Colorado Gay Wedding Cake Case: Supreme Court Rules in Favour of Discrimination

[Draconic Aiur]

What does it matter if it's the government or not? If services were privatized during the time of Jim Crow, would that have justified the separate but equal policy? Discrimination is discrimination.

And tyranny is tyranny your point?

[Gilgamesh]

What the baker did is refuse a service because he found a trait of someone repulsive (their homosexuality). Therefor you should be allowed to deny African Americans, women, the physically or mentally handicapped service because you find them repulsive.

You are proselytizing at this point. Your narrative has been shown to be false and yet you're just going to ignore that and keep repeating it. Nice religion, 'progressive.'

[Sal1981]

Gray area for me. I think a store should be allowed to deny customers for whatever reason the store sees fit. Be it cakes for a gay couple or drunks in a bar with to much alcohol in their bloodstream. It's my  belief that this couple made a hassle out of it, where anyone with their sensibilities in check would've just gone to a competitor. So, I align with the store on this one.

If it was some life saving medicine, like a pharmacy denying a gay person insulin or the like, the tables would've been turned, but it's a fucking cake.

[Baruch]

What does it matter if it's the government or not? If services were privatized during the time of Jim Crow, would that have justified the separate but equal policy? Discrimination is discrimination.

Jim Crow was the law, it wasn't private sector.  If we forced gay people to only go to certain businesses, and never go to straight businesses ... that would be Jim Crow.  But capitalism doesn't do that.  Authoritarian government does that.

[Baruch]

No, I wouldn't... but yet again, are we really comparing being gay to being a Nazi?

You are not born a Nazi. You choose to be a Nazi. Denying someone over something they are actively choosing to be, particularly if it is extremely offensive, is perfectly acceptable; consider it the same as kicking someone out of a store for causing a scene or being hateful towards the cashiers or other customers.

You are born LGBT. You do not choose to be LGBT. Denying someone over something they were born as, is not acceptable unless we want to say that the segregation-era Americans had some justifiable reason for denying African Americans, Irish, Chinese people service.

What the baker did is refuse a service because he found a trait of someone repulsive (their homosexuality). Therefor you should be allowed to deny African Americans, women, the physically or mentally handicapped service because you find them repulsive.

The more like-for-like analogy would be an African couple coming and asking for a cake that celebrates their heritage, and the baker saying no because he finds them to be offensive. If he said no because he didn't have the materials to make such a cake, again... I am 100% on his side. But when his expressed reason is, "I don't like them because I find their culture offensive!" then I'm sorry... but that is denial of service due to bigotry, and that is unacceptable.

Would it be OK to force someone to make a cake with a Jihadi theme, showing 9/11? or Malala getting acid in her face?

[Baruch]

And tyranny is tyranny your point?

Tyranny doesn't mean ... I want something, but can't get it, or can get it but not the way I want to get it.

Tyranny means government force to prevent something from happening, that isn't merely criminal, but is political.

[Draconic Aiur]

Tyranny doesn't mean ... I want something, but can't get it, or can get it but not the way I want to get it.

Tyranny means government force to prevent something from happening, that isn't merely criminal, but is political.

In what world you live to believe that is so?

[Cavebear]

The baker wasn't part of the government which  I think you ar confusd he or she is. It's the private sector, they have the right to refuse service. If you don't like it dont go thre, don't talk about it, don't even violently enter and break the place like those crazy radical liberals that caused harm to a cat cafe because the owner was white.

Well, no actually.  The law does forbid some forms of discrimination by private businesses.  The question in this case (which the Supreme Court side-stepped on a limited question) was whether a cake-maker could be considered an "artist".  And all they really did was remand the decision to the lower court for reconsideration of that question.  Their decision actually doesn't have any legal effect yet.

[Cavebear]

Gray area for me. I think a store should be allowed to deny customers for whatever reason the store sees fit. Be it cakes for a gay couple or drunks in a bar with to much alcohol in their bloodstream. It's my  belief that this couple made a hassle out of it, where anyone with their sensibilities in check would've just gone to a competitor. So, I align with the store on this one.

If it was some life saving medicine, like a pharmacy denying a gay person insulin or the like, the tables would've been turned, but it's a fucking cake.

The drunk example was a poor one.  There are specific laws about that.  And the pharmacy example was poor, too.  Supplying legal drugs is not a question of "art".  I will point out that the baker was perfectly willing to sell the gay couple any generic product in his shop, so it wasn't exactly a "refusal to serve". 

I'm not arguing against the rights of gays to all commercial services.  Far from it.  It is really a very limited legal question and one sent back to a lower court for reconsideration of competing First Amendment rights.

[Draconic Aiur]

So I read the discrimination law that seems very Authoritarian and protects "protected classes". This will caus problems becaus it's the private sector and business owner should have the right to refuse anyone.

[Cavebear]

So I read the discrimination law that seems very Authoritarian and protects "protected classes". This will caus problems becaus it's the private sector and business owner should have the right to refuse anyone.

"Protected classes" are protected because of historical cultural reasons that left them unfairly treated.  Is there nothing in your ancestry that was once treated unfairly?  Do you hate the Statue Of Liberty?

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

[Poison Tree]

He doesn't make wedding cakes depicting a homosexual couple on it. He does not provide this service, regardless of who orders it; therefore it is not discrimination against the customer.

Again quoting from the Colorado Court of Appeals ruling

Craig and Mullins promptly left Masterpiece without discussing with Phillips any details of their wedding cake.
[. . .]
[The ALJ] recognized that baking and creating a wedding cake involves skill and artistry, but nonetheless concluded that, because Phillips refused to prepare a cake for Craig and Mullins before any discussion of the cake’s design, the ALJ could not determine whether Craig’s and Mullins’ desired wedding cake would constitute symbolic speech subject to First Amendment protections.
[. . .]
Commission’s order requires that Masterpiece “cease and desist from discriminating against [Craig and Mullins] and other same-sex couples by refusing to sell them wedding cakes or any product [it] would sell to heterosexual couples.”
[. . .]
We note, again, that Phillips denied Craig’s and Mullins’ request without any discussion regarding the wedding cake’s design or any possible written inscriptions.
[. . .]
The decision to categorically deny service to Craig and Mullins was based only on their request for a wedding cake and Masterpiece’s own beliefs about same-sex marriage.  Because Craig and Mullins never conveyed any details of their desired cake to Masterpiece, evidence about their wedding cake and details of their wedding ceremony were not relevant. 

It wasn't even a genuine moment to begin with. It was an LGBT rights oranization going to multiple bakeries looking for rejection to set them up. It was never a situation of two people actually getting married.

Do you have even a pretense of evidence for that?

AND the bakery didn't even deny them a cake. They just didn't want to make the specific request they were asked.

"specific request"= cake for “our wedding”

[pr126]

If I may make an observation, - I know it will be shot down in flames but here it goes.

If the couple went to a Muslim bakery and refused custom, there would be no media circus, courts, and this thread would not exist.

No one would know or care.

[Shiranu]

This will caus problems becaus it's the private sector and business owner should have the right to refuse anyone.

Why?

[aitm]

After strolling somewhat casually through this thread I must admit I slide more and more towards the baker. I have been a advocate for gay rights since the mid 70's when I first started to understand what gay was, and I have had many gay friends over the years and one short, very brief (and uncomfortable) dalliance into it during my exploration stage. (To be quite honest it was merely getting a blow job from a guy twice-and it is true that gay men give the best blow jobs). That said, as comfortable as I am, (or can be) around gays I would still be uncomfortable should they start grinding and getting busy in front of me.

If I was a famous painter and a gay couple wanted me to paint a portrait of them even looking like they were in a pre/post-sexual situation, i would not be comfortable doing it and I think I should be able to say, "looks folks, I simply can't do this" and be able to do that without fear of being labeled a homophobe after years of being a supporter, but also understands that even I, as a supporter cannot do some things if I were asked. I cannot watch gay porn. I have no interest in it. And no gay friend has ever asked suggested or invited me to watch it. They respected that I "accepted and supported" their rights or fight for rights, but at the same time, am not willing to become part of the culture.

So if I am allowed to say, "look guys, no can do." Why should a person who has or at least claims to have a severe objection to gayness completely, be forced to do something he finds honestly repulsive?