Judge Rules Bakeshop Owner Doesn't Have To Bake Wedding Cake For Gay Couple

[hedrick]

The gay pride T shirt seems clearer, because it has a specific message. I think case law says that you can't be forced to write something you disagree with.

In this case according to the narrative in the court decision, the wedding participants chose an existing design from a sample, and there was no text or other message. So the baker wasn't being asked to design anything or express a message, just to make a cake according to an existing design. The court thought it was significant that the cake hadn't been baked. That is, the baker would have had to sell a cake that was sitting on a shelf, but couldn't be forced to bake one specifically for this customer.

It will be interesting to see what the Supreme Court says. Perhaps they'll give specific guidelines. It sounds to me like the decision in this case was wrong, but the Supreme Court often makes decisions that as a layman I wouldn't have expected. This decision could lead to quite unexpected results. Consider a bakery that stocks cakes. One gay couple could come in and get a cake. If that was the last cake on the shelf, another gay couple could come in and be refused the exact same product because they were out of stock and would have to make it.

 

[redleghunter]

Good points.

My idea, would only apply to non essential businesses. Grocery stores, pharmacies etc., could not choose the denial of service based on religious beliefs.

I have seen pharmacies when in Oklahoma refuse to fill birth control pills. However by local ordinance had posted where one could obtain.

I personally know a Reformed Presbyterian doctor who will not write out an RX for birth control.

 

[redleghunter]

The gay pride T shirt seems clearer, because it has a specific message. I think case law says that you can't be forced to write something you disagree with.

In this case according to the narrative in the court decision, the wedding participants chose an existing design from a sample, and there was no text or other message. So the baker wasn't being asked to design anything or express a message, just to make a cake according to an existing design. The court thought it was significant that the cake hadn't been baked. That is, the baker would have had to sell a cake that was sitting on a shelf, but couldn't be forced to bake one specifically for this customer.

It will be interesting to see what the Supreme Court says. Perhaps they'll give specific guidelines. It sounds to me like the decision in this case was wrong, but the Supreme Court often makes decisions that as a layman I wouldn't have expected. This decision could lead to quite unexpected results. Consider a bakery that stocks cakes. One gay couple could come in and get a cake. If that was the last cake on the shelf, another gay couple could come in and be refused the exact same product because they were out of stock and would have to make it.

Normally wedding cakes on display are wax models. Given the expensive nature of the cake ($500 and up). You just don't dump expensive items in the garbage after becoming stale. Who would want an already made wedding cake anyway? If you are spending 500 and up dollars you want a specially made cake. Unless it was a shotgun wedding.

 

[redleghunter]

Would be interesting if a small town Salafist gas station owner refused to serve women drivers on religious grounds.

Why would she? Are you assuming the gas station owner is male?

 

[redleghunter]

No doubt that's happening somewhere.

No American Arab business owner denies an opportunity for a sale.

It's not like a Salafist (ultra conservative Muslim) specially designed gasoline.

 

[redleghunter]

Has the supreme court decision been made on this situation? I haven't really been able to find much on it. If not when is it supposed to be made. ( Not the California case)

Answered.

The SCOTUS heard arguments in Dec of last year and will issue their decision sometime after June 1st.

 

[Paidiske]

I can find Salafi sources online which say that women should not participate in work in environments which would require her mixing with men.

 

[HereIStand]

No American Arab business owner denies an opportunity for a sale.

It's not like a Salafist (ultra conservative Muslim) specially designed gasoline.

I know. It was an attempt at a joke. Should have added a funny face.

 

[PeaceByJesus]

I would agree with that notion...however, the only caveat to that idea is that it only really works in a diverse area with a lot of competition. For example, if you had a small southern town in the sticks, that only had two grocery stores within 50 miles, and both decided to play the religious freedom card to refuse service to certain kinds of people, that has a much more sweeping impact than if it were a medium-large metropolitan area where you had literally dozens of other options.

Yes, i pointed that out aspect on the last (1200+posts) thread we were both on.

 

[redleghunter]

The fact that people want to zero in on just this one particular aspect of "sin" shows that there's somewhat of an odd fixation with that particular "sin".

It doesn't seem other "sin groups" are dragging bakers into court. Jack Phillips denied a special design cake for Halloween and also for a man who wanted half a wedding cake to celebrate his divorce. He also denied lewd cakes for bachelor and bachelorett parties.

So he covers witchcraft, divorce and lewdness.

As I touched on in another thread, why is is that these bakers want to deny gay couples wedding cake services based on the notion "I don't want to condone non-biblical lifestyle choices", yet, I haven't heard of a single one that wants to deny service to fat people on the grounds that selling them cake is only enabling their gluttonous lifestyle (gluttony also being a sin)? I think it's safe to say that your average baker probably encounters way more obese people than gay people, and their sales to specific customers have probably enabled quite a bit of self-destructive behavior over the years.

Then you should join the various groups which want sugar taxes and closings of shops which sell unhealthy foods.

I thought at one point you were a libertarian? To each his own. What changed?

Yes gluttony is a sin. However if Jack Philips went by the personal body mass of his customers before they even opened their pie hole, then he would be body shaming and be sued as well. If the obese customer wanted a cake for a fat party maybe Jack would follow your guidance to deny such. But no it's about marriage .

However once again we are presented with inane examples.

 

[PeaceByJesus]

The fact that people want to zero in on just this one particular aspect of "sin" shows that there's somewhat of an odd fixation with that particular "sin".

As I touched on in another thread, why is is that these bakers want to deny gay couples wedding cake services based on the notion "I don't want to condone non-biblical lifestyle choices", yet, I haven't heard of a single one that wants to deny service to fat people on the grounds that selling them cake is only enabling their gluttonous lifestyle (gluttony also being a sin)? I think it's safe to say that your average baker probably encounters way more obese people than gay people, and their sales to specific customers have probably enabled quite a bit of self-destructive behavior over the years.

It seems to always be one particular "sin" they want to zero in on.

Part of it is probably profit incentive...a bakery specializing in sweets probably isn't going to last very long if they target a group like the overweight/obese, as that's 60% of the population and likely the lion's share of their customers. However, targeting a group like gays means you're really only cutting 2% of the population so it allows them to appear like they're taking a noble stand, but meanwhile, not really impacting their bottom line.

That was raised on that thread by someone else, which i had responded to.
This is not the same as asking a baker to contract to create a special cake for a special event, in which two men said it was to celebrate their wedding. To be analogous to the Masterpiece bakery case, then it would have to be a situation in which the customer asked for a special creation in order to celebrate obesity, or you knew that the pastry would surely be used to that effect.

For the latter, the baker would have to know the fat person was so due to gluttony (versus a disease, etc.), and that the cake was for him to indulge in, in which case it would be like a a bartender refusing to keep selling drinks to a intoxicated person. To do so is an implicit is an an expression of approval of that state.

To simply refuse to sell pastry to fat people would be akin to refusing to sell any cake to a homosexual couple because of how they might use it. And as conscience is the issue, as long as there is ignorance of how the product will be used then a seller might feel justified in selling it.

But at least, unlike some of your fellows, you seem to acknowledge that the gay customer was not just asking for a cake, and that by contracting to create a special expensive cake of signification, the baker was not just imagining he could be conveying sanction to an celebratory event contrary to his faith (and even state law in the MP case).

 

[PeaceByJesus]

There's another book I have heard of, apparently it's called "The Bible", and is quite important. Perhaps you could indicate where that book ranks sins in order of their sinfulness.

That is easy, and of punishment relative to that and of the degree of guilt. But are you serious?

 

[PeaceByJesus]

The case before the Supreme court involves a custom cake as well.

I'm confused here. Its the same circumstance. Why is one in the US Supreme Court, and the other won in a state Supreme court.

The other "one" you mean, because that is the route it takes. See Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission - Wikipedia

 

[PeaceByJesus]

I think a Catholic pharmacist refusing to dispense contraceptives has a stronger conscience case than a baker refusing to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple, though.

The first directly involves the vendor in (what he/she perceives as) sin; the second does not. Selling a cake doesn't make you a party to the wedding.

Contracting to create a makes you a party to the wedding even if indirectly in the first class. If i contract with you to create a special cake for a event of special signification (thus average price being over $500.00, requiring much advance notice and substantial down payment), how is a man of conscience and convictions regarding what this event and cake signifies not recognizing it as valid, or would not feel he is, when his own supreme moral standard does not, and even In the Masterpiece case) the highest state law did not, and actually defined it otherwise (as only btwn one man and one women)?

And note the in providing conscientious objector exemptions, the court considers how a person can sees his actions as violating his deeply held beliefs, not whether someone else may feel being part of the Army does not objectively makes one a party to war.

Just because you make wedding dresses, or paint pictures by commission, or signs does (or should) not mean you must make them for whatever a person asks. Why even forums have rules which discriminate on what it will provide.

Relevant questions:

• Was Masterpiece refusing to sell a cake anyone else could buy? No.

• Was Masterpiece singling out homosexuals in denying to contract for a cake celebrating homosexual marriage? No (straight couples would also be refused such/"discriminated" against, like as for Halloween and divorce celebrations).
• Was Masterpiece acting consistent with his convictions here? Yes.
• Was the refusal by Masterpiece to recognize "gay marriage" also that of the state constitution at the time? Yes.
• Did the state recognize out-of-state civil unions or same-sex marriages performed outside of Colorado at that time? No.
  
• Would Masterpiece be conveying recognition of "gay marriage" by contracting to provide this special and expensive cake? Yes.
• Was the state effectively requiring Masterpiece not to have or act upon compelling convictions in this regard by punishing the owners for not recognizing what the state itself historically did not? Yes.
• Would the state punish a black or Jewish or Muslim baker for not creating a special cake for a KKK celebration, though they have the right to freedom of speech? Unlikely.

 

[PeaceByJesus]

It's irrelevant what the occasion is, though. It has no moral freight for the baker. It is no sin for the baker to make or sell a cake, which is what "conscience" speaks to.

Bake to the issue of the wedding cake, it certainly has "moral freight" as i explained. The baker is being asked to contract to build/create special cake for a special occasion which is contrary to the law of God (and even the state in the MP case). It is not a marriage in the eyes of God (I hope you agree?) and thus it is a celebration of evil.

Is it a sin? If not, it's not a conscience issue, but some other sort of issue

Rather, if eating meat sacrificed to idols could make one feel he is defiled by doing so, and whose conscience is to be respected, then i am sure Paul would agree asking one to make a tent expressly for sacrificing to demons would be a problem, which i do not thing Paul himself would do.

Part of the reason this is not a conscience issue is that the cake is, in fact, irrelevant to the wedding. You don't need a cake to get married. A cake ritual is not an intrinsic part of the ceremony. It's part of the celebration, but the baker isn't supplying anything that makes a wedding, a wedding.

This should not be difficult. To facilitate or take part in the celebration of something expressly singularly unlawful is normally sin (Exodus 23:2; 2 Corinthians 6:17) or at the least is certainly grounds for feeling you are committing the same.

At the least here The baker is akin to an Jewish, Black or carpenter being asked to build a function building for a KKK. He makes function buildings, but for a man of conscience and convictions, he would feel that he is facilitating what he is opposed to.

 

[redleghunter]

Howsabout the sin of getting remarried after a non biblical divorce? I'll bet these bakers are more than happy to celebrate adultery.

Good point. How many customers go into a bake shop and announce they are on their third marriage?

I would gather none which means the baker is designing a cake for a wedding not knowing.

But I give you credit for brining that up.

Jack Phillips did refuse a man wanting a divorce cake and also lewd cakes for parties .

 

[PeaceByJesus]

Howsabout the sin of getting remarried after a non biblical divorce? I'll bet these bakers are more than happy to celebrate adultery.

Actually it was shown on the last thread that in the Masterpiece bakery case the owner had said he refused to create a half wedding cake for a man to celebrate his divorce, besides making other principled stands.

 

[Paidiske]

cake of signification

Did you invent that phrase?

 

[Hank77]

In this case according to the narrative in the court decision, the wedding participants chose an existing design from a sample,

No that is not the case. Phillips creates each cake individually. When one looks at book it is to get ideas. One might like the scroll work on one cake, flowers on another, number of tiers, colors, flavors, etc. The couple never picked a cake, it didn't get that far.

Consider a bakery that stocks cakes. One gay couple could come in and get a cake. If that was the last cake on the shelf, another gay couple could come in and be refused the exact same product because they were out of stock and would have to make it.

No. Phillips would bake this generic cake for them. He has made birthday cakes, etc. for gay people.

 

[durangodawood]

Why would she? Are you assuming the gas station owner is male?

Of course I'm assuming that. An he might refuse women drivers because thats the tradition in a Salafist country of origin.