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On March 26 2018 12:16 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2018 11:55 Danglars wrote:On March 26 2018 11:09 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 25 2018 23:51 Danglars wrote:On March 25 2018 13:12 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 25 2018 12:34 Danglars wrote:On March 25 2018 11:19 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 25 2018 08:14 Danglars wrote:On March 25 2018 07:38 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 25 2018 06:19 Danglars wrote:
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We entered into this when you thought religious objections shouldn't even be here in the first place: it's asserted to be a secular event in your eyes, case closed. History tells a different tale. It supports the side that says it's very likely for such a ceremony to entangle religious people in conscience objections by its own nature. That's why very sympathetic individuals, such as the baker, will be kind and offer all there wares to gays and transgenders ... it's not participation in a religious ceremony. Your first problem is showing why your personal view that it is secular should trump the historical reality that it's intimately religious.
Your second problem is showing where I said "religion is required for marriage." I said it very easily raises freedom of conscience objections because of its historical religious nature. I do not imply the reverse is true: all marriages must be religious or it's not a marriage.
You haven't engaged with my arguments that you require religious persons to engage in forced speech (forced expression) and require them to violate their religious liberties (participate in ceremonies complying with their religious beliefs). I can't really help you. From what I gather, because you declare it secular, then no civil rights are violated, because they're secular ceremonies, and no religious person could object. ("I believe it is objective fact that marriage is secular"). That's the only point you come back to and the only sense I can make of your argument. It's ludicrous. Rights don't cease to exist because you don't acknowledge them. The problem with your argument is that you try to imply that the religious aspect is inseparable from marriage due to the fact that marriage was historically co-opted by religion. What you don't do is acknowledge that marriage has pretty much universally been a legal/cultural institution that shaped the family dynamic, and religion has absolutely no right to uniquely claim it. To strengthen your argument, you would have to make a plausible argument as to why marriage is required to be religious. For example, why did my marriage that was strictly secular (not in a church, no involvement of religious ideas or practices) have some kind of religious component to it? What about the very nature of marriage makes it OK for religious people to discriminate based on it? This also brings up a larger question of why is religious belief ever an acceptable excuse to discriminate, but that's an entire discussion on its own. No requirement, just an extreme likelihood that someone religious would find the ceremony in direct conflict with his or her sincerely held religious views. I only bring it up because someone thought it was secular by nature and nobody’s civil rights were being violated. So really you’re falsely reducing my argument to points I never made. So then you have to justify why religion is an acceptable excuse to discriminate, because this is precisely what your argument is supporting. If he was truly discriminating against gays, he wouldn’t sell premade cakes to them either. The US has a rich history of weighing religious liberty concerns against others ... like unemployment benefits even though jobs were available that didn’t have sabbaths off .. or LGBT groups in a veterans parade. If we could return to a rational discussion of trade offs compared to the unilateral declaration that it’s discrimination ... that would be a good step one. It's the definition of discrimination. You can be triggered by the word "discrimination" since it seems to be a buzz word, but this isn't a debate. It is the very definition of discrimination. He is refusing service to an individual based on a particular trait of that individual. It doesn't matter if it's only a single service, it's still discrimination. There are different situations in which different institutions are allowed to discriminate. This is easily shown by many examples. However, there is always a reason or justification under the law; as you said, a trade-off. There are two different facets to the discrimination that is in question here; the basis for it (religion) and the reason for it (homosexuality, specifically a perceived endorsement of homosexuality). If you really want to justify this instance of discrimination, then you have to tell us why religion is an acceptable reason to allow discrimination, because that is the argument that you are constantly throwing your support behind. You will have to open your mind to alternative looks if you want to truly understand this issue. When you call it discrimination and leave it at that, you can’t progress to see what rights the other party has. That’s one of the reasons this is such a cantankerous issue in general: too many people are willing to cry discrimination and leave apart whether artists have the ability to be in business and still reject messages and whether or not that applies here. One easy reason why the uniform view of discrimination does not bear out is why the Supreme Court actually took up the case. According to some of the people in here, they should never has issued a writ of certiorari, just a one word rejection “Discrimination is not ok!” In real life, this is a balance of rights and responsibilities. This is another example of you being intellectually dishonest and being too afraid to be held accountable for your own opinions. It is discrimination. This is a fact. And in many instances around the world, discrimination is acceptable, i.e. discrimination in a neutral sense. You're refusing to actually own up to your opinions because you're too scared of a buzz word. It's a straightforward question; you are advocating for someone's religious beliefs to be a legitimate justification for discrimination. Why is religion an acceptable justification for this? And does it stop at homosexuality? If so, why is homosexuality uniquely fit to be legally/morally discriminated against? If not, is discriminating against race, or sex, or nationality, or religion, or anything else OK if your religious beliefs demand it? These are all questions you need to answer if your opinion is to have any merit. "But you don't respect religious rights!" isn't an answer. Why does religion seemingly have the right to discriminate? You're saying that all religious persecution is justified if someone can use a context of the word discrimination in favor of it. I'm saying that isn't true. You have refused to see it in any other light. I live in a world where there are tradeoffs. I discriminate against car brands in selecting others. I discriminate against many women by dating only one. I'm not afraid of the word. I'm afraid of wasting time teaching people of other concerns in the balancing act of rights/responsibilities that refuse to look beyond one narrow framing. Which is why I say, if your framing is the dominant one and the only one worthy of consideration, then the Supreme Court should have rejected this in a single line "Discrimination is not OK." Show me another religious example if you want to draw this out of homosexuality (really, you should say a homosexual marriage/marriage event). And you know my reason, which is why you keep asking the question you know the answer to in order to hope for some mob joining you. The marriage ceremony is a traditionally religious event that dozens if not hundreds say is ordained by God/gods/whatever. That is a very valid reason to discriminate against celebrations that counter their religious beliefs because religious liberty means discrimination (used in a very narrow). The Colorado Human Rights Association even believes this because they allowed other religions to refuse to print Biblical scriptures on a cake. Since you've acknowledged that other liberties involve discrimination, I wonder why you think religious liberties must be unique. (I will say that focus on this word really dumbs down the argument, because we all discriminate every day in our lives) This isn't a narrow framing. You don't understand the question. Everything you stated here acts on the assumption that religion is already justified in being able to discriminate. You give this away by stating that it's religious persecution like it's a fact. 1) Why is religion an acceptable justification to allow discrimination? You have not answered this question in any way, no matter how loudly you scream "but yes I did!". In fact, I'll frame it another way. You continue to fall back on the "civil rights" line, so: Why is religion a civil right that should be protected to the degree that it allows someone to perform acts that are otherwise considered unacceptable? 2) How would this court case be considered religious persecution? 3) You continue to state "religion is a traditionally religious event". 3a) First off, you provide absolutely no justification for why this makes it acceptable for religious institutions to discriminate when it comes to marriage. For the sake of one argument, let's give this point to you and say it is; why does that matter? Just because traditional institutions or relationships exist doesn't inherently justify continuing the paradigm. Religion is clearly not the dominant actor in the institution of marriage anymore. 3b) To hold you more accountable, we need to address the fact that this is demonstrably false. Historical evidence widely points to the fact that marriage has always either been an explicitly legal or de facto legal (i.e. property/ownership) arrangement that various world religions co-opted due to its powerful influence on the family.
1) Almost everything is an acceptable justification to allow discrimination. I am a free human being of legal age. I may discriminate against a million women (and men) in this country to pick exactly one to marry. I'll discriminate against several car brands in picking my used Toyota. I'll discriminate against a dozen lawyers to pick the one I want to represent me, and that might even be on caprice because I liked the sound of his/her voice, or the nearness of his office to my house. That's why the word in your framing is pretty useless. Having once proven it can be used in this situation, you must then add more constraints in its applicability to get back to sanity.
Hell, I will even be so liberal as to allow a black man to discriminate against white women to pick his mate. The NFL I say is well within their rights to discriminate against female quarterbacks. You see why I'm laughing at you thinking the word "discriminate" triggers me? You're surrounded by valid examples, so your framing is pretty meaningless in my book. You're going to have to add more qualifiers than you have done in every last post to even prove "You, I, and everybody else discriminates in every day of their lives. Why is religion the odd one out?"
2) The primary answer is that it singled out Christians objecting to a gay marriage, which is likely to occur given it's historical religious connotations. The second one is so many here have no problem allowing Muslims to discriminate (Including the Colorado Human Rights Commission in actual court submissions) and secular owners to discriminate against religious cakes. You have not answered the question of why the latter two are allowed and the former is not.
3) No, a marriage is a traditionally religious event. Maybe a typo?
3a) If it's generally viewed as a religious event, it matters to religious people. I'd say this is pretty self-evident. I don't care if religion trends less in the population: are rights derived from the majority? If the percentage of blacks declines in this country, do they lose rights too? I await your response.
3b) History proves that religions for thousands of years put marriage in their holy books, and the secular interpretation is about as flawed as it gets in the historical revisionism place. Go back as long as you want. If you find religion, you'll find it has a say into the enduring structure of the family. You're really getting in it deep here, because you'll eventually have to ask if religion is a co-opter of history or if it's deep in the historical record alongside it. Who co-opted who? Why did religions come into being? If your view is religion is profoundly false and should have no say in modern life, form your own society, because the founders of mine recognized its central role and recognized that protections against state fiat against religion were absolutely key to preserve the society. There is no America like it exists today if religious persecution, including that about what marriages are, changed and shaped society. You'd have a better change arguing that the split of King Henry VIII from the Roman Catholic Church had nothing to do with marriage, because religion only co-opted marriage, it was really a secular historical occurrence of an explicitly non-religious divorce not involving two religions or one religion, thus leading to explicitly secular marriages in England etc etc. You're really putting your own views of why you think religion is nonsense on top of historical reality. + Show Spoiler +Marriages traditionally happened in churches? Nah, that was an explicitly legal arrangement that everybody there knew the church was really a nonreligious meeting place that was generally chosen for convenience
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On March 26 2018 09:27 Tachion wrote:Department of Fair Employment and Housing v. Cathy’s CreationsAn article for those who want some additional legal viewpoints for bakers and gay weddings. + Show Spoiler +This looks to be a near identical case to the one being heard by the Supreme Court, and the judge ruled in favor of the baker in this one. We're only discussing it again because the federal court is taking a second look at it. Some relevant snippets from the article: Case Summary and Outcome
Kern County Superior Court of California denied the State’s application for a preliminary injunction to restrain Cathy Miller, owner of Cathy’s Creations, a cake baking shop that catered to wedding cakes, from refusing to design and bake a cake for a couple for a same-sex marriage. The Department of Fair Employment and Housing complained that Miller had violated the Unruh Civil Rights Act which prohibits public businesses from denying service to anyone on the basis of a number of characteristics including race, gender, religion or sexual orientation. The Court reasoned that Miller’s right to freedom of speech through the artistic expression of baking a cake outweighed the State’s interest in preventing discrimination because generally-applicable public accommodation laws such as the Unruh Act could not be used to ‘compel speech’. The State argued that forcing the Defendant to serve the complainants does not compel speech, but rather only compels conduct; the baking and selling of a cake. The State also argued that this was not a case of compelled speech because the Defendant is not being required to bake a cake with a message on it condoning same sex marriage. The Court disagreed, finding that the compelled speech doctrine was applicable in this situation, because the Defendant was being forced to bake a cake that would promote the message desired by same-sex marital partners and with which Miller disagreed.
Why waste your time reading about a similar court case in a different state when you can read the conclusions of the one we're already discussing? The colorado court of appeals has already ruled against the cake shop.
Finally, we reiterate that CADA does not compel Masterpiece to support or endorse any particular religious views. The law merely prohibits Masterpiece from discriminating against potential customers on account of their sexual orientation. As one court observed in addressing a similar free exercise challenge to the 1964 Civil Rights Act:
Undoubtedly defendant . . . has a constitutional right to espouse the religious beliefs of his own choosing, however, he does not have the absolute right to exercise and practice such beliefs in utter disregard of the clear constitutional rights of other citizens. This Court refuses to lend credence or support to his position that he has a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of the Negro race in his business establishment upon the ground that to do so would violate his sacred religious beliefs.
Newman v. Piggie Park Enters., Inc., 256 F. Supp. 941, 945 (D.S.C. 1966), aff’d in relevant part and rev’d in part on other grounds, 377 F.2d 433 (4th Cir. 1967), aff’d and modified on other grounds, 390 U.S. 400 (1968). Likewise, Masterpiece remains free to continue espousing its religious beliefs, including its opposition to same-sex marriage. However, if it wishes to operate as a public accommodation and conduct business within the State of Colorado, CADA prohibits it from picking and choosing customers based on their sexual orientation.
http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/16-111-op-bel-colo-app.pdf
If you want to get a feel for how the supreme courts decision is going try reading the preliminary arguments for the case. This is interesting because they aren't trying to solve the case so much as find a set of guidelines which will solve all similar cases.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2017/16-111_f314.pdf
https://www.c-span.org/video/?436814-1/masterpiece-cakeshop-v-colorado-civil-rights-commission-oral-argument
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On March 26 2018 12:40 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2018 12:35 Gahlo wrote:On March 26 2018 12:31 IgnE wrote:
I think what we really need is a federally funded program to ensure that every citizen in the country has access to custom-designed cakes within a 15 mile radius. We can't have people in backwards places without access to customized cakes. Cakes are just at the top of the slope. What's at the bottom? We should probably set up federal programs to provide what's down there too.
Already got that bill of rights taking care of it.
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I'm reading through the cspan link now they're basically having the same argument we're having outside of the "you're just trying to justify your bigotry" nonsense.
Kagan makes some werid arguments about a chef being the same no idea where that was going.
Around 55 minutes the nazies come into the argument.
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On March 26 2018 12:44 Gahlo wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2018 12:40 IgnE wrote:On March 26 2018 12:35 Gahlo wrote:On March 26 2018 12:31 IgnE wrote:
I think what we really need is a federally funded program to ensure that every citizen in the country has access to custom-designed cakes within a 15 mile radius. We can't have people in backwards places without access to customized cakes. Cakes are just at the top of the slope. What's at the bottom? We should probably set up federal programs to provide what's down there too. Already got that bill of rights taking care of it.
No. We don't.
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On March 26 2018 12:36 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2018 12:33 hunts wrote:On March 26 2018 12:16 Danglars wrote:On March 26 2018 12:05 hunts wrote:
I just fail to see how religious people are being persecuted by being told that they as a business can't discriminate against someone on the basis of their sexual orientation. Furthermore, I really don't think that christians want to bark up this tree, given how many people in the fields of law, health care, and other services are not christian. If you get to not sell a cake to a gay couple, then why does a muslim doctor have to treat a christian who he may see as an infidel? Why should a Jewish lawyer have to represent a neo nazi who he may see as an imbecile? Why would a gay accountant have to file taxes for a priest? Do you really want to start down the path of everyone being able to deny service to any group of people they dislike? Or should only christians get that privilage? They're discriminating against their wedding ceremony on the basis that historically religions have treated them as major religious events. That's why it's a normal thing to have a religious exemption for. Sexual orientation or identity isn't very important, it's the religious ceremony that arises out of it. The pastor might speak to any homosexual person that comes by, and have a very different reason for not speaking at their gay wedding. Moving on, the muslim doctor is not drawing hearts and flowers and scriptural passages on a Christian man's chest. It isn't religious free expression. It isn't free speech. It's a procedure. The same doctor that would refuse to abort a baby because it goes against his religious beliefs would be one among millions of like-minded individuals that have done this for years. And hospitals staff accordingly. An ER doctor that refuses to treat someone of a different faith (say, coming in with a yarmulke) does not argue that he's right to discriminate against them because his medical practice is artwork protected by the first amendment. It's not the same situation. Baking a cake is also a procedure. No one asked the baker to come to the wedding, to bless the couple, or to have gay sex with them. No one asked him to say that gay marriage was ok, that gay sex was great, or that he worshipped satan the gay loving devil. He was asked to bake a cake, which was simply his job, and is a fairly simple procedure. He wasn't just asked to bake a cake. You don't do yourself any favors with this sloppy, lazy arguing. He was asked to bake a cake and then decorate it with images symbolic of a gay wedding. He was happy to sell them an undecorated cake.
Was this a hypothetical you're talking about and i missed the opening of it? What you described is not at all how the supreme court case went.
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The Dems are serious about winning in 2018. If she was confident that the blue wave were inevitable, she'd be singing a different tune, say "She didn't pick the most diplomatic way of saying that, but she's right that we're the party of the most diverse, economically strong areas..."
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On March 26 2018 09:35 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2018 09:14 Nyxisto wrote:Because it only isn't a problem if it's a single individual business. What if a town of a thousand people boycots the Jewish entrepreneur out of their city, is that fine?
That's not quite right. The Jewish entrepreneur would be able to buy standard goods and services everywhere.
If your community is small enough and discrimination is prevalent enough it might not be possible to really maintain a business because of it. If you don't like that particular example make one up or pick one from the segregation era, but it's not a fiction. In some places societies can create enough pressure on minorities to make it impossible for them to operate eye-to-eye with everyone else.
Given that conservatives are pretty big on 'stand your ground' issues and would I think generally say that justice does not need to move away to accommodate injustice I think you can even make a perfectly non-partisan case about this. It applies to conservatives in silicon valley as much as to gay people in rural towns. Minorities should not be treated worse in economic interactions.
It is a form of paternalism where people use their economic position to push their ethical beliefs onto others. For what it's worth I also think a jewish lawyer should be obligated to defend a nazi and a palestinian doctor should be obligated to treat a Jewish patient or whatever.
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On March 26 2018 12:40 Danglars wrote:1) Almost everything is an acceptable justification to allow discrimination. I am a free human being of legal age. I may discriminate against a million women (and men) in this country to pick exactly one to marry. I'll discriminate against several car brands in picking my used Toyota. I'll discriminate against a dozen lawyers to pick the one I want to represent me, and that might even be on caprice because I liked the sound of his/her voice, or the nearness of his office to my house. That's why the word in your framing is pretty useless. Having once proven it can be used in this situation, you must then add more constraints in its applicability to get back to sanity. On March 26 2018 12:09 IgnE wrote:
a jewish lawyer doesnt have to represent a neonazi though
Because neonazis are not a protected class, so the Jewish lawyer isn't violating any laws. I'm pretty sure this thread has been over this sort of bullshit back after Charlottesville when a bunch of people were really gung-ho about the first amendment rights of neo-nazis.
The law provides explicit protection for certain groups because this country has a history of those groups being persecuted and discriminated against. There are certain things that it is acceptable to do for equivalent reasons to other groups that are not protected. Proving discrimination based on race, gender, or orientation is generally pretty hard because most people don't explicitly state that they're discriminating against a person because that person is in a protected class, but just because it's easy to get away with doesn't mean that it's within the law.
The US, as a society, has determined that things such as race, gender, and sexual orientation do not fall within the "almost everything" that is acceptable justification for discrimination when doing business with the general public. Danglars, all of the examples you gave are of an individual looking for a business to interact with, not an individual doing business with the general public. You didn't open a storefront offering dates, you aren't a used car dealership buying cars, you aren't a lawyer turning away clients because of their race, gender, or orientation. You're making comparisons between things that are not equivalent in the current context as though they are, which is commonly referred to as a "false equivalence," especially in this thread with regard to things you've said, because you do this a lot.
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On March 26 2018 12:55 patrick321 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2018 12:36 IgnE wrote:On March 26 2018 12:33 hunts wrote:On March 26 2018 12:16 Danglars wrote:On March 26 2018 12:05 hunts wrote:
I just fail to see how religious people are being persecuted by being told that they as a business can't discriminate against someone on the basis of their sexual orientation. Furthermore, I really don't think that christians want to bark up this tree, given how many people in the fields of law, health care, and other services are not christian. If you get to not sell a cake to a gay couple, then why does a muslim doctor have to treat a christian who he may see as an infidel? Why should a Jewish lawyer have to represent a neo nazi who he may see as an imbecile? Why would a gay accountant have to file taxes for a priest? Do you really want to start down the path of everyone being able to deny service to any group of people they dislike? Or should only christians get that privilage? They're discriminating against their wedding ceremony on the basis that historically religions have treated them as major religious events. That's why it's a normal thing to have a religious exemption for. Sexual orientation or identity isn't very important, it's the religious ceremony that arises out of it. The pastor might speak to any homosexual person that comes by, and have a very different reason for not speaking at their gay wedding. Moving on, the muslim doctor is not drawing hearts and flowers and scriptural passages on a Christian man's chest. It isn't religious free expression. It isn't free speech. It's a procedure. The same doctor that would refuse to abort a baby because it goes against his religious beliefs would be one among millions of like-minded individuals that have done this for years. And hospitals staff accordingly. An ER doctor that refuses to treat someone of a different faith (say, coming in with a yarmulke) does not argue that he's right to discriminate against them because his medical practice is artwork protected by the first amendment. It's not the same situation. Baking a cake is also a procedure. No one asked the baker to come to the wedding, to bless the couple, or to have gay sex with them. No one asked him to say that gay marriage was ok, that gay sex was great, or that he worshipped satan the gay loving devil. He was asked to bake a cake, which was simply his job, and is a fairly simple procedure. He wasn't just asked to bake a cake. You don't do yourself any favors with this sloppy, lazy arguing. He was asked to bake a cake and then decorate it with images symbolic of a gay wedding. He was happy to sell them an undecorated cake. Was this a hypothetical you're talking about and i missed the opening of it? What you described is not at all how the supreme court case went.
No? Can you elaborate?
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/27/opinion/gay-wedding-cake.html
The reason the nation’s high court is giving the case a second glance is Phillips’s First Amendment claim that he was not, in fact, discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation, but on the basis of a particular message: endorsement of same-sex marriage. Phillips made it clear to the gay couple that he would happily sell them other items: birthday cakes, cookies, and so on. He welcomes LGBT customers; he is simply unwilling to use his artistic talents in the service of a message that he deems immoral.
www.youtube.com
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On March 26 2018 12:28 Toadesstern wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2018 11:44 Danglars wrote:On March 26 2018 09:52 Toadesstern wrote:On March 26 2018 09:38 Danglars wrote:On March 26 2018 09:14 Nyxisto wrote:On March 26 2018 07:59 Danglars wrote:On March 26 2018 07:43 Nyxisto wrote:On March 26 2018 07:24 Danglars wrote:On March 26 2018 07:20 NewSunshine wrote:On March 26 2018 07:15 Danglars wrote:
[quote]
And the religious person considers that ignorant attitude towards the role religion plays in his life and hopes God works on his heart. It’s both ways. I don’t really care about the ignorant and hateful characterizations along the lines of “getting called out on his bullshit.” It’s your opinion and try as best you can to convince people it’s the right way to view it. Just don’t enslave people’s artistic expression to the state. Preserve some rights while you figure it out. That's precisely the argument we're making. Being religious isn't a good excuse to deny the rights of others. Being religious isn’t a good enough reason to forfeit your free speech and free expression rights. Apparently, you’re allowed to have them as long as you’re a hypocrite or don’t seek gainful employment. I really didn’t expect such a callous approach. The problem is honestly not discrimination in some ethical sense but the fact that we'd be living in a clown car of a society if everybody who doesn't like each others ethics or religion would express that through the marketplace. Commercial cake-selling in a publicly licensed business should never be an issue of speech. Imagine if liberals would never hire conservatives or don't sell any goods to them because of their political orientation or vice versa. We'd constantly wage cultural war by economic means. It's better too keep that stuff apart. That’s why we should cut it off at artistic expressions for historically religious events. That’s why I’m not suggesting they have any right to put a No Gays sign in front of their store or asking somebody’s religion before selling them cookies. If you can’t separate things of particularly religious significance, the problem is your understanding of religion. Ignorance of rights is not an excuse to trample on them outright. but it's not really arstistic expression, it's a commercial business that prdouces a product on demand. If you want to be a cake artisan in your free time I don't really think that's much of an issue, but if you operate under a normal business license it shouldn't matter what the people are buying your cakes for. The commercial business produces a custom designed product after a sometimes lengthy consultation with a client. The remaining products are different and “not really artistic expression.” That’s the difference that isn’t present in your post. They could’ve walked out of their with any number of premade cakes, and t wouldn’t matter if it was for a bar mitzvah or gay wedding. That’s a fact. To you and igne above: and what if the standard product doesn't cut it for them? Software is usually the same thing. Long discussions with your client to figure out what he wants and yet that wouldn't be covered in this (from last page)? What about consulting an architect because you want to open a business somewhere and need some place to make your goods? Is there a "standard" factory to choose? No its going to be 100% custom. So you can turn that down if the factory were to make sextoys and you don't like them for religious reasons? What if there's an awful lot of people religious that way and it takes you forever to find someone willing to do it, if at all? I just don't see this argument between standard goods versus custom ones tbh If the standard product doesn't cut it for them, then choose any number of nonreligious or other-religious-beliefs cakeshops in the area. I'd have to see a software free-speech case to talk about compelled speech in software coding. I can think of a number of architects that might refuse to draft an arch with "Fuck the Mormons," in which case I wouldn't want to be on the side that says he must create that design. Sry im not really knowledgeable on Mormons as that's only a thing in the US I think. Are you talking about (not) drafting an arch because that's related to mormons and the reasoning being "fuck the Mormons" or are you talking about a design that literally has that phrase in it somewhere? If it's the 2nd you can easily turn that down on basis of not being an asshole. If it's the first... How is a "generic" arch related to mormons? I'm not really following that o.O The thing about other cakeshops is that you don't really know if there are others around depending on how rural you go, don't you? At what point does it became unreasonable to ask them to search for another shop? After being to 3 and the next being a 30min drive? A 60min drive? Do you want to put that into law? It's fine to refuse the job as long as there's other people close by (whatever that is) willing to do the job? What if you're being send on a fools errand wasting hours to prove that noone else is willing to make that cake for you because you're in some mighty backwards place? Is that burden really on you or should you be protected from that? I'm pretty sure that's all hyperbolic and as stated before I do agree that just getting someone else to make it would have been the easiest solution for everyone involved but what's easiest to get a cake isn't at the heart of this discussion.
If we're in the business of forcing business owners to create art that violates their religious beliefs (because core, sincerely held religious beliefs are insufficient for any discrimination), then you can make your own example. The architect could be asked to design the lettering "Jesus Christ is Lord" or "Muhammed is a false prophet of God" (or a ceiling actually depicting Muhammed in cartoon form). I'm a little interested in your opinion if these all can be forced. I heard much more argue that religion was never a factor in compelled speech for businesses, rather than custom cakes aren't art. In my view, at least six posters here present logic that equally applies to force architects and muralists and bakers to produce these things that offend their religious beliefs (note: I'm not implying that they actually follow their internal logic in discussions, and I don't think any to date have taken up why other religious&nonreligious Colorado bakers were protected by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission in refusing other creations).
On March 26 2018 12:31 IgnE wrote:
I think what we really need is a federally funded program to ensure that every citizen in the country has access to custom-designed cakes within a 15 mile radius. We can't have people in backwards places without access to customized cakes.
IgnE's onto the right idea (and I'll use a little tongue in cheek myself here). If you respect the rights of religious bakers to refuse an artistic commission for a cake, but are still confronted with underserved communities with only Christian bakers of that particular persuasion and possessing at least one homosexual couple wanting a marriage with custom designed cakes, then ask for donations from the community, or plead with your state/locality to subsidize cakeshops in these communities. It's the easiest solution for everyone.
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On March 26 2018 12:59 Nyxisto wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2018 09:35 IgnE wrote:On March 26 2018 09:14 Nyxisto wrote:Because it only isn't a problem if it's a single individual business. What if a town of a thousand people boycots the Jewish entrepreneur out of their city, is that fine?
That's not quite right. The Jewish entrepreneur would be able to buy standard goods and services everywhere. If your community is small enough and discrimination is prevalent enough it might not be possible to really maintain a business because of it. If you don't like that particular example make one up or pick one from the segregation era, but it's not a fiction. In some places societies can create enough pressure on minorities to make it impossible for them to operate eye-to-eye with everyone else. Given that conservatives are pretty big on 'stand your ground' issues and would I think generally say that justice does not need to move away to accommodate injustice I think you can even make a perfectly non-partisan case about this. It applies to conservatives in silicon valley as much as to gay people in rural towns. Minorities should not be treated worse in economic interactions. It is a form of paternalism where people use their economic position to push their ethical beliefs onto others. For what it's worth I also think a jewish lawyer should be obligated to defend a nazi and a palestinian doctor should be obligated to treat a Jewish patient or whatever.
This is a pretty narrow case in my opinion. I think it can be distinguished from the civil rights legislation and court decisions that forced southern establishments like restaurants to serve black people, although it is quite difficult to formulate into a clear definition. I think cakes are artistic expression here. I can understand why some people might not. I also understand worrying about "oh no, what if people see this as an opening to discriminate against gay?" although I don't really think that's a serious problem in Colorado, and I think it would be an open and shut case if the cake baker was a portrait artist asked to do a formal wedding portrait. I am not really strongly invested in the decision either way, although I do wonder about the libidinal investment of the gay couple who brought this case to force a guy to do something he doesn't want to do (to reinforce a patriarchal normative social formation, no less).
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On March 26 2018 13:03 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2018 12:55 patrick321 wrote:On March 26 2018 12:36 IgnE wrote:On March 26 2018 12:33 hunts wrote:On March 26 2018 12:16 Danglars wrote:On March 26 2018 12:05 hunts wrote:
I just fail to see how religious people are being persecuted by being told that they as a business can't discriminate against someone on the basis of their sexual orientation. Furthermore, I really don't think that christians want to bark up this tree, given how many people in the fields of law, health care, and other services are not christian. If you get to not sell a cake to a gay couple, then why does a muslim doctor have to treat a christian who he may see as an infidel? Why should a Jewish lawyer have to represent a neo nazi who he may see as an imbecile? Why would a gay accountant have to file taxes for a priest? Do you really want to start down the path of everyone being able to deny service to any group of people they dislike? Or should only christians get that privilage? They're discriminating against their wedding ceremony on the basis that historically religions have treated them as major religious events. That's why it's a normal thing to have a religious exemption for. Sexual orientation or identity isn't very important, it's the religious ceremony that arises out of it. The pastor might speak to any homosexual person that comes by, and have a very different reason for not speaking at their gay wedding. Moving on, the muslim doctor is not drawing hearts and flowers and scriptural passages on a Christian man's chest. It isn't religious free expression. It isn't free speech. It's a procedure. The same doctor that would refuse to abort a baby because it goes against his religious beliefs would be one among millions of like-minded individuals that have done this for years. And hospitals staff accordingly. An ER doctor that refuses to treat someone of a different faith (say, coming in with a yarmulke) does not argue that he's right to discriminate against them because his medical practice is artwork protected by the first amendment. It's not the same situation. Baking a cake is also a procedure. No one asked the baker to come to the wedding, to bless the couple, or to have gay sex with them. No one asked him to say that gay marriage was ok, that gay sex was great, or that he worshipped satan the gay loving devil. He was asked to bake a cake, which was simply his job, and is a fairly simple procedure. He wasn't just asked to bake a cake. You don't do yourself any favors with this sloppy, lazy arguing. He was asked to bake a cake and then decorate it with images symbolic of a gay wedding. He was happy to sell them an undecorated cake. Was this a hypothetical you're talking about and i missed the opening of it? What you described is not at all how the supreme court case went. No? Can you elaborate? https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/27/opinion/gay-wedding-cake.htmlShow nested quote +The reason the nation’s high court is giving the case a second glance is Phillips’s First Amendment claim that he was not, in fact, discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation, but on the basis of a particular message: endorsement of same-sex marriage. Phillips made it clear to the gay couple that he would happily sell them other items: birthday cakes, cookies, and so on. He welcomes LGBT customers; he is simply unwilling to use his artistic talents in the service of a message that he deems immoral. www.youtube.com
Yet by all accounts, the happy couple did not ask Mr. Phillips for a cake bearing a message with which the baker might disagree — such as “God Bless This Gay Marriage,” as a group of First Amendment scholars hypothesized, or a rainbow flag. That could make for a harder case. Instead, the would-be customers stated only that they were seeking a wedding cake before Mr. Phillips said he could not serve them.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/at-the-supreme-court-the-cake-bakers-reasoning-falls-flat/2017/12/12/8cf321a6-dc60-11e7-b1a8-62589434a581_story.html?utm_term=.3b2eceda1da3
I'm sure i read a first-person breakdown of the event from one of the two defendants which confirms but this was the first google result. The first-person one that i recall basically went:
'we'd like to buy a cake'
'who's it for?'
'us!'
'no can do'
Your own supporting evidence even affirms that the 'message' the cake artisan disagreed with was the wedding itself and not anything about the cake.
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On March 26 2018 13:13 patrick321 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2018 13:03 IgnE wrote:On March 26 2018 12:55 patrick321 wrote:On March 26 2018 12:36 IgnE wrote:On March 26 2018 12:33 hunts wrote:On March 26 2018 12:16 Danglars wrote:On March 26 2018 12:05 hunts wrote:
I just fail to see how religious people are being persecuted by being told that they as a business can't discriminate against someone on the basis of their sexual orientation. Furthermore, I really don't think that christians want to bark up this tree, given how many people in the fields of law, health care, and other services are not christian. If you get to not sell a cake to a gay couple, then why does a muslim doctor have to treat a christian who he may see as an infidel? Why should a Jewish lawyer have to represent a neo nazi who he may see as an imbecile? Why would a gay accountant have to file taxes for a priest? Do you really want to start down the path of everyone being able to deny service to any group of people they dislike? Or should only christians get that privilage? They're discriminating against their wedding ceremony on the basis that historically religions have treated them as major religious events. That's why it's a normal thing to have a religious exemption for. Sexual orientation or identity isn't very important, it's the religious ceremony that arises out of it. The pastor might speak to any homosexual person that comes by, and have a very different reason for not speaking at their gay wedding. Moving on, the muslim doctor is not drawing hearts and flowers and scriptural passages on a Christian man's chest. It isn't religious free expression. It isn't free speech. It's a procedure. The same doctor that would refuse to abort a baby because it goes against his religious beliefs would be one among millions of like-minded individuals that have done this for years. And hospitals staff accordingly. An ER doctor that refuses to treat someone of a different faith (say, coming in with a yarmulke) does not argue that he's right to discriminate against them because his medical practice is artwork protected by the first amendment. It's not the same situation. Baking a cake is also a procedure. No one asked the baker to come to the wedding, to bless the couple, or to have gay sex with them. No one asked him to say that gay marriage was ok, that gay sex was great, or that he worshipped satan the gay loving devil. He was asked to bake a cake, which was simply his job, and is a fairly simple procedure. He wasn't just asked to bake a cake. You don't do yourself any favors with this sloppy, lazy arguing. He was asked to bake a cake and then decorate it with images symbolic of a gay wedding. He was happy to sell them an undecorated cake. Was this a hypothetical you're talking about and i missed the opening of it? What you described is not at all how the supreme court case went. No? Can you elaborate? https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/27/opinion/gay-wedding-cake.htmlThe reason the nation’s high court is giving the case a second glance is Phillips’s First Amendment claim that he was not, in fact, discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation, but on the basis of a particular message: endorsement of same-sex marriage. Phillips made it clear to the gay couple that he would happily sell them other items: birthday cakes, cookies, and so on. He welcomes LGBT customers; he is simply unwilling to use his artistic talents in the service of a message that he deems immoral. www.youtube.com Show nested quote +Yet by all accounts, the happy couple did not ask Mr. Phillips for a cake bearing a message with which the baker might disagree — such as “God Bless This Gay Marriage,” as a group of First Amendment scholars hypothesized, or a rainbow flag. That could make for a harder case. Instead, the would-be customers stated only that they were seeking a wedding cake before Mr. Phillips said he could not serve them. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/at-the-supreme-court-the-cake-bakers-reasoning-falls-flat/2017/12/12/8cf321a6-dc60-11e7-b1a8-62589434a581_story.html?utm_term=.3b2eceda1da3I'm sure i read a first-person breakdown of the event from one of the two defendants which confirms but this was the first google result. The first-person one that i recall basically went: 'we'd like to buy a cake' 'who's it for?' 'us!' 'no can do' Your own supporting evidence even affirms that the 'message' the cake artisan disagreed with was the wedding itself and not anything about the cake.
So you think he is lying and wouldn't have sold them any cake that they could decorate themselves?
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On March 26 2018 13:17 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2018 13:13 patrick321 wrote:On March 26 2018 13:03 IgnE wrote:On March 26 2018 12:55 patrick321 wrote:On March 26 2018 12:36 IgnE wrote:On March 26 2018 12:33 hunts wrote:On March 26 2018 12:16 Danglars wrote:On March 26 2018 12:05 hunts wrote:
I just fail to see how religious people are being persecuted by being told that they as a business can't discriminate against someone on the basis of their sexual orientation. Furthermore, I really don't think that christians want to bark up this tree, given how many people in the fields of law, health care, and other services are not christian. If you get to not sell a cake to a gay couple, then why does a muslim doctor have to treat a christian who he may see as an infidel? Why should a Jewish lawyer have to represent a neo nazi who he may see as an imbecile? Why would a gay accountant have to file taxes for a priest? Do you really want to start down the path of everyone being able to deny service to any group of people they dislike? Or should only christians get that privilage? They're discriminating against their wedding ceremony on the basis that historically religions have treated them as major religious events. That's why it's a normal thing to have a religious exemption for. Sexual orientation or identity isn't very important, it's the religious ceremony that arises out of it. The pastor might speak to any homosexual person that comes by, and have a very different reason for not speaking at their gay wedding. Moving on, the muslim doctor is not drawing hearts and flowers and scriptural passages on a Christian man's chest. It isn't religious free expression. It isn't free speech. It's a procedure. The same doctor that would refuse to abort a baby because it goes against his religious beliefs would be one among millions of like-minded individuals that have done this for years. And hospitals staff accordingly. An ER doctor that refuses to treat someone of a different faith (say, coming in with a yarmulke) does not argue that he's right to discriminate against them because his medical practice is artwork protected by the first amendment. It's not the same situation. Baking a cake is also a procedure. No one asked the baker to come to the wedding, to bless the couple, or to have gay sex with them. No one asked him to say that gay marriage was ok, that gay sex was great, or that he worshipped satan the gay loving devil. He was asked to bake a cake, which was simply his job, and is a fairly simple procedure. He wasn't just asked to bake a cake. You don't do yourself any favors with this sloppy, lazy arguing. He was asked to bake a cake and then decorate it with images symbolic of a gay wedding. He was happy to sell them an undecorated cake. Was this a hypothetical you're talking about and i missed the opening of it? What you described is not at all how the supreme court case went. No? Can you elaborate? https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/27/opinion/gay-wedding-cake.htmlThe reason the nation’s high court is giving the case a second glance is Phillips’s First Amendment claim that he was not, in fact, discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation, but on the basis of a particular message: endorsement of same-sex marriage. Phillips made it clear to the gay couple that he would happily sell them other items: birthday cakes, cookies, and so on. He welcomes LGBT customers; he is simply unwilling to use his artistic talents in the service of a message that he deems immoral. www.youtube.com Yet by all accounts, the happy couple did not ask Mr. Phillips for a cake bearing a message with which the baker might disagree — such as “God Bless This Gay Marriage,” as a group of First Amendment scholars hypothesized, or a rainbow flag. That could make for a harder case. Instead, the would-be customers stated only that they were seeking a wedding cake before Mr. Phillips said he could not serve them. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/at-the-supreme-court-the-cake-bakers-reasoning-falls-flat/2017/12/12/8cf321a6-dc60-11e7-b1a8-62589434a581_story.html?utm_term=.3b2eceda1da3I'm sure i read a first-person breakdown of the event from one of the two defendants which confirms but this was the first google result. The first-person one that i recall basically went: 'we'd like to buy a cake' 'who's it for?' 'us!' 'no can do' Your own supporting evidence even affirms that the 'message' the cake artisan disagreed with was the wedding itself and not anything about the cake. So you think he is lying and wouldn't have sold them any cake that they could decorate themselves?
I'm curious as to why the "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone" on the door of all these places hasn't really been discussed. Could the baker have just refused services on that stance, as opposed to making it open that the reason for refusal of service was that the couple was gay?
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On March 26 2018 13:17 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2018 13:13 patrick321 wrote:On March 26 2018 13:03 IgnE wrote:On March 26 2018 12:55 patrick321 wrote:On March 26 2018 12:36 IgnE wrote:On March 26 2018 12:33 hunts wrote:On March 26 2018 12:16 Danglars wrote:On March 26 2018 12:05 hunts wrote:
I just fail to see how religious people are being persecuted by being told that they as a business can't discriminate against someone on the basis of their sexual orientation. Furthermore, I really don't think that christians want to bark up this tree, given how many people in the fields of law, health care, and other services are not christian. If you get to not sell a cake to a gay couple, then why does a muslim doctor have to treat a christian who he may see as an infidel? Why should a Jewish lawyer have to represent a neo nazi who he may see as an imbecile? Why would a gay accountant have to file taxes for a priest? Do you really want to start down the path of everyone being able to deny service to any group of people they dislike? Or should only christians get that privilage? They're discriminating against their wedding ceremony on the basis that historically religions have treated them as major religious events. That's why it's a normal thing to have a religious exemption for. Sexual orientation or identity isn't very important, it's the religious ceremony that arises out of it. The pastor might speak to any homosexual person that comes by, and have a very different reason for not speaking at their gay wedding. Moving on, the muslim doctor is not drawing hearts and flowers and scriptural passages on a Christian man's chest. It isn't religious free expression. It isn't free speech. It's a procedure. The same doctor that would refuse to abort a baby because it goes against his religious beliefs would be one among millions of like-minded individuals that have done this for years. And hospitals staff accordingly. An ER doctor that refuses to treat someone of a different faith (say, coming in with a yarmulke) does not argue that he's right to discriminate against them because his medical practice is artwork protected by the first amendment. It's not the same situation. Baking a cake is also a procedure. No one asked the baker to come to the wedding, to bless the couple, or to have gay sex with them. No one asked him to say that gay marriage was ok, that gay sex was great, or that he worshipped satan the gay loving devil. He was asked to bake a cake, which was simply his job, and is a fairly simple procedure. He wasn't just asked to bake a cake. You don't do yourself any favors with this sloppy, lazy arguing. He was asked to bake a cake and then decorate it with images symbolic of a gay wedding. He was happy to sell them an undecorated cake. Was this a hypothetical you're talking about and i missed the opening of it? What you described is not at all how the supreme court case went. No? Can you elaborate? https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/27/opinion/gay-wedding-cake.htmlThe reason the nation’s high court is giving the case a second glance is Phillips’s First Amendment claim that he was not, in fact, discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation, but on the basis of a particular message: endorsement of same-sex marriage. Phillips made it clear to the gay couple that he would happily sell them other items: birthday cakes, cookies, and so on. He welcomes LGBT customers; he is simply unwilling to use his artistic talents in the service of a message that he deems immoral. www.youtube.com Yet by all accounts, the happy couple did not ask Mr. Phillips for a cake bearing a message with which the baker might disagree — such as “God Bless This Gay Marriage,” as a group of First Amendment scholars hypothesized, or a rainbow flag. That could make for a harder case. Instead, the would-be customers stated only that they were seeking a wedding cake before Mr. Phillips said he could not serve them. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/at-the-supreme-court-the-cake-bakers-reasoning-falls-flat/2017/12/12/8cf321a6-dc60-11e7-b1a8-62589434a581_story.html?utm_term=.3b2eceda1da3I'm sure i read a first-person breakdown of the event from one of the two defendants which confirms but this was the first google result. The first-person one that i recall basically went: 'we'd like to buy a cake' 'who's it for?' 'us!' 'no can do' Your own supporting evidence even affirms that the 'message' the cake artisan disagreed with was the wedding itself and not anything about the cake. So you think he is lying and wouldn't have sold them any cake that they could decorate themselves?
Maybe there's something in that 10 minute youtube video i haven't finished yet but you made a claim that my source disproves and your newspaper sources doesn't support. The gay couple asked for nothing on their cake but were still refused.
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On March 26 2018 13:24 patrick321 wrote:
Maybe there's something in that 10 minute youtube video i haven't finished yet but you made a claim that my source disproves and your newspaper sources doesn't support. The gay couple asked for nothing on their cake but were still refused.
That's not quite right either. They asked for a "wedding cake." What's the difference between a "wedding cake" and a "cake?" Could it be the artistic decoration?
Why do you think the couple themselves care so much that its a wedding cake? This case isn't about any old cake. It's about a crafted, individual expression encoded in socially symbolic terms.
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So I finished the arguments and I got some interesting observations. To start out there was no discussion on the cake the cake maker just heard it was for a gay wedding and said no. They didn't attempt to buy a premade cake and were requesting a custom cake with a rainbow on it.
Basically the court opens the door for a cake maker to refuse to make a cake that has designs or a message that is pro gay marriage as it would be compelling the cake maker to express speech in support of gay marriage. However if a cake maker would make a cake for a straight marriage they would have to make the same cake for the gay marriage. They do not have to participate in the ceremony which might create an sliver of the gay couples having to pick up the cake vs a straight marriage being able to have delivery.
There was some odd bits were the court admitted that the only reason why this was being discussed was because gay people are a federally protected class. If they weren't the cake maker could refuse all service. Religious accommodation was the term the court used instead of religious discrimination. I would request people use that term instead as its less hostile.
Also pre made cakes you have to sell regardless as you're opening your store to an open market.
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On March 26 2018 13:26 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2018 13:24 patrick321 wrote:
Maybe there's something in that 10 minute youtube video i haven't finished yet but you made a claim that my source disproves and your newspaper sources doesn't support. The gay couple asked for nothing on their cake but were still refused. That's not quite right either. They asked for a "wedding cake." What's the difference between a "wedding cake" and a "cake?" Could it be the artistic decoration? Why do you think the couple themselves care so much that its a wedding cake? This case isn't about a case. It's about a crafted, individual expression encoded in socially symbolic terms.
Maybe there's no difference at all other then the price. It certainly doesn't seem to be "images symbolic of a gay wedding" as you claimed, though. This is the post you accused somebody else of being sloppy in, btw.
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On March 26 2018 13:29 patrick321 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2018 13:26 IgnE wrote:On March 26 2018 13:24 patrick321 wrote:
Maybe there's something in that 10 minute youtube video i haven't finished yet but you made a claim that my source disproves and your newspaper sources doesn't support. The gay couple asked for nothing on their cake but were still refused. That's not quite right either. They asked for a "wedding cake." What's the difference between a "wedding cake" and a "cake?" Could it be the artistic decoration? Why do you think the couple themselves care so much that its a wedding cake? This case isn't about a case. It's about a crafted, individual expression encoded in socially symbolic terms. Maybe there's no difference at all other then the price. It certainly doesn't seem to be "images symbolic of a gay wedding" as you claimed, though. This is the post you accused somebody else of being sloppy in, btw.
I'm not really sure what you think "images symbolic of a gay wedding" means, but it would seem to include the elements of a customized wedding cake for a gay wedding. So yeah, that is the post I said that. This isn't about a cake. It's about a wedding cake, and according to multiple accounts that I've read the baker says he would have been happy to sell them anything else in the shop.
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EPT
