SCOTUS & gay wedding cakes

[Joel]

The whole idea of this Civil Rights Commission sounds fishy. People bring complaints to the Commission, which holds hearings and makes rulings and issues orders. I'm wondering where the jury of one's peers comes in. Does the Commission follow normal principles regarding presumption of innocence and burden of proof?

[Sparko]

This is just poor writing; the language implies a 5-4 ruling.

Not "poor writing" but "spin". I very much doubt it was just a bad choice of terms. It was deliberate spin to soften the decision.

[Sparko]

I was...

Burn the witch!!!

[Sparko]

The bolded part is why my church has voted to stop renting out our church facilities to non-church members. We do not want to be sued by the gay couple who wants to rent our church for their wedding. (There are many "Wedding Chapels" to rent in my area)

What if a gay couple claims they are Christian and can show baptism certificates from a liberal church?

[rogue06]

Not "poor writing" but "spin". I very much doubt it was just a bad choice of terms. It was deliberate spin to soften the decision.

Virtually every news account uses similar "poor writing"

[Littlejoe]

What if a gay couple claims they are Christian and can show baptism certificates from a liberal church?

They have to be members of our local body. Our churches are autonomous bodies aligned with a governing body.

[Cow Poke]

Reading the Opinion of the Court, I came across this:

When it comes to weddings, it can be assumed that a member of the clergy who objects to gay marriage on moral and religious grounds could not be compelled to perform the ceremony without denial of his or her right to the free exercise of religion. This refusal would be well understood in our constitutional order as an exercise of religion, an exercise that gay persons could recognize and accept without serious diminishment to their own dignity and worth.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinion...6-111_j4el.pdf

Yeah!

[Cow Poke]

What if a gay couple claims they are Christian and can show baptism certificates from a liberal church?

In our Church, they have to be in agreement with the Baptist Faith & Message 2000, which clearly defines "family"....

Source: BF&M

XVIII. The Family

God has ordained the family as the foundational institution of human society. It is composed of persons related to one another by marriage, blood, or adoption.

Marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime. It is God's unique gift to reveal the union between Christ and His church and to provide for the man and the woman in marriage the framework for intimate companionship, the channel of sexual expression according to biblical standards, and the means for procreation of the human race.

The husband and wife are of equal worth before God, since both are created in God's image. The marriage relationship models the way God relates to His people. A husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. He has the God-given responsibility to provide for, to protect, and to lead his family. A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. She, being in the image of God as is her husband and thus equal to him, has the God-given responsibility to respect her husband and to serve as his helper in managing the household and nurturing the next generation.

Children, from the moment of conception, are a blessing and heritage from the Lord. Parents are to demonstrate to their children God's pattern for marriage. Parents are to teach their children spiritual and moral values and to lead them, through consistent lifestyle example and loving discipline, to make choices based on biblical truth. Children are to honor and obey their parents.

Genesis 1:26-28; 2:15-25; 3:1-20; Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 6:4-9; Joshua 24:15; 1 Samuel 1:26-28; Psalms 51:5; 78:1-8; 127; 128; 139:13-16; Proverbs 1:8; 5:15-20; 6:20-22; 12:4; 13:24; 14:1; 17:6; 18:22; 22:6,15; 23:13-14; 24:3; 29:15,17; 31:10-31; Ecclesiastes 4:9-12; 9:9; Malachi 2:14-16; Matthew 5:31-32; 18:2-5; 19:3-9; Mark 10:6-12; Romans 1:18-32; 1 Corinthians 7:1-16; Ephesians 5:21-33; 6:1-4; Colossians 3:18-21; 1 Timothy 5:8,14; 2 Timothy 1:3-5; Titus 2:3-5; Hebrews 13:4; 1 Peter 3:1-7.

© Copyright Original Source

[seer]

Where are all our leftist friends?

[Cow Poke]

Where are all our leftist friends?

Curled up on the fetal position crying like newborns.

[rogue06]

Where are all our leftist friends?

Waiting for Rachel Madcow to tell them how to respond?

[seer]

Curled up on the fetal position crying like newborns.

Oh right, they all went to their safe space. I forgot...

[oxmixmudd]

I have read some of the majority opinion - it is narrow in that you just can't refuse to serve anyone who comes into the shop. But you can on special orders that require further artistice work by the owner if it violates his religious beliefs. Pretty much what we have arguing here.

One very key element of the decision was the recognition that in 3 cases bakers were deemed within their rights to refuse to make wedding cakes that DEMEANED gay marriage or gay people. Which is exactly what I was saying over and over again. If they had ruled against the cake shop, people could demand cakes be made that voiced any manner of themes offensive to the cake maker, and possibly the majority US population, and the baker would have no choice but to oblige. It would be a horrible outcome. The decision itself, in many ways, lays out both sides of the discussion we had here. Most significantly to me the recognition that this specific case pits to 'good' elements directly in opposition with each other. With the outcome - in a 7-2 decision - mirroring arguments made by myself, seer, sparko, cow poke, and rogue that in this case (the fact this was a specially designed and unique cake with no refusal to provide any of the general services of the shop) the baker's right to free exercise of his religion took precedence.

Jim

[oxmixmudd]

Waiting for Rachel Madcow to tell them how to respond?

For the most part I like Maddow.

Jim

[seer]

One very key element of the decision was the recognition that in 3 cases bakers were deemed within their rights to refuse to make wedding cakes that DEMEANED gay marriage or gay people. Which is exactly what I was saying over and over again. If they had ruled against the cake shop, people could demand cakes be made that voiced any manner of themes offensive to the cake maker, and possibly the majority US population, and the baker would have no choice but to oblige. It would be a horrible outcome. The decision itself, in many ways, lays out both sides of the discussion we had here. Most significantly to me the recognition that this specific case pits to 'good' elements directly in opposition with each other. With the outcome - in a 7-2 decision - mirroring arguments made by myself, seer, sparko and rogue that in this case (the fact this was a specially designed and unique cake with no refusal to provide any of the general services of the shop) the baker's right to free exercise of his religion took precedence.

Jim

Right, and I think it was in Thomas' concurring opinion that mentioned that the baker sat down with the couple and told them he would be happy to make them just about any other kind of cake, like a birthday cake. So he wasn't generally denying them service. He just did not want to be involved in a gay marriage.