The irony here, for me, is that from a Christian point of view, buying into all the hype about wedding cakes and such ends up looking an awful lot like being far too invested in a society that commercialises and commodifies everything. Is it even moral to spend thousands on a cake, in a world where others die of hunger?
Now THAT's a good question. The baker can justify the cost of running a bakery, as can a car dealer who sells cheap and costly models, but if i were planning a wedding, i would normally rather baker it myself. What to worry?
Wrong. Philips did not allow any other couple to contract with him to created wedding cakes, thus the divorcee was also discriminated against, and wedding cakes are simply not available to anyone else. And homosexuals should be able to buy on but one for an approved straight couples wedding, but cannot for their own, any more than a couple of 8 year-old kids could, nor a man and a goat, even if the state allows the latter.
An eight year old might not be able to, not being old enough to enter into a contract. But a man intending to "marry" a goat can buy anything he wants, and so can a gay man for his own wedding. I could buy a "wedding" cake just because, if I wanted to, for no particular celebration at all.
This is the whole blinking point. Anyone can buy a cake for any reason. It's none of the baker's business what they do with it.
Is it a sin to sell a cake to a gay person for their wedding? I say no; because what someone does with what they buy is not the moral responsibility of the baker.
Then you specially designing and contracting to make (in writing) a cake for a gay couple would not violate your conscience.
However, for Jack Phillips of Masterpiece cake shop doing so violated his free exercise of religion (Genesis 2:24 and Matthew 19). He refused to use his artistic abilities to violate his conscience.
I'd argue that it has not been adequately demonstrated to be a conscience issue. You can't just claim, "it's a conscience issue." You have to be able to show where the objective sin is, and why doing something violates your conscience. Conscience isn't a free pass to break the law without a reason.
Understand your objection but he did indicate Jesus taught in Matthew 19 marriage is only defined between a man and woman.
Matthew 19: NKJV
4 And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”
Again as another poster @Liza B. mentioned in the US free exercise of religion is in our First Amendment with speech and press. Government does not define our religious convictions. We have pharmacists and doctors who refuse to fill and write prescriptions for certain birth control medications. The SCOTUS upheld private business health care plans can omit such as well (Hobby Lobby case).
We could create all sorts of regulations and loopholes. Or we could try the crazy idea that all businesses have to follow the same laws. Novel, I know, but it might just work.
Which establishment clause? The only one I know of is that the federal government cannot establish a state religion nor infringe on the individual right of free expression of religion.
If a particular cake is so important to the celebration then the "but they can just go buy a cake anywhere else" and "but the baker would sell them anything else" arguments fall apart.
Then, by that logic, neither is it a wedding cake when sold to a gay couple (but rather a cake made in a style commonly associated with weddings), and the baker has no issue.
Agree. One thing I would add though, is when it comes to filling prescriptions, I would place physicians orders, as having priority over a person's religious beliefs. If a person choosing to go into the medical profession, has personal religious issues with well accepted medical practices, they should think deeply about whether they are entering the right field.
Abortifacient drugs are a matter of conscience among many Christian churches. There are plenty of doctors who write prescriptions for such without forcing Christian doctors to do so. There are also other religions which object to doing so as well. Muslims come to mind.
I wonder if that means: You dont have to fuel up a wedding car; you dont have to supply electricity to the wedding venue; you dont have to sell the wedding dress; as a post office you can refuse to post or deliver wedding invitations; can turn off the water to the wedding venue; refuse to sell the flowers etc etc - I guess you can go elsewhere in a lot of cases. A bit tough if your not in a position to do that though. Wow this will create a massive precedence - I wonder if that will start falling back to things like refusing service to people of other religions.
Religious rights are not limitless. In fact, no right is limitless. Rights tend to reach their limit, when they begin to step on the rights of others and especially so, in public accommodating businesses. In private situations, people can discriminate, to a much higher level.
If you're a medical doctor, that title comes with a certain set of responsibilities to your patients and if adherence to one's religious beliefs are going to preclude them from providing comprehensive care, then their religious preferences need to take a back seat to them actually fulfilling their duties.
The other thing is this; many people who get prescribed types of birth control, are prescribed them for medical reasons, because they have hormone imbalances, that the birth control corrects.
Because it doesn't. If you're not the couple saying "I will," and you're not the celebrant or the people signing as witnesses, you're not a party to the wedding.
Wrong, for you are part of the celebration of that wedding, in this case an unlawful wedding. And you cannot restrict being "a party" to something to direct involvements, not if being an accessory to a crime means more than that.
Supplying the cake, the napkins, or the special car, or whatever else, doesn't make you a party to the wedding. It makes you a vendor of cakes, napkins, or car hirer. The moral issues around the occasion for which those things are done are not your moral issues.
Who says? I strongly disagree, for to varying degrees you are facilitating it. You might as well rationalize you could knowingly sell gas specifically to toast Jews with clear conscience, since it just makes you a vendor. Sure the crime is greater, but the point is you are still facilitating a certain crime.
I can have scruples helping my neighbor unload a old sofa from another city which charges for pick up to throw away in the trash here where there is no charge.
None of us are morally responsible for what people do with the things we sell them.
Of course we are, if we know how they will be used! If your child was killed by a man who bought a gun from a dealer who knew how he was going to use it, then i think you would feel differently. And yes, the baker knew the cakes was to be expressly and specifically used to celebrate what was unlawful.
That's a basic ethical principle, and as I said upthread, it's important, or Christians would have scruples about selling anything to anyone lest they sin with it.
(Is there any item with which someone could not possibly potentially sin, I wonder...? What creative sinful acts could someone get up to with a stapler? Or a pad of post-it notes? I know that seems like I'm being frivolous, but I'm being serious.
No, you are essentially using a strawman, clearly misrepresenting the case. This is not a matter of selling any item to some person who might use it to do or celebrate that which is unlawful, but of the baker being told what this special order was to be specifically used for and effectively, effectually consenting to facilitate it. Lets be consistent with the facts.
If the baker's responsible for the morality of what people do with his cake, then we're all responsible for the morality of what people do with what we sell them. You can't have it one way in one case, and not the rest of the time; that's hypocrisy).
The is obscurantism, for again there is a critical difference with btwn simply selling items to people who may use them unlawfully, and selling a special item knowing it was to be expressly and specifically only used for something unlawful.
The size, elaborate decoration, or event for which the cake is made, is morally irrelevant to the baker.
Wrong again, the manifest special status of this is morally relevant, for the size, elaborate decoration, cost and special order status was because this cake had a specific special use, to celebrate that which is unlawful.
If he'd make a cake for one customer, he has to be prepared to make it for any customer.
Prepared, yes, as well as prepared to say no in the case of unlawful use. In the Masterpiece case the wedding that the couple wanted to celebrate was itself unlawful according to the highest state law, and contrary to its definition. He might as well have refused to create a work specially for celebrating a kid getting an illegal license.
Note: I'm not saying he has to make something he wouldn't make for anybody. But if he would make it for a straight wedding, then he has to be willing to make it for a gay wedding, or any other event for which someone decided they wanted an elaborate "wedding" style cake.
Also erroneous in any case, since a Christian must obey God over men, and to contract and create and provide a cake celebrating that which is unlawful can no more be rationalized than creating a golden calf knowing it is to be specifically used in in idolatry. Hard to believe any Christian could rationalize this guilt away (not that i could not try).
As I understand it, they never got around to discussing what the cake would look like or whether it was something the baker would make for someone else; he outright refused.
In the MP case he refused only after knowing its specifically would be used to celebrate that which is unlawful in the eyes of God (as well as the state). And has refused to make other specific cakes that were for the express purpose of celebrating something immoral, including half a wedding cake for a man to celebrate his divorce.
I (and I think the law) disagree. Selling a cake is selling a cake, not recognising or approving of what someone does with it.
Sigh. No, creating and selling a cake is not just selling a cake when you know it is to be specifically used to do something unlawful. Celebrating an unlawful sexual union is sin, and knowingly creating and selling a special work specifically for that celebration facilitates/helps that sin by providing assistance, is sin. Even in US law, while dealing with weightier cases aligns with this.
Accomplice Mens Rea and Actus Reus
In order to obtain a conviction of a defendant for being a principal or an accessory before the fact, the prosecution must prove that the defendant committed an act that either encouraged or actually helped the criminal, that he had the requisite intent of encouraging or helping the criminal, and that the criminal who was encouraged or assisted by the defendant actually committed the crime...
In order to demonstrate that the defendant committed the requisite actus reus, the prosecution must show that the defendant either directly or indirectly encouraged or facilitated the commission of the crime. A person has facilitated a commission of the crime if he provides the criminal with the means that the criminal uses to commit the crime...
Other jurisdictions only require the prosecutor to show that the accomplice knew that his actions would either assist or encourage the commission of a crime. The difference is that, in jurisdictions that require the prosecution to prove only that the accomplice acted while knowing that his actions would aid or encourage the commission of a crime, the accomplice can be convicted even if he did not actually want his actions to aid or encourage the commission of a crime. In these jurisdictions, even if the accomplice was dead-set against his actions being used to encourage or aid in the commission of a crime and even if he did not intend for his actions to aid or encourage the commission of the crime, so long as he knew that his actions would aid or encourage the commission of a crime, he can be convicted as an accomplice. Accomplice Mens Rea and Actus Reus - LawShelf Educational Media (emp. mine)
Then, by that logic, neither is it a wedding cake when sold to a gay couple (but rather a cake made in a style commonly associated with weddings), and the baker has no issue.
Not when the couple say it is specifically for the celebration of their (unlawful) "marriage" and thus are willing to pay the price this special elaborate work commands, for then you are knowingly facilitating it, unlike the gas station which provides petrol for the delivery truck, which is multipurpose.
I don't think we can go any further. I argue that selling something to someone which they use to celebrate something, doesn't implicate you in their celebration. (It's not like you're there signing the wedding certificate).
You think it does, and I think you're wrong, but there's really nowhere to go from here, except round and round, is there?
