Was this right?

[quip]

First, I would say that no baker should be required by law to bake anything. And the issue was indeed the content of the cake since it is understood that there is a contract for the baker to bake and decorate a cake specifically and explicitly to recognize and celebrate a homosexual couple engaging in a public declaration of marriage. Anything that deviates from the request is a breach of that contract so as soon as that baker agrees to produce the cake for this couple, he locks himself in to recognition and celebration of something he cannot in good conscience recognize. The baker has no right (once under contract) to do anything different than what he is told to put on the cake. Likewise the billboard company. They can’t change what they are contracted to put up so either they agree and put up what the client wants or they decline entirely.


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The vital difference being a complete lack of precedent concerning any form of historical subjugation against Christianity in this country.

As such, the billboard company is within its right to refuse service.... wholly unlike the baker.

This is foremost a civil rights/equality issue not relevant to the advertiser's situation. Christians have no avenue for redress... The billboard company wields no such power against a predominating religion.

 

[rexlunae]

First, I would say that no baker should be required by law to bake anything.

Sure, but if he doesn't make anything, he might find it hard to get people to call him a baker.

And the issue was indeed the content of the cake since it is understood that there is a contract for the baker to bake and decorate a cake specifically and explicitly to recognize and celebrate a homosexual couple engaging in a public declaration of marriage. Anything that deviates from the request is a breach of that contract so as soon as that baker agrees to produce the cake for this couple, he locks himself in to recognition and celebration of something he cannot in good conscience recognize. The baker has no right (once under contract) to do anything different than what he is told to put on the cake. Likewise the billboard company. They can’t change what they are contracted to put up so either they agree and put up what the client wants or they decline entirely.

That's contrived, and in the main untrue. Sure, if he signs some sort of ironclad contract giving complete creative control to the customer, maybe he could be held to something like that. But he's under no obligation to do so. He can give them as much creative input as he chooses, or none at all. He can even explicitly carve out a rule that he won't do anything that contradicts his religious feelings. A contract is voluntary on both sides.

What he can't do is refuse service on the basis of the identities of his customers. That's against the law.

 

[MrDante]

I suspect that wouldn't have flown in the CO Baker case. Most people asking for a cake for a specific occasion want the baker's own expertise in decorating and personalizing their request. As long as these kits are generic (and don't directly attribute back to the baker who sold them) I would think the bakery would be okay with it.

For my part, it seems like the homosexual community wants extra recognition.

I recognize that this question won't get anything resembling an actual response but I going to ask any way. How does wanting the same right and legal protections as everyone else has qualify as "extra recognition"?

 

[MrDante]

I can see how that causes a pickle.

Refusing your service to someone because you think it is offensive or has objectionable content.
Sounds exactly like the baker situation.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander?????
We'll see.

not at all alike unless the Lamar company puts up billboards promoting prejudice against other minorities

 

[MrDante]

First, I would say that no baker should be required by law to bake anything. And the issue was indeed the content of the cake since it is understood that there is a contract for the baker to bake and decorate a cake specifically and explicitly to recognize and celebrate a homosexual couple engaging in a public declaration of marriage. Anything that deviates from the request is a breach of that contract so as soon as that baker agrees to produce the cake for this couple, he locks himself in to recognition and celebration of something he cannot in good conscience recognize. The baker has no right (once under contract) to do anything different than what he is told to put on the cake. Likewise the billboard company. They can’t change what they are contracted to put up so either they agree and put up what the client wants or they decline entirely.


Sent from my iPhone using TOL

except that there is no difference between cakes for same sex marriages and cakes for opposite sex marriages. So it isn't about the cake it's about the couple getting married and refusing services based on the couple is discrimination.

 

[Greg Jennings]

I liked TomO's solution. Sell "celebration cakes" with kits to make them whatever you want them to be. Problem solved.

That's a pretty darn good solution

 

[Tambora]

not at all alike unless the Lamar company puts up billboards promoting prejudice against other minorities

Nope.
If a straight white male Christian came in and order a cake with fag content on it, the baker STILL would refuse to create the artistic cake ordered.

except that there is no difference between cakes for same sex marriages and cakes for opposite sex marriages. So it isn't about the cake it's about the couple getting married and refusing services based on the couple is discrimination.

Oh come on!
If there was no difference, then the wedding couple should have been happy with an atistic cake with the traditional male/female groom/bride.

But if you want to use that logic, then there is no difference in any artwork placed on billboards, and Lamar should be sued for discrimination.

 

[nikolai_42]

The vital difference being a complete lack of precedent concerning any form of historical subjugation against Christianity in this country.

Which has very little to do with the legal issue. Saying it's Christianity's turn to be oppressed in this country doesn't have much legal standing if the constitution be applies.

As such, the billboard company is within its right to refuse service.... wholly unlike the baker.

I agree with the first part but not the second. Again, it sounds like you are saying this is comeuppance rather than legally justified. The baker's refusal and the billboard company's refusal are no different in the sense that they both provide a service and have the right to decide how that service is applied. Both of them contain public messages to which their names and reputations are attached and if they don't wish to make that statement, they have a right so to (not) do. The service itself is less the issue than the content of the service.

This is foremost a civil rights/equality issue not relevant to the advertiser's situation. Christians have no avenue for redress... The billboard company wields no such power against a predominating religion.

Where does the status of any religion come into play? This is one man's (or business') freedom of conscience. If the intent of the law is to be broadly applicable, then what you are doing is narrowing the definition based on belief. Some beliefs, then, are more acceptable than others. Don't look now but the secular state has its own religion...

 

[nikolai_42]

Sure, but if he doesn't make anything, he might find it hard to get people to call him a baker.



That's contrived, and in the main untrue. Sure, if he signs some sort of ironclad contract giving complete creative control to the customer, maybe he could be held to something like that. But he's under no obligation to do so. He can give them as much creative input as he chooses, or none at all. He can even explicitly carve out a rule that he won't do anything that contradicts his religious feelings. A contract is voluntary on both sides.

What he can't do is refuse service on the basis of the identities of his customers. That's against the law.

Agreed. And he didn't do so. He denied service based on the message his services were being used to convey - not the product being given.

 

[nikolai_42]

I recognize that this question won't get anything resembling an actual response but I going to ask any way. How does wanting the same right and legal protections as everyone else has qualify as "extra recognition"?

The marketplace is full of choices - and the baker in question even offered the homosexuals involved a contact at another bakery that would have made the cake with no issues. So the baker even offered the service of finding what they were looking for. So the issue was not access to goods and/or services. It was the fact that they wanted to be able to force the baker to condone their homosexuality (publicly) in spite of the fact that it is against his beliefs. By extra recognition I meant not merely tolerance (live and let live even if disagree) but legally enforced vocalized support of a given lifestyle that is clearly counter the teachings of Christianity (scripturally and historically). This is NOT wanting the same right and legal protection. The actions of these two homosexuals is to remove the protection of law from those that do not agree with them.

The secular state has a religion too (as I mentioned in passing in a recent response to Quip). And it is in direct contradiction to the Christianity that formed modern Western Civilization. If it is allowed to (pre)dominate, Western Civilization will replaced by Western Anarchy. That's what happens when "my" definition of right and wrong is permitted to dictate public morality (i.e. eradicate it). Because that is what's happening. It is the eradication of moral absolutes to facilitate the indulgence of self. Not only is that anti-Christian, but it is also counter Judaism and Islam (not to mention the oriental religions).

 

[nikolai_42]

except that there is no difference between cakes for same sex marriages and cakes for opposite sex marriages. So it isn't about the cake it's about the couple getting married and refusing services based on the couple is discrimination.

But there is a difference. In part, the difference is the redefinition of marriage. Currently, polygamy is not legal. So would you say someone would be wrong to deny a wedding cake to a polygamist (who is marrying multiple women at the ceremony) - ON MORAL GROUNDS - if that prohibition were ever to be removed? The point is that morality and law don't always go together, but if one doesn't support the other then you have a real problem. So the redefinition of marriage (by supposed mass acceptance or by law) doesn't change the fact that this is about the behavior - not the people themselves.

 

[MrDante]

Nope.
If a straight white male Christian came in and order a cake with fag content on it, the baker STILL would refuse to create the artistic cake ordered.

a christian wouldn't be using such derogatory terms

Oh come on!
If there was no difference, then the wedding couple should have been happy with an atistic cake with the traditional male/female groom/bride.

if the only difference between is putting a piece of cheap plastic on top then no art is involved. And most couples these days don't put plastic things on their cake.

But if you want to use that logic, then there is no difference in any artwork placed on billboards, and Lamar should be sued for discrimination.

you would have to be very very stupid or completely morally bankrupt to pretend there is no difference between a billboard that reads "Love everyone" and one that reads "kill them all"

 

[WatchmanOnTheWall]

They want to have their cake and eat it!:

'Court Sides With Baker Who Denied A Christian Customer Bible Verses Be Written on Cakes'

https://ijr.com/2015/04/294575-court-sides-bakery-denied-christian-two-bible-shaped-cakes/

 

[MrDante]

The marketplace is full of choices -

no response to the question i posed.

What a shock

and the baker in question even offered the homosexuals involved a contact at another bakery that would have made the cake with no issues. So the baker even offered the service of finding what they were looking for. So the issue was not access to goods and/or services.

and I'm sure shopkeepers of the segregated would would point (possibly with a shotgun)blacks to stores that would serve "their kind"

It was the fact that they wanted to be able to force the baker to condone their homosexuality (publicly) in spite of the fact that it is against his beliefs. By extra recognition I meant not merely tolerance (live and let live even if disagree) but legally enforced vocalized support of a given lifestyle that is clearly counter the teachings of Christianity (scripturally and historically). This is NOT wanting the same right and legal protection. The actions of these two homosexuals is to remove the protection of law from those that do not agree with them.

just like how blacks pushing for civil rights ended up forcing all those poor business owners to go against their conscious and their religious (and historic) beliefs that people with dark skin were social inferiors and start letting those nasty horrible "collords" sit in the same restaurants and use the same bathrooms

The secular state has a religion too (as I mentioned in passing in a recent response to Quip). And it is in direct contradiction to the Christianity that formed modern Western Civilization. If it is allowed to (pre)dominate, Western Civilization will replaced by Western Anarchy. That's what happens when "my" definition of right and wrong is permitted to dictate public morality (i.e. eradicate it).
Because that is what's happening. It is the eradication of moral absolutes to facilitate the indulgence of self. Not only is that anti-Christian, but it is also counter Judaism and Islam (not to mention the oriental religions).

Like how you are wanting to dictate who its OK to discriminate against.

 

[MrDante]

But there is a difference. In part, the difference is the redefinition of marriage. Currently, polygamy is not legal. Until recently interracial marriage was not legal. So would you say someone would be wrong to deny a wedding cake to a polygamist (who is marrying multiple women at the ceremony) an interracial couple - ON MORAL GROUNDS -

Fixed that for you

 

[nikolai_42]

no response to the question i posed.

What a shock


and I'm sure shopkeepers of the segregated would would point (possibly with a shotgun)blacks to stores that would serve "their kind"


just like how blacks pushing for civil rights ended up forcing all those poor business owners to go against their conscious and their religious (and historic) beliefs that people with dark skin were social inferiors and start letting those nasty horrible "collords" sit in the same restaurants and use the same bathrooms



Like how you are wanting to dictate who its OK to discriminate against.

You can't equate behavior with skin color. It's a false comparison.

And you'll note that I did answer your question (provided you weren't just looking for it in the first sentence).

 

[nikolai_42]

Fixed that for you

Once again - homosexuality is a behavior, race is a physical trait.

But I would also re-emphasize the fact that I believe a homosexual baker has the right not to provide a wedding cake to a heterosexual couple.

 

[Tambora]

a christian wouldn't be using such derogatory terms

One just did, so that blows your theory.

if the only difference between is putting a piece of cheap plastic on top then no art is involved. And most couples these days don't put plastic things on their cake.

Didn't say anything about plastic.

you would have to be very very stupid or completely morally bankrupt to pretend there is no difference between a billboard that reads "Love everyone" and one that reads "kill them all"

You would have to be very very stupid or completely morally bankrupt to pretend that is what happened.

 

[nikolai_42]

Like how you are wanting to dictate who its OK to discriminate against.

If I can add - this sort of response is what I was saying in another post is indicative of the attitude that concerns me. It is very much like saying You can't tell me what to do! and is an skewing of the idea of individual rights and freedoms to the point that everyone becomes their own Master (which is why Christianity is so targeted in these cases - it is vocal in its definition of sin). Doing away with a common, objective morality necessarily leads to societal anarchy.

 

[Tambora]

You can't equate behavior with skin color. It's a false comparison.

Exactly.