So is the idea that the baker can’t stop a gay couple from coming in and buying anything they see, but if the gay couple picks out a cake they are entitled to buy, they don’t have the right to require the extra step of making the baker add a same-sex set of figurines on top with icing that says “Congrats, Adam and Steve”?
What’s your definition of “public” in this sense?
To me “public” refers to a “public good”. A public good is defined as “a product that one individual can consume without reducing its availability to another individual, and from which no one is excluded. (What Are Public Goods? Definition, How They Work, and Example)”
This is the same definition that is usually applied, to my understanding, in law as well as economics and finance. It’s the legal definition of a public good.
Conversely, a private good is a product that must be purchased to be consumed, and its consumption by one individual prevents another individual from consuming it. (Private Good: Definition, Examples, Vs. Public Good)
These are the text book definitions I remember from my econ classes - again, to my understanding, they hold up in court to distinguish between these two types of goods (there are 4 types of goods that fall in between these two extremes - for the life of me i can’t remember what they’re called).
What’s the point? Glad you asked.The judge refers to the hypothetical display case as a “public display case” which I’m to assume, based on the following qualifier: “their shop”, is a private business set in a private establishment.
My question is at what point does the display case become “public” the sense presented above? If you disagree with the definition and distinctions between “public” and “private” when describing the type of “good” on “display” please feel free to provide an alternative for discussion. In the meantime, the judge seems to be trying to imply the privately owned good, being sold in a privately owned shop is somehow displayed in a public display. At what point does this display become public and why?
NO!
They refused to MAKE a gay-themed wedding cake.
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Now this is where the nuance comes it, TB, for sure.
What is involved in “creating” a (Gay/Nazi/Baby/NASCAR/Crimson Tide/Whatever) themed cake?
(…Is there maybe “Gay” and “Straight” Icing"???)
That is not accurate. The judge ruled the baker doesn’t have the right to refuse to sell any goods that are already in existence (ie, sitting in the display case, intended for retail sale) on the basis of religious belief, but s/he does have the right to decline to create a cake that does not yet exist on that basis.
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Agreed, my initial interpretation was wrong.
I think you had originally misunderstood, yes.
(EDIT: and now you’ve already acknowledge that, so sorry for piling on, haha)
This is how I originally read it. I think you were applying this a little too broadly at first. A retail store does not have to go out of their way to accommodate a request for something that offends their sensibilities, but they also cannot deny the sale of something that’s literally sitting there on the shelf for sale based on the person that asks to buy it.
Let’s reverse it from the usual example of the “gay couple wants a wedding cake” direction on the political spectrum, if someone wearing a MAGA hat walks into my store and asks for a box of donuts, I can’t tell them “No, I won’t sell anything to someone wearing a MAGA hat.” However, if they ask me to make up a custom pack of donuts with a box that says “Annual Westboro Baptist Church God Hates Fags dinner” - I don’t have to do that.
I’m far too young to know about this firsthand, but I’ve read stories from the olden days of grocery stores which had one set of prices for white people and a different set of prices for black people. I think the judge’s ruling is meant to prevent situations like that. If you have books, tires, cakes, cookies, or whatever in the display case or on the shelf for sale at a given price, you can’t ask a person who walks in to buy them if they are black, gay, female, Jewish, or whatever before deciding whether to sell them the book, tires, cake, or cookie at the advertised price.
However, if someone walks into the store and asks for a custom item/order/etc, you are not obligated to make it.
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I’ve long held that the correct stance is that one cannot refuse to sell a product because of who the customer is. On the other hand, one can refuse to create and sell a product based on what the product is.
With cakes this leaves a gray area, but it does give a framework. If the baker finds the cake offensive because the decoration incorporates symbols and designs that promote something he or she doesn’t agree with, the objection is reasonable. But not baking a cake for someone because of who they are is not okay for a public business.
reading through this thread, from what I’ve gleaned they are not to be compelled to bake a cake not already made, but can not refuse to sell a cake that has already been baked and packaged, already, for retail sale…
edit: if that’s what you meant … apologies for being a dummy
Well… I’m pretty sure MAGA hat wearers aren’t a protected class…
I get your point, though.
I think that the whole argument on creative expression is moot because cakes are by their very nature kind of gay in the first place.
The have all of the frilly stuff and icing flowers and what not, like a Victorian era poofter. No one ever looks at a cake and says “Wow, what a distinctly masculine and heterosexual cake!”. It just doesn’t happen.
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Haha!
Now we’ve gotten to the truth. The insecure cake baker trying to appear more masculine!
Shocking twist since it’s a woman… 
Yeah. That is a very dapper and well coiffed cake. I just want to sink my teeth into that scrumptiously perfect gig line!
Hmmmm, how to respond…
“I don’t know what the FUCK you just said, Little Kid, but you’re a special man, you reached out, and you touched a brother’s heart.”
-Tracy Morgan Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
That’s all I got.
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The twist was that it was a wedding with 2 ladies And a lady baker.
Did you just assume their genders?
Yes, of course I did! So I was kinda wrong.
But when I saw the wedding was a lady wedding, the idea became sorta right.
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