SCOTUS & gay wedding cakes

[carpedm9587]

Just saying it is so doesn't make it so Carpe.

This response to what I wrote is simply trolling.

No-one, no-where legislates the type of food a restruant must serve. If I want to serve Italian and only Italian food because I hate black people and don't what to make 'black people food', that is my buisiness. I still can shose to serve Italian food and Italian food only. I can chose to serve Italian food because I love Italian food. I can chose to serve it because I only know how to make Italian food. I can chose to serve it because there is a guy in Italy that will give me all the ingredients at 1/2 the price of any other kind of food. It doesn't matter one lick WHY I decide to serve Italian food. You nor anybody else on the face of the Earth has any right to tell me I must serve some other kind of food, no matter what the reason is I decide to serve Italian food.

That is just reality Carpe.

OK...one more time...for those who missed it the last 3-6 times I said it: the "black person food" analogy was very poorly worded...and sent everyone down a rathole. My bad. The intent was not about the type of food - but who was to eat it. So....

Restauranteur to black patron: I don't serve my food to people like you.
(black person leaves and sends in white friend)
Restauranteur to white patron: Sure you can buy my food. Can I ask who its for?
White patron: for my black friend
Restauranteur to white patron: I don't sell my food so that black people can eat it!
White patron: my friend - you are a bigot
Restauranteur to white patron: How dare you! I'm not differentiating my serves at all - and it's not about skin color. You're white I won't serve you either (if it's actually for them)!


Baker to gay patron: I don't make wedding cakes for people like you to use.
(gay person leaves and sends in hetero friend)
Baker to hetero patron: Sure you can buy my wedding cake. Can I ask who its for?
Hetero patron: for my gay friend
Baker to hetero patron: I don't sell my wedding cakes so that gay people can use them!
Hetero patron: my friend - you are a bigot
Baker to hetero patron: How dare you! I'm not differentiating my serves at all - and it's not about sexual orientation. I white I won't serve my wedding cake to you either (if its actually for them)!

The cases are identical. The issue is the sex of the two people marrying. THAT is what is differentiating the service - and THAT is the immoral act.

And If my cake shop only makes wedding cakes with a specific figurine that I order that is a single object that depicts a man and a women, then the only thing a customer can do is either not buy the cake from me, or take the thing off the top if they don't like it. Or If I sell wedding cakes without figurines on top, they can get one of those. But nobody can make me order a setup that depicts two men or two women if that is not an inventory I stock. It's just that simple Carpe.

Jim

I don't have a major issue here. If the store stocks figurines for wedding cakes, IMO, they should stock both. Or they should just stop offering figurines. Or they should invite couples to put their own figurines on the cake. In an ideal world, they would do the same for all patrons. But if the issue is as small as "what plastic people are on the cake," it is comparatively small potatoes. The issue I was addressing was refusing the service altogether. It is my understanding that the couple was denied service completely. Every article I have read said that the baker "refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex wedding - period." There is not a mention to "figurines" in anything I've read.

Perhaps you have other sources?

[carpedm9587]

So who is he discriminating against when he refuses to make Halloween cakes? Witches?

No one - if he doesn't make Halloween cakes for anyone.

[Cow Poke]

If the baker made wedding cakes for gay weddings he would have to sell them to anyone. If he doesn't make cakes for gay weddings and doesn't offer the service to anyone - no problem.

Just like somebody going into a fine French restaurant and ordering "black people food*" - the restaurant has every right to tell WHOEVER it was doing the asking - "here's the menu, this is what we offer".

Now, I've actually been in restaurants and politely asked for something that was NOT on the menu, and sometimes they say "sure, we can do that", and other times they say, "sorry, we don't serve that". It never ever crossed my mind to sue them.



*I told my wife last night, "let's go out and get some black people food". The look she gave me was priceless. When I insisted, she put her hand on my forehead checking for fever.

[Cow Poke]

No one - if he doesn't make Halloween cakes for anyone.

He doesn't make same sex wedding cakes for anyone.

[JimL]

If the baker made wedding cakes for gay weddings he would have to sell them to anyone. If he doesn't make cakes for gay weddings and doesn't offer the service to anyone - no problem.

That's just dumb. If he makes and sells wedding cakes then he makes and sells wedding cakes to all who request that he make and sell to them a wedding cake, otherwise he is discriminating against those to whom he refuses to make and sell. I realize that you all don't like anti-discrimination laws, and would like it better if businesses could discriminate, but discrimination is illegal whether you like it or not.

[carpedm9587]

When somebody commissions an artist to do a work for them, there's a negotiation, both as to content, interpretation, price, estimated time of completion... I know of no other artist who is forced to enter into such a contract against his/her will.

It boils down to one side arguing he's an artist with 'artistic license', and the other side insisting he's just a baker. He obviously didn't get into business to be "just a baker".

The same would apply if an artist (say a photographer) refused to take pictures of black people - unless it could be shown that it requires different equipment and there is an actual technical reason for not being set up to do so. When a generic service is offered (i.e., making wedding cakes), differentiating who gets the service on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, etc. is simply not moral. (or legal...)

[Cow Poke]

Baker to gay patron: I don't make wedding cakes for people like you to use.

And here is the epic fail -- he doesn't make same sex wedding cakes for ANYBODY. Let me state that another way. He makes same sex wedding cakes for NOBODY. Every customer is treated exactly the same.

[carpedm9587]

If the baker made wedding cakes for gay weddings he would have to sell them to anyone. If he doesn't make cakes for gay weddings and doesn't offer the service to anyone - no problem.

If the baker makes wedding cakes - he has to sell them to everyone. Putting "gay" or "same-sex" in front of wedding cakes does not absolve the baker of bigotry.

The food is the same, the way it was butchered and the purpose of the meat was not. You can still buy lamb at the butcher shop, just not kosher lamb. So he is not selling "food for jewish people" - exactly the same analogy you were trying to use but without the racist undertones. If I went into his butcher shop and demanded "food for jewish people" and he said "we don't have any kosher meat here" is he a bigot??

I have attempted to correct my poorly-worded analogy multiple times, at this point. I'll let those corrections stand. Repeating them is not going to add anything.

[JimL]

So who is he discriminating against when he refuses to make Halloween cakes? Witches?

If he doesn't make Halloween cakes then he isn't discriminating against anyone. Halloween is not discriptive of a person!

[carpedm9587]

Bakers don't bake those.

EGGzakly!!!!

Lemme guess... it would either be

A) fail
2) epic fail

What you're doing, and you can't quite admit it, is that you're actually allowing the baker to exercise discretion as to what kind of cakes he designs, but ONLY as long as he agrees with you.

I absolutely endorse the baker's right to exercise discretion in what service he offers and what food he designs. I reject his claim that he is morally in the right to distinguish who gets to buy the service on the basis of sex (or race).

[oxmixmudd]

The event is the marrying of two people.

Superset. Which contains three subsets: {M,F}, {M,M}, {F,F}. The cake maker can chose how he decorates his cakes as long as the service he offers is offered to all. He doesn't have stock figurines of a black couple, a black man and a white woman, a white couple, a chinese couple, a japanese couple, an arab couple, a mexican couple and so on. He can chose how much or how little 'variety' to stock. And you nor anyone else can dictate to him what he keeps in stock and what he does not. You can call it discrimination if you like, that is your business. But at least up till now, the Federal and State governments do not dictate the inventory of cake shops.

So the discrimination lies in their refusal to serve two people who are marrying because they have the same genitals. That is selective service on the basis of a genetic attribute, so a classic example of bigotry/prejudice.

Sorry, but the type of genitals the two people have is the fundamental question of whether or not the marriage is in fact a marriage from the perspective of a baker. As I have said multiple time - marriage - historically - is a societal construct whose primary purpose is to provide a context in which to create and raise children. It is the only NATURAL construct where that can happen, and it is the NATURAL mechanism by which families are created and made. And it is the natural desire of any member of our species that does not have a genetic mistake driving and/or environmental push towards same-sex attraction. Our society has decided to extend it to the unnatural union of a same-sex couple in part because they believe that the mechanisms that drive same sex attraction are inherited and to a certain extent outside the control of the people involved. Nevertheless, it is not a union that qualifies for or which in fact has the direct need for the societal encouragement and protections that a marriage between an man and a women typically creates.

We've discussed how it does appear in an effort to make same-sex unions take on similar characteristics to what arises naturally in a male/female marriage some F/F couples use artificial insemination to create a baby, and both M/M and F/F couples push for the right to adopt. Nevertheless, as it stands right now, no same-sex couple exists where both partners define the genes from which the child was created.

Why does that matter? Because that is part of how a child understands who they are. The want to know who their father is, and who their mother is. That is the NATURAL thing that happens in a M/F marriage that produces children. It is how the children know who they are. And this need is built in. One of the most common thing that happens with adopted children it that they want to know who their REAL parents are. They want to know who they are genetically. Why do I like this. What am I interested in that. And so on. Knowing who they are descended from is critical to understanding who they are.

It matters Carpe. M/F unions is what nature intended. M/M and F/F are simply not the same. The genitalia DO matter.


Jim

[Cow Poke]

The same would apply if an artist (say a photographer) refused to take pictures of black people - unless it could be shown that it requires different equipment and there is an actual technical reason for not being set up to do so. When a generic service is offered (i.e., making wedding cakes), differentiating who gets the service on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, etc. is simply not moral. (or legal...)

IF he were refusing to serve them on the basis of who they are as customers - "black people", absolutely, it would be wrong.

IF, however, the "black people" said "we want you to photograph us beating up a Christian baker", I would hope the photographer would refuse (and maybe all the police).

IF the "black people" said "we want you to photograph us engaging in sex", the photographer would be in his right to say "I don't do ANY photographs of people engaging in sex - EVER!" (as long as he, in fact, did NO photographs of people engaging in sex, heterosexual or otherwise)

[carpedm9587]

But only if YOU approve what is and is not immoral/bigoted?

Technically true - for me. But this is also a fairly widely held moral position in our society - especially since the Civil Rights Era, so I am also appealing to that moral framework. And I am pointing out the inconsistency in your own moral framework.

Because the baker definitely thinks that gay weddings are immoral. So either here you are saying you are the sole judge of morality, or that you are fine with the baker refusing to make cakes for gay weddings.

No - I am not the sole judge - and no, I am not fine with the baker refusing to make cakes for same-sex weddings. I think I have been fairly clear on both points.

[carpedm9587]

He doesn't make same sex wedding cakes for anyone.

You cannot dodge the bigotry by just slapping "same-sex" in front of "wedding cakes." The bigotry comes in refusing to make "wedding cakes" on the basis of the sex of the people marrying.

[carpedm9587]

And here is the epic fail -- he doesn't make same sex wedding cakes for ANYBODY. Let me state that another way. He makes same sex wedding cakes for NOBODY. Every customer is treated exactly the same.

Yes - the rest of the story line (which you cut out) illustrates that - and why it is not an "out" for actual bigotry (see the parallel with the black patron).