What about the devout christian who built a wedding planning business 4 years?
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Like helping to service a homosexual marriage, and specifically that, when it’s sacrilegious in your faith?
What about the private christian book store owner that won’t order “Queer Jesus”? What’s their protection?
[/quote]
A private book store isn’t under obligation by law to carry anything on their shelves, nor are they required to special order anything for a customer. However, if they refuse to sell a book to a customer based on the customer’s protected class, then they run afoul of the law. There’s a difference.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
What about the devout christian who built a wedding planning business 4 years? [/quote]
As of right now, unless the Supreme Court rules that the business owner’s religious expression trumps state anti-discrimination public accommodation laws, as a wedding planner engaged in a commercial transaction of public accommodation, you couldn’t refuse service to a couple because of their sexual orientation in whatever states disallow that as a form of discrimination.
[quote]
Sloth wrote:
This is clearly false, or the baker would refuse to sell birthday cakes to the homosexual, too. The refusal is specifically for a WEDDING cake which celebrates a right that he/she disagrees with.
JR249 wrote:
I realize that, but the baker is refusing to bake cakes to be used by gay couples for a wedding or a civil union ceremony. In doing so, s/he is running afoul of state laws by refusing service based on sexual orientation, because there’s no way a gay couple can get a wedding cake from that bakery.
In refusing to bake cake for a woman who had an abortion and wants to celebrate it with a cake, as far a I know, having an abortion isn’t a protected class from discrimination by businesses, at least not in most states.[/quote]
But women [gender/sex] are.
And there’s no way for a woman to get a “Yay abortion rights are women’s freedom” from that bakery either.
And if the baker was refusing service based on sexual orientation he wouldn’t sell the homosexual his/her birthday cake either. But we’re not talking about that.
[quote]JR249 wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Like helping to service a homosexual marriage, and specifically that, when it’s sacrilegious in your faith?
What about the private christian book store owner that won’t order “Queer Jesus”? What’s their protection?
[/quote]
A private book store isn’t under obligation by law to carry anything on their shelves, nor are they required to special order anything for a customer. However, if they refuse to sell a book to a customer based on the customer’s protected class, then they run afoul of the law. There’s a difference.[/quote]
And you’ve just described the baker. The baker isn’t refusing to sell cakes to homosexuals. The baker is refusing a very specific order he disagrees with. Just as the book store owner disagrees with “Queer Jesus.”
[quote]Sloth wrote:
And you’ve just described the baker. The baker isn’t refusing to sell cakes to homosexuals. The baker is refusing a very specific order he disagrees with. Just as the book store owner disagrees with “Queer Jesus.”[/quote]
I disagree.
The baker is providing a service. You’re talking about someone forcing a bookstore to carry stock they don’t carry. That’s not the same situation as someone walking into a bakery, which bakes special cakes that do not yet exist, and not being able to get serviced based on the person’s sexual orientation. I realize it’s for a wedding specifically, but it’s still a denial of service based on sexual orientation.
The bookstore isn’t violating any laws by not carrying specific books and it cannot be forced to, but if it has a book on the shelf, it cannot refuse to sell to a customer based on certain protected classes.
So if you think your example with the bookstore is the same, we’ll have to agree to disagree. The refusal to sell a woman a cake celebrating her abortion may or may not be a violation of the law, but it would be a case by case basis depending on how the law is written in that specific state. Every state is different.
[quote]JR249 wrote:
I disagree.
The baker is providing a service. You’re talking about someone forcing a bookstore to carry stock they don’t carry.
[/quote]
The baker doesn’t carry gay wedding cake stock either.
What?! How is not? The book store owner will order a book for customer if he doesn’t have it. However, this day in comes a person who wants “Queer Jesus” ordered. Hell, let’s say it’s advertized specifically as a Christian Book store. “My Jesus is queer, now order the book.” Remember, he orders “Jesus books” he doesn’t happen to have for customers all the time. But now he refuses to in this case. Remember this is a “Christian book store.”
He doesn’t refuse to sell mysteries–or bibles in the case of the specifically advertised Christian book store–to the homosexual. No, he simply refuses to order and sell “Queer Jesus” because it is sacrilegious to him. The baker doesn’t refuse to make birthday cakes, and “I got the promotion” cakes for the homosexual. He refuses a very specific order. Heck, it could be a heterosexual couple doing the ordering for someone. “We’re the couples besties and they’re letting us handle their cake!” They don’t get the “two grooms on rainbow flag icing” cake, either.
[quote]JR249 wrote:
[quote]Sloth wrote:
And you’ve just described the baker. The baker isn’t refusing to sell cakes to homosexuals. The baker is refusing a very specific order he disagrees with. Just as the book store owner disagrees with “Queer Jesus.”[/quote]
I disagree.
The baker is providing a service. You’re talking about someone forcing a bookstore to carry stock they don’t carry. That’s not the same situation as someone walking into a bakery, which bakes special cakes that do not yet exist, and not being able to get serviced based on the person’s sexual orientation. I realize it’s for a wedding specifically, but it’s still a denial of service based on sexual orientation.
[/quote]
Why do you keep bringing up sexual orientation? Same sex marriage does not have to imply they are gay. The bakery is refusing only based on the event which is their choice, not the sexual orientation of the customer.
Should a bakery be allowed to sell breads to any random black person that walks into the store, yet say no when a black couple asks the baker to bake a cake for their wedding, on the grounds that the baker doesn’t believe that blacks should be marrying one another?
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
In the free market of ideas, I’d like to think that the good ones will rise to the surface and the bad ideas will never gain traction.[/quote]
I’d like to think so too.
But I would also be a damned fool if I don’t recognize that this is an incredibly flawed way to go about it, of obvious reasons.
I invoke Godwin’s Law.
[quote]magick wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
In the free market of ideas, I’d like to think that the good ones will rise to the surface and the bad ideas will never gain traction.[/quote]
I’d like to think so too.
But I would also be a damned fool if I don’t recognize that this is an incredibly flawed way to go about it, of obvious reasons.
I invoke Godwin’s Law.[/quote]
A far more apt invocation of said law (which is nonsensical) would have been the state taking a small business owner to court over his religion. The holocaust was not brought about by the acute anti-semitism of bakers, rather, it was perpetrated by the all-mighty power of an, anti-semitic, God state.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
What?! How is not? The book store owner will order a book for customer if he doesn’t have it. However, this day in comes a person who wants “Queer Jesus” ordered. Hell, let’s say it’s advertized specifically as a Christian Book store. “My Jesus is queer, now order the book.” Remember, he orders “Jesus books” he doesn’t happen to have for customers all the time. But now he refuses to in this case. Remember this is a “Christian book store.”
He doesn’t refuse to sell mysteries–or bibles in the case of the specifically advertised Christian book store–to the homosexual. No, he simply refuses to order and sell “Queer Jesus” because it is sacrilegious to him. The baker doesn’t refuse to make birthday cakes, and “I got the promotion” cakes for the homosexual. He refuses a very specific order. Heck, it could be a heterosexual couple doing the ordering for someone. “We’re the couples besties and they’re letting us handle their cake!” They don’t get the “two grooms on rainbow flag icing” cake, either.
[/quote]
In those cases that have been litigated, gay couples were specifically denied the service. They took the owner to court and the state won its case. How are the states winning then? These are actual court cases, not philosophical debates.
In the book store case, they aren’t denying anyone service that is tied to the customer’s sexual orientation. They won’t order the book and stock it on their shelves for anyone - doesn’t matter who the customer is, it’s a refusal to stock a book on the shelves of the store. However, when you specifically refuse service to same-sex customers, and the refusal of service is tied to a wedding ceremony for same-sex couples, you run afoul of the law the way it is written in some states.
I’m not the one writing the laws and I don’t agree with them, but I still see your specific analogy as not being one in the same.
[quote]sufiandy wrote:
Why do you keep bringing up sexual orientation? Same sex marriage does not have to imply they are gay. The bakery is refusing only based on the event which is their choice, not the sexual orientation of the customer.[/quote]
Because in the cases that have actually gone to court and the businesses have lost, gay customers were refused service for services related to gay weddings: florists, photographers, wedding chapels and bakeries are the ones that come to mind off the top of my head. In the one article, it was simply a doctor who refused service for a baby because the parents are gay.
In any case, in those cases that have gone to court, the businesses were taken to court by the states for refusing service to customers based on public accommodation laws that prohibit discriminate based on sexual orientation. It likely all comes down to the exact circumstances surrounding the transaction and the wording of the law in the states.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
Laws should not be written so that a case by case basis for their enforcement is the desired effect.[/quote]
I doubt that’s ever the intent, and I don’t disagree, but that’s what the courts do on a regular basis. Take a look at most any law, and you’ll find a whole host of cases where both sides have tried to convince the courts otherwise, e.g., what behaviors really constitute disorderly conduct?
Whether or not someone runs afoul of the law isn’t always black and white, and then you have the spirit of the law versus the letter of the law.
[quote]magick wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
In the free market of ideas, I’d like to think that the good ones will rise to the surface and the bad ideas will never gain traction.[/quote]
I’d like to think so too.
But I would also be a damned fool if I don’t recognize that this is an incredibly flawed way to go about it, of obvious reasons.
I invoke Godwin’s Law.[/quote]
Provide me with an example that shows my way of thinking to be flawed. I do not claim that bad speech will be eradicated from existence, only that it will be outweighed and in more “demand” than the bad speech.
I suppose I should preface all of this by saying that anything involving children is a whole other ballgame. Child pornography and whatnot would NOT qualify as free speech, since to express such speech essentially involves the violation of basic human rights.
[quote]JR249 wrote:
In the book store case, they aren’t denying anyone service that is tied to the customer’s sexual orientation.[/quote]
You’re telling me you don’t get the hint that “Queer Jesus” is…well, queer? How can possibly say this and then turn around and say what you have about the baker?
And the baker refuses to make gay-wedding cakes for ANYONE, doesn’t matter who the customer is…
Where is this assumption going from?
[quote]Sloth wrote:
And the baker refuses to make gay-wedding cakes for ANYONE, doesn’t matter who the customer is…
Where is this assumption going from?[/quote]
Here’s where I think the legal difference is (note: no one ever answered my question of how exactly these businesses are successfully getting sued - they are, and the states are winning against the businesses):
The bookstore isn’t required to stock anything. If they have a philosophical disagreement with the title of the book, they’re not refusing service just to gay customers, they’re not stocking the book, period. Hence, no one, gay or straight, can force the bookstore to carry a book in their inventory.
The bakery, however, routinely bakes wedding cakes for opposite-sex weddings. By refusing to bake a cake for a gay wedding, that is viewed as tacit refusal of service tied to sexual orientation specifically, since customers can get cakes baked for opposite-sex weddings. I have no idea what happens when a straight customer tries to get a cake ordered for a same-sex wedding. I’m sure it will still be challenged under the state’s anti-discrimination law, but it could go the other way. However, the state could try to make the case that it’s still for a same-sex wedding, and that, by refusing to bake the cake, you’re indirectly denying service to a same-sex couple even though a straight customer is purchasing the cake.
Sure, you could try to sue the bookstore, but I’ll be it doesn’t go anywhere for reasons already mentioned. I’m not sure how else to say what I’ve already said, so I’ll leave it at that and agree to disagree on the bookstore example being congruous here. With that having been said, I’ll reiterate that I don’t support these laws, I’m just trying to articulate how or why they are being enforced as they are. Private businesses should be free to serve whomever they do or do not wish to serve.
[quote]killerDIRK wrote:
Goodmorning Mufasa, just this:
So being Queer, if someone does not want my business, so be it.
Will be interesting though as a non paid first responder when I come across an accident , and ask that person their religion and they respond “christian” how I am going to say…Oh well to bad, guess god had other plans for you than for me to help you.
The law of unintended consequences is and will surely play out interestingly here.
[/quote]
At least in TN, even as a volunteer, if you respond to a call you are then legally obligated to help. You cannot tell dispatch you are a trained medical person on there way to help, and then refuse to offer assistance. You accept legal responsibilities and protections when you respond to a call and are no longer a private citizen.
But you even thinking about that, or that it is somehow similar to refusing to bake a cake or some such makes me not want you on my department.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
I have zero problem with this law. I have zero problem with discrimination in general, when it comes from private citizens.
If someone wants to bar blacks or Jews or whatever from their business, so be it. I’d prefer to know exactly who all the racists and bigots are so I can avoid giving them my business. All of these laws that outlaw discrimination make it easier for those people to operate in the shadows. Shit, I don’t even have a problem with some baker flying an ISIS flag outside of his shop. Now I know exactly where NOT to get some pastries and coffee.
On top of all that, the business or organization is someone’s property. Let them dispose of their property however they want. There is no natural right to the purchase of someone else’s property, so discrimination is not an inherent violation of anything other than political law. If a business owner is forced to allow a black patron in his store and accept his legal tender in exchange for a good, that business owner is essentially being forced to make a transaction he wouldn’t normally make, which removes the possibility for an economic gain.
In the free market of ideas, I’d like to think that the good ones will rise to the surface and the bad ideas will never gain traction.[/quote]
Amazingly, this is exactly how I feel about the situation. I’ve always thought that civil rights laws do little but keep racists/sexists in business. I’d much rather they stay racist and get put out of business.