDDING CAKE, to the Bride.

Having never been a bride, I can't empathize with you on this one.

Obviously, you are not schooled sufficiently on American weddings to comment further.

LOL. Yeah, I guess in American weddings, the cake baker must attend the wedding and make a public declaration saying "I am X, baker of this cake, and I officially endorse this marriage between Y and Z, it has my official blessing and approval". We don't have that same custom, so I guess it makes sense that a cake baker in the US could sanely object to baking for same-sex weddings on religious grounds.

Frankly if I were an anti-gay baker, I would probably think "I feel bad for the relatives roped into attending a wedding they don't particularly approve of, and who have to put up with the fact that their relative is gay and married, and so I'm going to try to make their day a little less awful by giving them a really nice tasting cake, hopefully that will take their minds off things if the alcohol at the wedding hasn't already done its job in that regard." The actual people getting married are not likely to eat much, if any, of the wedding cake - they're probably too nervous to eat anything much and they'll be off on their honeymoon afterwards so any leftover cake is likely given to the guests or the family rather than consumed by them... so as a cake baker I wouldn't perceive myself to be baking a cake for the couple getting married, but rather for the guests to look at and eat.

[seer]

LOL. Yeah, I guess in American weddings, the cake baker must attend the wedding and make a public declaration saying "I am X, baker of this cake, and I officially endorse this marriage between Y and Z, it has my official blessing and approval".

Hey, how about you make your own cake! And stop being a fascist.