We shall see, I suppose. Given the current composition of the Court, you may be right.
I was responding to your comment about motives, which I have argued comprises a distinction without a difference. You have responded to my rejoinder by comparing their ‘moral universes.’ Setting aside whether you’re right, let’s not move the goal posts mid-discussion.
Had a professor discussing this very topic ask if he could demand the staff at Victoria Secret fit him for a bra (white male). The correct answer was “no because you aren’t a protected class”.
I pretty much agree with all of this. I’m certainly against homophobe religious wackos but this is what freedom can look like. Protest and spread the word and let the free market take its course. Once I know that about the bakery I’m never going there. Plenty others will follow suit as the word spreads.
How well did this approach work in the Jim Crow South?
Times change and looking at it from a 2017 perspective it makes sense. Here’s how that would go down today:
cakes to gay couple showing support.
It would be hard for someone to disagree more with the actions of these people as I’m notoriously anti religious wacko and extremely accepting of gays with a very close gay cousin that I love. I still feel that forcing a business to do something doesn’t need to happen in this sense. Let natural consequences take their course.
If I was a baker and someone wanted me to make a cake that says God hates fags I would tell those people to fuck off. With this type of forcing people to do something they don’t want to do mentality I would be forced to make that cake for them.
Personally, I think it’s good to prohibit businesses from doing anything but making decisions based on: money in, product out. It’s important that we eliminate the possibility of supporting a business for non-monetary reasons. Preferences aren’t legal tender. The big corporations can’t necessarily compete with smaller, local businesses when it comes to catering to the clientele of those small businesses, so they need the government’s help. If that straight whites-only cake baker has 7 clients, that’s 7 clients a globalist corporation doesn’t. Unacceptable. Love it, or leave it, Baby.
Times change, indeed. And certainly social attitudes circa 2017 are vastly different from what they were during the Jim Crow era. But consider: To what can we attribute this sea change in social attitudes? I would contend it is the direct result of the socioeconomic shifts imposed by the CRA. Thus, I find it disingenuous for people to claim that CRA-type legislation is unnecessary or superfluous because ‘the market will smooth out these inequities.’ To my knowledge, there was no compelling evidence in the pre-CRA era that the market was addressing these socioeconomic injustices. Rather, it seems to me that, far from addressing the extant injustices/inequities, the market stepped up only after their amelioration–leading from behind, if you will. I think the same is true of the relatively enlightened social attitudes you allude to in your hypothetical–they are, to a significant degree, the result of the socioeconomic changes rendered by the CRA, not the cause of them.
It is deeply ironic that the CRA was so effective, it has produced a generation of individuals who think CRA-type legislation is unnecessary.
Given the 2017 social milieu, this is a reasonable approach for an aggrieved party to choose. (I hope you agree it would have been a deeply galling suggestion pre-CRA.) But as stated above, to the extent today’s social milieu seems to make CRA-type intervention unnecessary, it’s only because CRA-type intervention made today’s social milieu possible. Further, if such a party decides to pursue a CRA-type legal approach, this too has proven to be a reasonable thing to do. In short, there remains a place for CRA-type intervention today.
Sigh. No. No one is talking about forcing the baker in question to do anything equivalent to that. All he is being asked to do is engage in his usual-and-customary business practice of making a cake. That’s it. To my knowledge, the couple did not insist that he write ‘God loves fags, and approves of them getting married!’ on the cake. Such a request would, indeed, have provided a reasonable basis for the baker to demur on religious grounds.
I call BS. Now, you might not feel like suing but don’t act like you would be all smiles and be OK with it. You walk into a bakery with your black fiancee looking for a cake for your wedding. The baker says, “I believe miscegenation is a disgusting affront to man and God so take your race traitor ass somewhere else.” You wouldn’t feel like something wrong just happened? Would you tell your fiancee to just “get the fuck over it”?
What about an ER doctor?
You say this with ease because you are neither black nor gay. I would not be as presumptuous as you are by telling gays and blacks how they should feel and how they should behave.
Unless it’s in Alabama.
But, we are not a “free” society. No society is or can be if it wants to remain a society. Is it in the best interests of a society which sees itself as extremely civil and valuing civil and human rights to allow its citizens to be subjected to unnecessary discrimination? In the real world of adults you don’t get to do whatever you want because “freedom.”
And refusing to bake a wedding cake is unnecessary and any defense of it on religious grounds, I assume Christian, is tenuous at best. This is a case where hate for gays trumps love of God. Because, if this baker were truly a Christian he would have baked the cake and wished the couple the best rather than give into his hate, which comes from Satan.
I think a professor looking for a bra might just be part of a protected class. Also, getting fitted for a bra is not really some intimate experience. It’s like going to a tailor. I don’t think the staff would really care as long as they made a sale.
Interesting. I always thought that we were supposed to hate the sin and not the sinner, because the sin comes from Satan.
Addition: You say that hate comes from Satan. Does God not hate anything? Do you believe that some of God’s qualities come from Satan?
Of course it does and I’m not defending these assholes. But if we are talking about religious hypocrisy we would need years to go down that path.
Most Christians cherry pick everything to make stuff fit into the beliefs they want to have. This dumbass couple is no different
Certainly not arguing against CRA but I question the need for this lawsuit in 2017 and the age of the internet. Finding a baker that would bake this couple a cake is easy. Shaming the bigots via social media for better or worse is easy as well.
Hell look at the racists now who lose their job and the white supremacist pictures of people in Charleston virtually ruining their lives. I don’t have sympathy for any of these clowns but I think comparing the times from Jim Crow to now is just different.
Just my .02 to be honest I haven’t fully studied the case so maybe shouldn’t be commenting
I think his point is that the consequences faced by white supremacists today are only possible because of the CRA. He believes that, in the absence of force employed against those who discriminate against homosexuals, there will be no consequences for denying anything to homosexuals.
I wouldn’t deny that this may be true though. It wasn’t until blacks and whites started to hang out more did people realize all the similarities and the absurdity of racism. Same thing with homosexuals. Now you just have some wackos left who will always be that way.
I’d be surprised if the liberals didn’t join with the conservatives in holding that a new class didn’t “evolve” out of thin air. But, the main point is, at this time, there’s obviously no national consensus on this issue.
No goal posts were moved - the motivations are different and the effect/consequences/experiences are different, so there’s no real comparison. Hence, not in the same universe.
I think you misunderstand - I think there are plenty of people who are fine with CRA-legislation…when it’s needed. But they are getting grouchy at the grievance industry/IP hard left movement to pass such “solutions” when there aren’t really actual problems to fix and merely press for such legislation because of the desire to want to punish people who won’t think “right”.
It’s unfortunate that someone would turn down a gay couple’s request to bake a wedding cake - but not a single person can point to there being some systemic lack of access of gays to this or other basic private services in the marketplace. But again, access isn’t what such laws are after - punishment is.
And fewer and fewer people are buying this brand of “justice” - and notably, fewer liberals are buying it. Why? Because it’s facially illiberal.
Exactly this. As a result, it’s clear such laws aren’t there to resolve lack of access because of discrimination - they are there to make examples out of Wrong Believers.
So discrimination in the economic sphere–be it racial, gender, sexual orientation, what have you–is OK, so long as it isn’t too inconvenient?
Perhaps justice would be a more apt descriptor.
Do you have data supporting this claim?