DesideriScuri
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Joined: 1/18/2012
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ORIGINAL: LadyPact
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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri
That's not up to me to decide, which is kinda the point I'm making. I don't get to decide squat how any business - other than my own - operates. I'm not sure if any Christian religion other than Catholicism looks down so direly on divorce.
While I agree that it's not up to you (or me for that matter) to decide, we still have to have a way to determine which of the parties in the case has the law on their side. Is it legal to discriminate based on a person's sexual orientation or it it legal to refuse customers based on religion? Legally, I doubt that there can be a way for both to be right.
I do want to point out that, even in your own business, you still have to abide by laws in the way you operate. OSHA, EPA, EEO, and everything else. As a business owner, if you violate the law in your business practices, do you believe there should be consequences for violating that law?
What happens when a law is a bad law? Do you follow it, or challenge it? I think that's what we have going on here. One service was being denied, and that service would be denied of any requesting customer, regardless of faith, sexual orientation, race, etc. It wasn't the customer that was the problem (in the article I linked to, the shop owner said he had no problem selling any pre-made item to anyone, that the entire issue was performing his unique artistry to personalize a cake with a message that offends his religious beliefs.
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This part is just trivia. MP and I have both been married to other people prior. When the person I was getting married to years before I met MP, we were denied to be married in the church we were hoping to use because I had been divorced before. It wasn't a Catholic church.
I know the Catholic church makes a huge deal out of it. I was married in a Catholic Church (her family's church, not that either of us attended any church at the time). Our dissolution was also an annulment, which supposedly erases the marriage in the eyes of the church, in case either one of us wanted to get married in a Catholic church later. Talk about fucking stupid, eh?
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Then, perhaps, they should take their business elsewhere. That's the beauty of letting the Market work. People don't have to patronize any business the don't want to patronize.
The gay couple wants their beliefs to trump the religious beliefs of a shop owner. That's imposing beliefs upon another. The gay couple can (and likely has) get a cake from other bakeries. They don't have to get one from this bakery. They don't have to ask (or force, if you involve government) this baker to perform an act that he finds opposing his religious beliefs. But, they did and are doing just that.
The case is five years old. I'm sure they got a cake for the occasion. 
I think this is where some people are losing the important factor here. There have been several posts that come across about cakes aren't essential or were cakes available elsewhere. These types of points don't really address the discrimination issue. In my opinion, from a legal standpoint, that's the basis on how the case will be decided. The 'is it art' question and even the position that the baker says he is abiding by his religious beliefs to refuse service boil down to 'can these reasons be used to justify discrimination.'
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(This point? I think it's quite a bit more than this point. lol  )
LOL. I'll give you that. 
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Other than spite, why would you want to force a shop that would discriminate against you to provide you a good or service? How is that going to end well? Let the baker decide how he wants to run his bakery, and then let the chips fall where they may.
If you were discriminated against by a business, would you report the discrimination? Would you want other people to experience the same discrimination that you did? That's also a part of it.
I don't know precisely how I'd report it. Depending on the discrimination, I might report it to the authorities. I might just "report it" to social media and let the chips fall where they may. I acknowledge that's me and I'm a pretty unique (in a GOOD way, dammit!!! ) individual. I'm more likely to report it on social media, though, and let Market forces take care of the rest.
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His belief is that he can't provide a cake celebrating a gay marriage without sinning in the eyes of his God. How is forcing him to not deny wedding cake services to a gay couple NOT forcing him to change his belief?
It always amuses me, just a tad, that sexual orientation is the only 'sin' that people want to refuse services over. The baker hasn't had any problem conducting business with anybody else who isn't following the baker's idea of what is right or wrong in the eyes of God. Has the baker made cakes for housewarming parties for couples who live together but aren't married? How about anniversary cakes for couples where one of them is having an affair? Maybe birthday cakes for someone born out of wedlock?
I'm not entirely sure that winning or losing the case is going to force the baker to change his belief about whether gay marriage is wrong. It might change his opinion about does he have to provide services as a business owner regardless of the customer's sexual orientation.
The issue is personalizing the cake for a wedding celebrating something opposed to his beliefs. It's not about the people, per se. I'm willing to bet he doesn't ask about the fidelity or parental lineage of the celebrants to his personalized cakes, so there may not be any way of knowing those things. I doubt he'd create a cake with a message celebrating affairs, or other forms of sinning.
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That's the thing about many SCOTUS rulings, similarities may or may not cross over. We shall see how they rule in this case.
Agreed. I'm actually looking forward to the case being heard and decided. I do think previous rulings on similar issues are a good indicator of how it might go.
That comes down to the similarities and differences in the cases. And, I, too, look forward to the case decision.
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And, I agree with your opinion.
Just further musings. I have doubts that the 40% business loss is going to return after the case has been decided. Even if it's ruled that the baker can't legally discriminate based on sexual orientation, potential customers still know that would be the baker's preference, so that's going to impact his shop.
As it should, in my opinion, if that's the Market's reaction. The threats, though, will stop regardless, I hope.
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Not it isn't. It's supposed to be about a person running a business as he/she sees fit. If the business goes under, who shoulders the loss? It's not the public. It's the shop owner.
We disagree. It's no different than the business owner who causes damage because they dump chemicals into the water supply or refuses to pay workman's comp. Businesses impact the public, the customers, the neighborhood. It's not only a matter of whether the shop owner stays in business or not.
Some businesses impact the public. Something tells me that not baking wedding cakes celebrating gay weddings isn't quite on the same level of public impact that chemical-dumping businesses. Quite different, imo.
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What law is that? That's an honest question.
It's cool. It's been a lot of years, so a lot of people forget that this was the same state that voted (then) Amendment two into law. Something else that SCOTUS had to hear and declare unconstitutional. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romer_v._Evans
Thank you. I'll give that a read later.
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You think it's been given a chance in today's business climate? Really?
I think it actually being a case that will be heard by SCOTUS probably has a greater visibility than if the couple would have written a yelp review saying they were denied a service.
Which doesn't answer the question....
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You have to realize how much has changed from 25+ years ago. Times were, you used to have to wait for the 5/6-o'clock news or the newspaper to find out what was going on. By the time you found out, it could have easily changed because of how slowly information traveled. It's damn near real-time now. We can get overanalysis of damn near anything mere moments after that thing happens.
I get that. However, for a case like this, trying to use social media to get the word out isn't the same as the illegal practice, if it is ruled discrimination, to halt. It might help to reduce the revenue of the business, which is different than getting the business to stop breaking the law.
It could easily result in the shop closing, though. Government isn't supposed to be allowed to infringe on the free exercise of one's chosen religion. Regardless of the way SCOTUS rules, this guy's business is likely to be negatively impacted, which is the way the Market works.
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By choosing where to apply our own dollars. You morality and ethics don't necessarily line up with anyone else's, so how do you get to determine what's right and what's wrong? Tyranny of the majority a better option?
I'm not so sure allowing people equality is tyranny of the majority. There was a time that the 'majority' thought it was wrong for a black man to marry a white woman, let POC get lunch at the counter, or for somebody to sit on the bus. That's what the majority believed and even would quote scripture to justify their view point. This really isn't different except that it's based on sexual orientation, rather than skin color.
Thank you for proving my point. Just because a majority things something is right, doesn't make it so. But, we aren't talking about tyranny of the majority on the side of the baker. He didn't refuse the service based on majority opinion, but based on his personal religious beliefs. Tyranny of the majority may force him to close up shop or cross his personal religious beliefs.
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What I support:
- A Conservative interpretation of the US Constitution
- Personal Responsibility
- Help for the truly needy
- Limited Government
- Consumption Tax (non-profit charities and food exempt)
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RE: Are cakes art? - 
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