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SCOTUS sides with Masterpiece Cakeshop, 7-2

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realibrad said:
That was the original debate I tried to have. Should you be forced to provide service if you do not want to.

The argument boiled down to two positions.

You must provide the service to anyone that is in the protected group if you offer your service to the general public. You cannot decide to not provide that service no matter how limited based on that protected group regardless of your personal views. You are allowed to have your opinion, but, as a business owner, you cannot do anything based on those views if you offer the service to the public. If you dont want to offer your services to everyone, you dont get to offer your services.

The other side is that forcing people to provide a service that they do not want to provide equates to slavery. Even though the cake maker offered the couple to purchase anything from the bakery, they wanted the baker to be forced to make cakes for gay couples. While there can be reasonable limitations on the expression of beliefs, in this case simply telling someone no seems to be justified.

The first camp sees it as necessary to force social progress. The 2nd side says that taking away the ability to choose is more of a regression overall.
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How would all regulations not be slavery then? I doubt a coal plant wants to install CO2 scrubbers yet as a condition of doing business the government forces them to. I doubt big banks want to comply with the host of regulations the government places on them. Are they similarly enslaved?
 
Noah Abrams said:
Christians have the financial, legal, political and other kinds of power to take an issue like this all the way to SC. If this were a Buddhist or Muslim baker, he wouldn’t dared have defied. And had he, there would be no machine to defend him from the government. That is one main reason religious minorities get discriminated against
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That doesn't sound right. I'm told that Christians are the most persecuted people in this country!
 
interchange said:
I e, I'm not sure how the store owner amassed resources to take the case this far, but I do think that it would be harder for a Muslim to obtain those resources externally than a Christian.
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I never suggested ACLU would not work with someone cause they are Muslim. I was talking in context of cases like this and similar ones. That is where religious minorities have no recourse. That is why they don’t do anything in the first place. They just live meekly, going to their temples and mosques.
 
Vic said:
The baker did the one of the most un-Christian acts there is, which is to be inhospitable to his neighbors, under the false pretense that his Christian faith required it.
This court may have forgiven him, but there is a higher court still that awaits him.
Click to expand...

Yep. One constant with people like this is they know almost nothing about what Jesus taught.
 
The only effect I see from this ruling is that HRC members will have to be very careful about what they say to preserve impartiality in the future. If they do that there is nothing in this decision that says what the baker did would have to be accommodated in the future.

This will come back around sooner rather than later.
 
realibrad said:
That was the original debate I tried to have. Should you be forced to provide service if you do not want to.

The argument boiled down to two positions.

You must provide the service to anyone that is in the protected group if you offer your service to the general public. You cannot decide to not provide that service no matter how limited based on that protected group regardless of your personal views. You are allowed to have your opinion, but, as a business owner, you cannot do anything based on those views if you offer the service to the public. If you dont want to offer your services to everyone, you dont get to offer your services.

The other side is that forcing people to provide a service that they do not want to provide equates to slavery. Even though the cake maker offered the couple to purchase anything from the bakery, they wanted the baker to be forced to make cakes for gay couples. While there can be reasonable limitations on the expression of beliefs, in this case simply telling someone no seems to be justified.

The first camp sees it as necessary to force social progress. The 2nd side says that taking away the ability to choose is more of a regression overall.
Click to expand...

This is a false analogy. No one forced him to open up a cake shop and provide cakes to the public. It’s not like he’s making cakes for friends and acquaintances - he has a public facing commercial entity and as such it is reasonable to require him to comply with regulations applicable to public facing commercial entities. He has every right to quit or cease serving the public if he chooses not to do so.
 
Vic said:
The baker did the one of the most un-Christian acts there is, which is to be inhospitable to his neighbors, under the false pretense that his Christian faith required it.
This court may have forgiven him, but there is a higher court still that awaits him.
Click to expand...

The baker had no problem serving gay clients, as he had served them in the past. He wished not to be part of a gay wedding.
 
So if the commission re-issues same ruling without saying any of the "mean" stuff that offended those snowflakes, then what?
 
Atreus21 said:
The baker had no problem serving gay clients, as he had served them in the past. He wished not to be part of a gay wedding.
Click to expand...
Except that he was not asked to be part of the gay wedding, which was in fact held in Massachusetts.
 
Perknose said:
Irreverence Alert!

Masterpiece Cakeshop? Do they know how that can come across in certain circles? Master Piece was my porn name, and I once starred with Cake Shop. I licked her icing all over and then dove right in. 😉😀😉
Click to expand...
You’ve ruined all cakes for me. Forever. I hope you’re happy.
 
senseamp said:
So if the commission re-issues same ruling without saying any of the "mean" stuff that offended those snowflakes, then what?
Click to expand...

I'm guessing those who wish to discriminate against gays or other groups will just do so with less transparent means.

Before:

Them: "We'd like a wedding cake please."
Baker: "I don't make cakes for same-sex weddings"
Them: "*@*$(%^$%!"

Now:

Them: "We'd like a wedding cake please."
Baker: "Sorry, I'm booked for the week of your wedding."
Them: "But we haven't told you when we're having it yet..."
 
Noah Abrams said:
I never suggested ACLU would not work with someone cause they are Muslim. I was talking in context of cases like this and similar ones. That is where religious minorities have no recourse. That is why they don’t do anything in the first place. They just live meekly, going to their temples and mosques.
Click to expand...

But... The ACLU explicitly has a program for fighting discrimination against Muslims. And the law allows the same rights to fight their case as it does Christians. They clearly have recourse. But they have fewer resources and face more discrimination even by those whose role includes protecting them.
 
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glenn1 said:
I'm guessing those who wish to discriminate against gays or other groups will just do so with less transparent means.

Before:

Them: "We'd like a wedding cake please."
Baker: "I don't make cakes for same-sex weddings"
Them: "*@*$(%^$%!"

Now:

Them: "We'd like a wedding cake please."
Baker: "Sorry, I'm booked for the week of your wedding."
Them: "But we haven't told you when we're having it yet..."
Click to expand...

Exactly. That's why black people still can't get seated at a restaurant in the South.
 
fskimospy said:
Exactly. That's why black people still can't get seated at a restaurant in the South.
Click to expand...

People can and do get sued for this stuff. My RE agent told me that when they listed my property someone called her with a very obviously ethnic name, when she agreed to show the house, they cancelled. She was pretty sure they were fishing for a fair housing lawsuit.
 
Blackjack200 said:
People can and do get sued for this stuff. My RE agent told me that when they listed my property someone called her with a very obviously ethnic name, when she agreed to show the house, they cancelled. She was pretty sure they were fishing for a fair housing lawsuit.
Click to expand...

Oh, I was being sarcastic. Public accommodation laws, while not perfect, have been broadly effective in curbing this sort of discrimination.
 
fskimospy said:
Exactly. That's why black people still can't get seated at a restaurant in the South.
Click to expand...

Refusing to serve patrons at on-demand dining establishments is quite a bit different that effectively refusing to make a cake for future delivery but I know that you know that. Customers don't have a right of performance to demand future services particularly on a particular date or time.
 
realibrad said:
That was the original debate I tried to have. Should you be forced to provide service if you do not want to.

The argument boiled down to two positions.

You must provide the service to anyone that is in the protected group if you offer your service to the general public. You cannot decide to not provide that service no matter how limited based on that protected group regardless of your personal views. You are allowed to have your opinion, but, as a business owner, you cannot do anything based on those views if you offer the service to the public. If you dont want to offer your services to everyone, you dont get to offer your services.

The other side is that forcing people to provide a service that they do not want to provide equates to slavery. Even though the cake maker offered the couple to purchase anything from the bakery, they wanted the baker to be forced to make cakes for gay couples. While there can be reasonable limitations on the expression of beliefs, in this case simply telling someone no seems to be justified.

The first camp sees it as necessary to force social progress. The 2nd side says that taking away the ability to choose is more of a regression overall.
Click to expand...

I'm following what you're saying, but the SCOTUS didn't really weigh in on that. They merely defined a case where the Colorado anti-discrimination law conflicts with the first amendment freedoms of the store owner because, owing to gay marriage not being legal at the time, making the cake would represent speech indicating the position of the baker in conflict with his religious expression. Without the CO law, it's my impression that they could discriminate against serving them any way they wished for any reason. Which poses an interesting question. In the absence of legal protection, are there people who cannot find services from anyone? Is that ok? Imagine this were 20 years earlier in the South. Would it be acceptable for them to be able to find no one to make them a cake at all?
 
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fskimospy said:
Exactly. That's why black people still can't get seated at a restaurant in the South.
Click to expand...
I guess they could just apply the equivalent of banking Reg B to all businesses, requiring them to serve all customers within a certain time period regardless of business volume or capacity.
Or a certain minority of people could stop acting like DB's while lying that their religious beliefs force them to.
 
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