Religious conscience and providing services

Deacon001 said:

Aside from the fact that it has no part in this discussion, nothing.

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At least make an attempt to be honest, will you? Is this discussion about nothing but a Christian baker's refusal to decorate a cake, or is it about religious freedom?

TLK Valentine said:

At least make an attempt to be honest, will you? Is this discussion about nothing but a Christian baker's refusal to decorate a cake, or is it about religious freedom?

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It's about both. It's not about hating black people, or even gays for that matter, if memory serves this baker was not only willing to serve these customers, he had served them in the past, so it's not about refusing service, it's not about MLK, it's not about Selma, and it's not about black people.

Deacon001 said:

It's about both. It's not about hating black people, or even gays for that matter, if memory serves this baker was not only willing to serve these customers, he had served them in the past, so it's not about refusing service, it's not about MLK, it's not about Selma, and it's not about black people.

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It's about refusing to serve a certain group of people because of one's religious beliefs. I've never said otherwise.

So back to my question -- perhaps you'll answer it this time: what does it natter what group it is?

Sketcher said:

I'm not justifying what they did, I'm pointing out that the basis and motivation for refusing certain services to gay people is different from the basis and motivation that was used to refuse services to black people.

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I don't think it is. Hatred, intolerance, fear all justified by religion.

The only thing that is different is that you might agree/empathize with these religious reasons more.

Deacon001 said:

Why do you keep bringing up "black people"? That's not what's being discussed here.

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It's the same argument, if you think it's OK for buisnesses to discriminate against gays for religious reasons you have to agree that is was OK for them to discriminate against blacks for religious reasons. One follows logically from the other.

I'm also trying to get you to see what the religious argument being had today will look like in 50 years.

There's little other way to get through to people who have made up their mind in such a way.

variant said:

I don't think it is. Hatred, intolerance, fear all justified by religion.

The only thing that is different is that you might agree/empathize with these religious reasons more.

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I don't know which dictionary you read, but last I checked, rebuking and moralizing was not the same as harassing and oppressing.

So let me bring this back to men's barbershops and women's salons. If you don't have a problem with them (and they are based on discrimination by gender, plain as day) then you must believe in the business owner's right to discriminate what they will do for whom. Where do you draw that line?

I'll give another example. Say a pagan or group of pagans comes to a Jewish-owned and operated kosher bakery and asks for a cake in the image of Poseidon, frosted with his praises. They normally do a variety of custom cakes. Do they have the right to say no in your view? If so, on what basis?

Sketcher said:

I don't know which dictionary you read, but last I checked, rebuking and moralizing was not the same as harassing and oppressing.

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In this case they are one in the same.

You and I call it harassing and oppressing (because you disagree with it) but they would call it the height of morality and a rebuke (because they felt it was justified).

Depends on the perspective.

So let me bring this back to men's barbershops and women's salons. If you don't have a problem with them (and they are based on discrimination by gender, plain as day) then you must believe in the business owner's right to discriminate what they will do for whom. Where do you draw that line?

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If you have a legitimate buisness reason to discriminate. Specialization is a fine reason. We only work on ford trucks. This is a gynecologists office we don't do prostate screening. Our play area is built for children under the age of 12.

And, if you are not shown to be purposefully discriminating against a suspect class of people whom you could reasonably accommodate.

Sketcher said:

I'll give another example. Say a pagan or group of pagans comes to a Jewish-owned and operated kosher bakery and asks for a cake in the image of Poseidon, frosted with his praises. They normally do a variety of custom cakes. Do they have the right to say no in your view? If so, on what basis?

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I'm not an expert in Jewish baking laws but I'm guessing It wouldn't be kosher.

Sketcher said:

I'll give another example. Say a pagan or group of pagans comes to a Jewish-owned and operated kosher bakery and asks for a cake in the image of Poseidon, frosted with his praises. They normally do a variety of custom cakes. Do they have the right to say no in your view? If so, on what basis?

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If there's a reasonable way for them to bake the cake in a kosher manner (I don't know what is required for being kosher) and those praises are not otherwise offensive (e.g. no swearing), then no, they shouldn't have the right to discriminate against the pagans.

FWIW, we could also say that it was a group of Christians coming to get an Easter cake w/ a picture of Jesus.

iluvatar5150 said:

FWIW, we could also say that it was a group of Christians coming to get an Easter cake w/ a picture of Jesus.

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The only kosher bakery I could find on-line that does custom cakes seems to be fine with images of Jesus.

Communion Cakes | NJ & NYC Custom Cake Bakery

morningstar2651 said:

Related question: Do sincerely held religious beliefs absolve one of any crimes committed in the following of those beliefs, such as human sacrifice, sacred prostitution, or discrimination against a protected class of people?

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Deacon001 said:

You are comparing "discrimination" with human sacrifice and prostitution?

BTW, this society discriminates constantly, it's just a question of whose ox is being gored, isn't it?

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I'm sorry, but you didn't answer the question. Is that a yes, or a no?

Are some crimes okay to commit if they are religious in nature and others not okay? If so, which crimes are okay? Are the only permissible religiously-motivated crimes the ones that you'd like to be able to commit? Isn't that a double standard?

morningstar2651 said:

I'm sorry, but you didn't answer the question. Is that a yes, or a no?

Are some crimes okay to commit if they are religious in nature and others not okay? If so, which crimes are okay? Are the only permissible religiously-motivated crimes the ones that you'd like to be able to commit? Isn't that a double standard?

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Excellent question and worthy of a straight forward answer.

morningstar2651 said:

Are some crimes okay to commit if they are religious in nature and others not okay? If so, which crimes are okay? Are the only permissible religiously-motivated crimes the ones that you'd like to be able to commit? Isn't that a double standard?

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A very good question. If an action causes harm to another person (and yes, giving business owners the right to ban anyone they like from the only grocery store or drug store in town causes harm), you can't justify it by saying "I have to do this because of my religion." That doesn't override the well-being of others and the laws about public businesses.

Sketcher said:

. . .
I'll give another example. Say a pagan or group of pagans comes to a Jewish-owned and operated kosher bakery and asks for a cake in the image of Poseidon, frosted with his praises. They normally do a variety of custom cakes. Do they have the right to say no in your view? If so, on what basis?

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I'm Pagan, so we'll say this hypothetical Pagan is me. And let's say that instead of Poseidon I'm getting a wedding cake. This cake is for my handfasting ceremony and I'm visiting multiple cake shops with my fiance to find the one that suits us best. We're visiting this particular shop because we've seen it has good review on Yelp and we neither know nor care what religion the owner of the shop adheres to. They don't advertise as a "Jewish cake store", just that the cakes they bake are kosher. Maybe they also advertise that they have gluten-free cakes. Now let's say that the baker sees my fiance's pentacle necklace and refuses to bake a cake to be used in a Pagan wedding before we've even discussed how it should be decorated.

Now we have a much more realistic scenario that is comparable to the current controversy and the facts of the court case in Colorado.

Could this cake store refuse to bake our wedding cake on religious grounds?
No. The preparation of a wedding cake is not necessarily a medium of expression amounting to free-speech, and a court compelling a cake shop to treat Jewish couples and Pagan couples equally is not the equivalent of forcing them to adhere to an ideological point of view. There is no doubt that decorating a wedding cake involves considerable skill and artistry. However, the finished product does not necessarily qualify as "speech," as would saluting a flag, marching in a parade, or displaying a motto. United States v. O'Brien, 391 U.S. 367, 376 (1968) ("We cannot accept the view that an apparently limitless variety of conduct can be labeled 'speech' whenever the person engaging in the conduct intends thereby to express an idea.")

The baker categorically refused to prepare a cake for our wedding before there was even any discussion of what the cake would look like. He was not asked to apply a message or a symbol to the cake, or to construct the cake in any fashion that could be reasonably understood as advocating Paganism or Pagan marriage. The act of preparing a cake is simply not "speech" warranting First Amendment protection.

Compelling a bakery that sells wedding cakes to Jewish couples to also sell wedding cakes to Pagan couples is incidental to the state's right to prohibit discrimination on the basis of religious affiliation, and is not the same as forcing a person to pledge allegiance to the government or to display a motto with which they disagree. To say otherwise trivializes the right to free speech.

This case is also distinguishable from cases like Barnette and Wooley because in those cases the individuals' exercise of free speech (refusal to salute the flag and refusal to display the state's motto) did not conflict with the rights of others. This is an important distinction. As noted in Barnette, "The freedom asserted by these appellees does not bring them into collision with rights asserted by any other individual. It is such conflicts which most frequently require intervention of the State to determine where the rights of one end and those of another begin." Barnette, 319 U.S. at 630. Here, the refusal to provide a wedding cake to us directly harms our right to be free of discrimination in the marketplace. It is the state's prerogative to minimize that harm by determining where the baker's rights end and our rights begin.

Could this cake store refuse to decorate our wedding cake with images of Greek deities?
Yes, but we were refused service before decoration was discussed. We were refused a cake regardless of what images, symbols, or words it was adorned with.

The Jewish baker is also free to refuse to decorate his cakes with anti-Semitic slogans or images. The baking and selling of a cake is not protected speech, but the decoration of a cake can be considered protected speech.

TLK Valentine said:

Remember, the "dire consequences" I'm suspecting will hurt you guys far more than it hurts me.

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The One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church thanks you for your concern, but we have seen worse than this.

"I refuse to hire, serve, allow in my store, or do any business whatsoever with __________ people because it violates my religious beliefs to do so."

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Why do you keep trying to conflate this into refusing service, hiring, or doing business with anyone? That's not the issue, it never has been, and and that's why I refuse to dignify this silliness with a response.

Deacon001 said:

The One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church thanks you for your concern, but we have seen worse than this.

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Perhaps -- but have you committed worse than this?

Why do you keep trying to conflate this into refusing service, hiring, or doing business with anyone? That's not the issue, it never has been, and and that's why I refuse to dignify this silliness with a response.

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So so saying these are, in fact, separate issues? Refusing to decorate a cake is a protected act of religious expression, but the only one allowed? Only Christian bakers can act on their consciences?

Talk about a narrow focus for one's religion...

variant said:

I don't think it is. Hatred, intolerance, fear all justified by religion.

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The hatred is on your side.

It's the same argument...

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No, it isn't. I know what a black person looks like. Even if they are very light skinned (and yes, I know some of them, I am RELATED to some of them) you can make a good guess.

I don't know what gays look like. I really don't pay much attention to what other people do, my own business occupies me constantly. They have to go out of their way to tell me or show me who they are and what they want.

Kind of like the way atheists do when they come to Christian forums to pick arguments, or when leftists go to conservative forums to pick arguments. (And I have seen a LOT of it.) They go out of their way to cause trouble.

Someone said something earlier about the bullies on the left, and they were dead on right. I think this Jack Phillips just might be the Rosa Parks of the pushback against the hateful, intolerant bullies on the left.

TLK Valentine said:

Maybe that's the problem? The Bible does explicitly say that homosexuals should be put to death...

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Maybe If you are an ancient Hebrew living in the fifth century BC. But that's not today.

Deacon001 said:

Maybe If you are an ancient Hebrew living in the fifth century BC. But that's not today.

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Today you just refuse to decorate cakes for them -- God must be so proud of how His word is obeyed.

Don't get me wrong; I'm glad you guys can ignore God on that one...

Deacon001 said:

The only big picture is in your imagination, it is what it is. Watching you guys trying to conflate a refusal to decorate a cake into "you hate black people" would be comical if it wasn't so tedious.

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Refer to the OP; the use of race as a comparison comes from the first post.

variant said:

The only kosher bakery I could find on-line that does custom cakes seems to be fine with images of Jesus.

Communion Cakes | NJ & NYC Custom Cake Bakery

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"kosher" is a certification that ingredients, kitchen, and methods have been inspected and supervised by a rabbi to be in compliance with kashrut, thereby obtaining more potential customers; the kitchen/bakery itself need not be run by Jewish people. In fact, many places that aren't run only by Jews for Jews offer this (see: most vegetarian Indian restaurants on Lex...)