Baker refuses to bake cake for gays

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that genius
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Baker refuses to bake cake for gays

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What do you think?

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42232162

Seems to hinge on whether a service provider can refuse to serve people, if the refusal is not based on discrimination

US Supreme Court questions bias in 'gay wedding cake' case
5 December 2017

David Mullins (left) and Charlie Craig wanted a wedding cake to celebrate their planned marriage.
Image caption
David Mullins (left) and Charlie Craig wanted a wedding cake to celebrate their planned marriage
The US Supreme Court appeared divided after hearing heated arguments in the case of a Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple.
Baker Jack Phillips turned away David Mullins and Charlie Craig in making such a cake in 2012, saying it was against his Christian belief.
A legal battle ensued, with Colorado's court finding that the baker's actions represented unlawful discrimination.
The baker says this violates his rights to religious freedom and free speech.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, a conservative who sided with liberal judges in the landmark 2015 decision legalising same-sex marriage, questioned whether the state's civil rights commission ruling against the baker was biased against religion.
"Tolerance is essential in a free society," he said on Tuesday. "Tolerance is most meaningful when it's mutual."
Justice Kennedy, a strong advocate for free speech rights, added that the ruling had "neither been tolerant nor respectful of Mr Phillips's religious beliefs".
But he also raised concerns about whether ruling in favour of the baker would lead to more discrimination against the gay community during the extended 80-minute hearing.
The liberal judges appeared to echo Justice Kennedy's question.
"Where is the line?" Justice Stephen G Breyer asked. "That is what everyone is trying to get at."
The case is considered one of the most high profile in the conservative-majority court's ninth-month term.
How did the case come around?
In July 2012, Mr Mullins and Mr Craig went to Mr Phillips's Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, near Denver, to order a cake for a party to celebrate their planned marriage in Massachusetts later that year.
But Mr Phillips refused, saying it was his "standard business practice not to provide cakes for same-sex weddings".
Instead, he offered them other products, including birthday cakes and biscuits.
The couple later filed a successful complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission.
David Mullins (left) and Charlie Craig. Photo: 28 November 2017Image copyrightREUTERS
Colorado bans businesses from discriminating against customers based on race and sexual orientation.
In 2015, Colorado's appeals court upheld the decision, with the state's supreme court later denying review of the case.
What are the baker's arguments?
Mr Phillips decided to take the case - known as Masterpiece Cakeshop v Colorado Civil Rights Commission - to the US Supreme Court.
He argues that his cakes are artistic endeavours, and therefore guarantees of freedom of speech and expression in the US constitution protect him from being forced to make creations that express a message he opposes.
His lawyers also say that he did not violate public accommodation laws that ban discrimination because he did not throw the gay couple out of the shop outright and refuse to serve them.
Jack Phillips decorates a cake in his shop. Photo: 21 September 2017Image copyrightREUTERS
Image caption
Jack Phillips has temporarily stopped making wedding cakes
Mr Phillips is represented by Alliance Defending Freedom - a conservative Christian legal group.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) represents Mr Mullins and Mr Craig.
What ramifications could this have?
A verdict in favour of Mr Phillips could open the door for a number of businesses to invoke religious beliefs and refuse certain services to gay couples.
Legal experts say that businesses could use the case to say they have a similar right to turn way, for instance, interracial couples if this clashes with their religious beliefs.
ACLU lawyer Louise Melling said opposition lawyers were "asking for a constitutional right to discriminate".
"This is not a case about a cake," she told Reuters. "It is a case about a very radical proposition."
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Re: Baker refuses to bake cake for gays

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Should governments have the power to force you to do business with somebody? If so, can they also tell you who can must invite into your home? If people are free, they are free to discriminate.
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Re: Baker refuses to bake cake for gays

Post by chorlton »

old story

a business is not a person

Andrew seidel of the ffrf is on it
"Tolerance towards intolerance is cowardice"
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davebodia
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Re: Baker refuses to bake cake for gays

Post by davebodia »

No way the homosexers are winnin' this one. Not with the court justices the U.S. has now. Kennedy's not going to swing and he's their only chance. Not even sure why this is an issue as in the U.S. businesses have the right to refuse service to whomever they want.
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Re: Baker refuses to bake cake for gays

Post by chorlton »

can you cite that right you claim?

zero logic or humanity used
just pure hatred as usual
"Tolerance towards intolerance is cowardice"
- Ayaan Hirsi Ali
jmagic
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Re: Baker refuses to bake cake for gays

Post by jmagic »

If somebody you don't like demands to enter your home, should have have to let them in? Why is it different for a shop? How about if a KKK member demands that a black man bakes him a cake for the next Klan rally? Should the black man be forced to bake it?
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chorlton
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Re: Baker refuses to bake cake for gays

Post by chorlton »

a business is not a person
religion is not a free pass for hatred
why should anyone discriminate with prejudice

prejudice is the key here and they did not offer a plain cake at the time only after they left
typical right wing reporting though

1950s dinosaurs full of hatred scream loudly as ever
they only feel strong by picking on the weak

see below
"Tolerance towards intolerance is cowardice"
- Ayaan Hirsi Ali
jmagic
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Re: Baker refuses to bake cake for gays

Post by jmagic »

I agree that a person shouldn't be hateful, but I disagree with you that the government should use violence to force a person to do business with a person he or she doesn't want to do business with. I notice you punted on the KKK situation.
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Re: Baker refuses to bake cake for gays

Post by prahocalypse now »

Why is this argument always about wedding cakes?

What about jewelry?

Should a jeweler be forced to sell a gay guy his ring?
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chorlton
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Re: Baker refuses to bake cake for gays

Post by chorlton »

the kkk are also Christian
how ironic

violence?

here you go
my last word for hate lovers



The Freedom From Religion Foundation has filed an amicus brief in the famous case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court about whether a baker can refuse a cake to a gay couple.

Masterpiece Cakeshop Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission seeks to radically redefine "religious freedom" as the right to impose one's religious beliefs on others. Commercial businesses seeking exemptions from anti-discrimination laws are a prime example of this alarming argument. A Colorado baker refused to bake a cake for a gay marriage, contending his rights under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment let his place of public accommodation discriminate against gay customers.

The Supreme Court has historically rejected free exercise challenges to neutral laws that regulate action, especially actions that harm other citizens. Interpreting a free exercise right to be exempted from anti-discrimination laws would have no practical limits, inviting discrimination against all protected classes not only in places of public accommodation, but many other contexts, FFRF asserts. This interpretation would also violate Establishment Clause principles by singling out religiously motivated action for special exemption from civil laws.

"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others," Thomas Jefferson remarked. "But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." If one's religion, however, mandates picking pockets and breaking legs, that conduct comes under the purview of our secular law, FFRF contends. To do as the bakery asks would grant a license to pickpockets and leg-breakers, so long as they themselves believed that license to be divinely inspired.

There is no logical or practical way to draw a line between religiously motivated racial discrimination and racial discrimination motivated by nonreligious beliefs. In the 1960s, Maurice Bessinger, refused to let a minister's wife enter his South Carolina barbeque joint because she was black. Bob Jones, the televangelist and founder of an eponymous religious school, infamously declared that segregation was scriptural in a 1960 Easter sermon.
The state of Colorado has sought to prevent harm by including sexual orientation as a class protected by law against discrimination in places that sell goods and services to the public. The Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment does not mean that anyone with a religious objection be permitted to disregard this religiously neutral anti-discrimination law.

Elevating religion and actions based on religious beliefs above the law by granting them exemptions to general and neutrally applicable laws will create chaos and have far-reaching effects, FFRF maintains.

Discrimination against Jews will increase, for instance. If there is a right to refuse service to a protected class because one's religious belief demands it, Jews may be among the first to feel the sting of this massive redefinition of the law. But they will not be the only ones.

Discrimination against atheists will increase, too. The bakery admits that its owner refuses to design custom cakes that "promote atheism," along with those that promote "racism, or indecency." Given that the company regards selling any wedding cake to a gay couple as "promoting gay marriage," it's easy to see how a desire not to "promote atheism" might similarly result in a refusal of service based on a customer's atheism.
"The Free Exercise Clause cannot be interpreted in a way that would undermine the Establishment Clause," FFRF's brief states. "A ruling in the bakery's favor would create an interpretation that prefers, favors and promotes religion over nonreligion. Such a decision would undermine long-settled and critically important principles under the First Amendment's Establishment Clause."

The U.S. Supreme Court has never held that the Free Exercise Clause requires an exemption from neutral laws regulating conduct. It should decline to do so now and uphold the decision of the Colorado Court of Appeals, FFRF argues to the Supreme Court in its brief.

FFRF's interest in this case arises from the fact that most of its members are atheists or nonbelievers, as are the members of the public it serves as a state/church watchdog. The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a national nonprofit organization based in Madison, Wis., is the largest association of freethinkers in the United States, representing more than 29,000 atheists and agnostics, 10 percent of whom identify as LGBTQ. A ruling that state and local governments must tolerate religiously motivated discrimination in places of public accommodation would invite discrimination against atheists, agnostics and other freethinkers, severely impacting FFRF's members and FFRF's work to uphold freedom of conscience under the First Amendment.

FFRF's Managing Staff Attorney Rebecca Markert is the Counsel of Record on the brief, with principal writing by FFRF Staff Attorney Elizabeth Cavell, and help from FFRF attorneys Andrew Seidel, Patrick Elliott and Sam Grover.

https://ffrf.org/news/news-releases/ite ... cake-maker
"Tolerance towards intolerance is cowardice"
- Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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