End of baker story. Bakery will have to pay same-sex couple up to $150K

[feralkid]

it bothers me that simply having your feelings hurt entitles you to a big fat check.
We need to change that shit in the legal system.

Hello?

The judgement was for violating the Public Accommodation Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of The United States of America by discriminating against the couple; not for hurting their feelings.

Also good luck trying to repeal the Civil Rights Act.









.

 

[KK]

At which point could a business be private? Where the owners could do such as they want and not to have the government dictate what they do? I believe there are some businesses that don't want to deal with the westboro church nuts and don't. so can those "public" businesses actually deny business to them?

This country is getting much too fucking intrusive. I cant wait for the day that the people will rise up and shut the current government down and get back to the basic fundamentals that this country was founded on before the fuckwads eroded the country to what it is today. I don't see that happening anytime soon though as the government has the pussy sheep just where they want them.

 

[Atreus21]

I can just see the lawsuit now to contend no shirts no shoes no service.

 

[feralkid]

This country is getting much too fucking intrusive. I cant wait for the day that the people will rise up and shut the current government down and get back to the basic fundamentals that this country was founded on before the fuckwads eroded the country to what it is today. I don't see that happening anytime soon though as the government has the pussy sheep just where they want them.

Rowey!

Just today I learned a bunch of horn-swaggling, job-killing, socialist gubmint goons done went a testing herbal supplements and found several contained nothing but fillers. Dad-gummit, I say let the free market regulate itself!

If you don't like it, then by golly get your own flippin' DNA analyser if you want purity in your food and drugs!

 

[kage69]

I love to hear the discrimination apologists who punt for 'family values' companies go and bring up the "it offends our faith!" and "it harms our conscious!" bullshit. Pungent stuff!

How many businesses have you guys seen, in any state, that proclaimed gay men and lesbians to be unwelcome as customers due to the owners religious tenants?

Exactly. If accepting "gay" money was the egregious, violating, spiritual mindfuck we're told it is, businesses would want to notify the clientele in hopes of avoiding that...but then that would mean making less money. So no, these cherished yet hyper-sensitive beliefs are over-ruled daily by the love of money. It's why the Mormon business community is saying uncle after Prop 8 produced boycotts, and why even in the southern recesses of Mississippi Baptist groups were largely unable to get businesses on board with their agenda regarding gay people. It's why ol Hobby Lobby was somehow unperturbed about birth control producing companies in their investment portfolio producing income.

 

[werepossum]

So could a baker accept an order for two wedding cakes, and agree to write "Happy Wedding Joe and Samantha" on one, and refuse to write "Happy Wedding Joe and Samuel" on the other? Please answer the question I already posed multiple times in the thread

Don't know how the courts would rule, but in my opinion "Happy Wedding Joe and Samuel" is an inherent part of a wedding cake, not an expression of intent which would be protected free speech. (Although can't say I recall a wedding cake with a message written on it.)

 

[Vic]

Well said, and I tend to agree with this and with Ronstang. Problem is that businesses tend to cluster, and in a town where one baker is willing to express such a sentiment and refuse service, all or a significant portion may well do the same. This is why we have public accommodation laws, so that people who are minorities in some identifiable fashion don't have to spend their time trying to find someone willing to give them the same service the rest of us take for granted.

I really, really hate to see decent people run out of business and ruined over this, but at the end of the day a public business has to accommodate the public, without unreasonable discrimination.

This

 

[FelixDeCat]

-We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.

-No shoes, no shirt, no service.

-Etc, etc.

 

[Nograts]

The only thing I think I wouldn't write on a cake for someone for money is something negative about my family.

"So....you want me to write 'I take it up the ass at midnight' on this cake? And you'll give me dollars?"

"Yes sir."

"Well hell yeah, what color would you like that in?"

 

[Vic]

There seems to be some confusion here. To clarify, as a business owner, you can refuse service because:
- you don't actually provide that service,
- the customer can't or won't pay for the service, or has a demonstrated history of refusing to pay,
- the customer doesn't conform to a dress code or is otherwise disruptive to your business,
- you don't like him because he screwed your sister.

But you can't refuse service because you don't serve 'their kind,' and this is a problem?

 

[brycejones]

-We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.

-No shoes, no shirt, no service.

-Etc, etc.

And your point is?

 

[WHAMPOM]

Did not know the Southpark kids posted on this forum.

 

[MrPickins]

I can just see the lawsuit now to contend no shirts no shoes no service.

Not sure if trolling, but that would only be illegal if it was "No Shirts, No Shoes, No Service (for gays only)".

-We reserve the right to refuse service to homosexuals.

-No shoes, no shirt, no service (for gays only).

-Etc, etc.

:hmm:

 

[fskimospy]

At which point could a business be private? Where the owners could do such as they want and not to have the government dictate what they do? I believe there are some businesses that don't want to deal with the westboro church nuts and don't. so can those "public" businesses actually deny business to them?

This country is getting much too fucking intrusive. I cant wait for the day that the people will rise up and shut the current government down and get back to the basic fundamentals that this country was founded on before the fuckwads eroded the country to what it is today. I don't see that happening anytime soon though as the government has the pussy sheep just where they want them.

I always find it funny when people are discussing public accommodation laws, which are fundamentally about racism, and say they want to get back to the principles the country was founded on, somehow forgetting that the country was founded on the principles that black people were 3/5ths of a white person, that slavery was ok, etc.

Maybe people should think twice before invoking founding principles when it comes to racism.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

So could a baker accept an order for two wedding cakes, and agree to write "Happy Wedding Joe and Samantha" on one, and refuse to write "Happy Wedding Joe and Samuel" on the other? Please answer the question I already posed multiple times in the thread

That would be discrimination. The cake you're proposing is a template offered to couples; "Happy Wedding <Name1> and <Name2>". If you sell that template to straight couples but not gay couples, you're discriminating on sexual orientation, and that's illegal in the state this business was operating. There are a couple exceptions to this, of course. A baker could force couples to prove their identities so they didn't get roped into making "Happy Wedding Hitler and Stalin" cakes, but they still couldn't discriminate based on the gender of the names requested. They could also only sell "Happy Wedding Joe and Samantha" cakes, even if the couple in question happened to be "Fred and Jill," but that would put them in an extremely niche market since it's hard to imagine many people would want some other couple's name on their wedding cake.

Barring those two unlikely scenarios, a baker that makes a custom cake for Joe and Samantha has to offer the same custom cake option to Joe and Samuel, regardless of their personal feelings on gay marriage.

 

[fskimospy]

Don't know how the courts would rule, but in my opinion "Happy Wedding Joe and Samuel" is an inherent part of a wedding cake, not an expression of intent which would be protected free speech. (Although can't say I recall a wedding cake with a message written on it.)

It's actually an interesting question, as decorations on a cake start to get into free speech territory.

 

[glenn1]

It's actually an interesting question, as decorations on a cake start to get into free speech territory.

That's why I posed the question. If you will allow people to refuse service based on the speech content of their "decoration," you open the avenue to refusal of service generally.

"I don't sell wedding cakes, I sell the decorations on top and include the cake for free. And I won't write 'Happy Birthday Joe and Samuel' and thus you don't get the included cake either."

Or the print store, "Sure I'll sell you a sign, but not if it has 'Support Gay Marriage' on it because doing so imposes on my free speech rights."

 

[fskimospy]

That's why I posed the question. If you will allow people to refuse service based on the speech content of their "decoration," you open the avenue to refusal of service generally.

"I don't sell wedding cakes, I sell the decorations on top and include the cake for free. And I won't write 'Happy Birthday Joe and Samuel' and thus you don't get the included cake either."

Or the print store, "Sure I'll sell you a sign, but not if it has 'Support Gay Marriage' on it because doing so imposes on my free speech rights."

You really don't open the avenue to general refusal of service and I'm quite certain the courts would throw the argument that you sold decoration and not the cake out immediately. In a common law system like we have the law is very resistant to that sort of legalistic dancing around the issue.

By the way though yes, printing messages for other people is most likely something that has first amendment protections. There's a decent chance that a print store could refuse to print messages it found offensive.

 

[glenn1]

By the way though yes, printing messages for other people is most likely something that has first amendment protections. There's a decent chance that a print store could refuse to print messages it found offensive.

Even if it led to a disparate impact for a protected class? I find that hard to believe.

 

[werepossum]

There seems to be some confusion here. To clarify, as a business owner, you can refuse service because:
- you don't actually provide that service,
- the customer can't or won't pay for the service, or has a demonstrated history of refusing to pay,
- the customer doesn't conform to a dress code or is otherwise disruptive to your business,
- you don't like him because he screwed your sister.

But you can't refuse service because you don't serve 'their kind,' and this is a problem?

Reciprocal this. I support individual and business owner rights in general, but if one is accommodating the public, one must accommodate the public fairly, without discrimination.

We're supposed to learn this at home and church or, failing that, in kindergarten. Be nice, play fair, and treat others the way you'd like them to treat you.

It's actually an interesting question, as decorations on a cake start to get into free speech territory.

In my opinion far too much has been subsumed under free speech. With cakes in particular, one is not expressing one's own free speech but is implementing the customer's free speech.

That's why I posed the question. If you will allow people to refuse service based on the speech content of their "decoration," you open the avenue to refusal of service generally.

"I don't sell wedding cakes, I sell the decorations on top and include the cake for free. And I won't write 'Happy Birthday Joe and Samuel' and thus you don't get the included cake either."

Or the print store, "Sure I'll sell you a sign, but not if it has 'Support Gay Marriage' on it because doing so imposes on my free speech rights."

I don't think that would (or should) fly, for the above. Even with a sign, you are being paid to implement the customer's free speech. Typically the employer's right of refusal is limited to what is offensive by community standards, and even in states without gender discrimination laws I think calling gay marriage offensive by community standards would be shaky legal ground. (Where gay marriage is legal, which will soon be the whole nation, it's not shaky ground, it's quicksand, waiting to devour the unwary without much sympathy from the rest of us.) And also typically, courts tend to react poorly to clever ways of continuing discrimination. As they should.

 

[fskimospy]

Even if it led to a disparate impact for a protected class? I find that hard to believe.

I don't, in fact in that recent case where the photographer lost in her bid not to service same-sex weddings the judges mentioned something to the effect that she wasn't being forced to create the speech of others. That at least implies they would be sympathetic to such an argument.

 

[Atreus21]

Not sure if trolling, but that would only be illegal if it was "No Shirts, No Shoes, No Service (for gays only)".




:hmm:

So denying service to the shirtless > okay.

Denying service to gays > bigotry.

 

[zinfamous]

So denying service to the shirtless > okay.

Denying service to gays > bigotry.

exactly.

and?

 

[zinfamous]

And your point is?

Not sure if trolling, but that would only be illegal if it was "No Shirts, No Shoes, No Service (for gays only)".


:hmm:

To clarify where their confusion lies--these people fundamentally believe that gayness is a lifestyle choice; and one that can probably be cured or "fixed" through something like therapy, if necessary.

To these people, both examples are types of choices, and there really is no logical difference between denying service to personal choices.

 

[Atreus21]

exactly.

and?

And double standards.