Colorado baker ordered to serve gay wedding or face fines

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Nebe

If the baker wants to be left alone, the baker should not run a business that is open to the public.

You've expanded the perception of being "left alone" to ridiculous widths. If the baker ran a business that was only open to those of his religion, he still wouldn't be left alone. If your definition of being "left alone" is not to be impinged upon by anyone who might disagree with you in any way, you would have to be a hermit. But then you would have to accept the intrusions of distasteful weather, and creepy beasties. It is impossible to be "left alone" if by that is meant not to be affected by that outside of yourself. I think what is generally meant in this context is to be allowed your personal beliefs so long as you do not deprive others of theirs. If you are forced to relinquish your beliefs to the satisfactions of anyone else's beliefs, you have none. That would work in a world where no-one believes anything.

So can the baker refuse to sell to whoever he does not feel that his religion agrees with??
What if he refused service to blacks??
What if he refused service to Muslims???

As far as I can tell from this story is that the baker didn't refuse to sell to the gays (or blacks or Muslims), but he refused to sell something he did not have. Nor, because of his beliefs, would ever have.

Jim, the thing you are not grasping is that he is forcing his religion on the gays.. Because he is telling them he won't sell them a cake because his religion does not agree with it.

In this manner of thought, your mere presence is "forcing" it on someone else. If your presence annoys me, I can leave and force you to be deprived of my presence. If you speak to me you are forcing your words on me. Actually, I don't have to listen. And by not listening I am forcing you not to be heard. If I preach my religion to you through my presence and my words, you may choose to not listen to my words, or to leave my presence. If you force your presence and words on me by demanding I make something that I don't make nor choose to make, should I not be free to repel your force with my own? Should not my reaction be equal to your action?

The baker was not FORCING his religion on the gays. They were in no way compelled to be part of his religion. They had every right and means to reject his religion. Their imposition of personal behavior on him should in no way compel him to abandon his own. He was not refusing to give them service. He was refusing to give them a service he did not provide--making something that was intended for a behavior which his religion condemned.

I don't know if I have said this yet, but the biggest homophobes are always the ones who fight a constant struggle to repress their own gay urges.. I mean really... What kind of Colorado cowboy decides he is going to make pretty cakes with little roses all over them??
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

So, are you forcing your peculiar notion on the rest of us? We can reject it, and force you to have no effect.

And if the gays had asked merely as customers, not by imposing their presence as gays, the baker to bake a pretty cake with little roses, he may have done it. But if he didn't want to, should he have been forced to?

[spence]

Originally Posted by detbuch

As far as I can tell from this story is the baker didn't refuse to sell to the gays (or blacks or Muslims), but he refused to sell something he did not have. Nor, because of his beliefs, would ever have.

Aren't most wedding cakes made to order?
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by spence

Aren't most wedding cakes made to order?
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

If you are implying that ordering a cake has no connection to its specific use, that would be true if the ultimate use is not known to the baker. But if it is ordered as specified for a purpose, then that purpose is known to the baker, and if the baker's religion compels him to not participate in the purpose, what compels him to violate his beliefs and the first Amendment's protection of that right?

[likwid]

Originally Posted by detbuch

If you are implying that ordering a cake has no connection to its specific use, that would be true if the ultimate use is not known to the baker. But if it is ordered as specified for a purpose, then that purpose is known to the baker, and if the baker's religion compels him to not participate in the purpose, what compels him to violate his beliefs and the Second Amendment's protection of that right?

is he a one man operation?
if not, why didn't he just have one of his heathen sinner employees bake it?

then he's free from supporting sinners.

or does he only hire god fearing monogamous/virgin/go to church every sunday children of the all holy god?

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by likwid

is he a one man operation?
if not, why didn't he just have one of his heathen sinner employees bake it?

then he's free from supporting sinners.

or does he only hire god fearing monogamous/virgin/go to church every sunday children of the all holy god?

I don't know. Maybe he used Christianity as a cover but was actually a member of some secret heterosexual Satanist cult which commanded a form of jihad against gays.

Maybe his religion dissuaded him from hiring "heathen sinners." I'm not sure if that's a class protected by anti-discrimination laws.

Even so, ordering the heathen sinners to bake the cake would still implicate him in supporting sinners. And I doubt if his god would approve of his trying to get around his faith in devious ways. That is one of the many ways "god fearing monogamous/virgin/go to church every Sunday children of the all holy God" differ from the less than scrupulous among us. We tend not to like cheating ways when used against us, but admire and recommend it to friends and family when it's to their advantage. Politicians are especially good at it.

[likwid]

Originally Posted by detbuch

I don't know. Maybe he used Christianity as a cover but was actually a member of some secret heterosexual Satanist cult which commanded a form of jihad against gays.

Maybe his religion dissuaded him from hiring "heathen sinners." I'm not sure if that's a class protected by anti-discrimination laws.

Even so, ordering the heathen sinners to bake the cake would still implicate him in supporting sinners. And I doubt if his god would approve of his trying to get around his faith in devious ways. That is one of the many ways "god fearing monogamous/virgin/go to church every Sunday children of the all holy God" differ from the less than scrupulous among us. We tend not to like cheating ways when used against us, but admire and recommend it to friends and family when it's to their advantage. Politicians are especially good at it.

I'm pretty sure most Gods don't give a damn who you bake a cake for, but they do care when you discriminate against your fellow man.

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by likwid

I'm pretty sure most Gods don't give a damn who you bake a cake for, but they do care when you discriminate against your fellow man.

Apparently, you are not familiar with "most Gods." In any event, the baker was not discriminating against the gays as fellow men, he was choosing not to participate in something which is condemned by his religion.

[spence]

Originally Posted by detbuch

If you are implying that ordering a cake has no connection to its specific use, that would be true if the ultimate use is not known to the baker. But if it is ordered as specified for a purpose, then that purpose is known to the baker, and if the baker's religion compels him to not participate in the purpose, what compels him to violate his beliefs and the Second Amendment's protection of that right?

How is the use of a cake for a gay wedding any different than a cake for a straight wedding? It's cake...you eat it.

Like I said before, I could see the baker refusing to make an outlandish cake, perhaps in the shape of a swastika or sexually suggestive somehow. But so far I've not read anything that suggests anything but a standard cake.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by spence

How is the use of a cake for a gay wedding any different than a cake for a straight wedding? It's cake...you eat it.

Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

The use is different in exactly the way you described it. It's used to celebrate a gay wedding. Its use is different in the same way a hammer's use to pound nails in construction differs from using it to break into someone's home. Just about any object can be used in different ways, some of which are not approved of by some people who would not therefore choose to sell the object to someone who would use it in a destructive way. The use of the baker's cake to celebrate something his god would forbid differs from that baker selling a cake to be used for something which his god would either approve or not disapprove.

Take it out of the context of religion and into a matter of law. It may be illegal to sell a gun to a convicted felon. But its usually not illegal to sell a gun to a "respectable" person with the right papers. It is assumed that the gun will be used for different purposes by people with anti-social character than by upstanding folks.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by spence

How is the use of a cake for a gay wedding any different than a cake for a straight wedding? It's cake...you eat it.

Like I said before, I could see the baker refusing to make an outlandish cake, perhaps in the shape of a swastika or sexually suggestive somehow. But so far I've not read anything that suggests anything but a standard cake.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Spence, you should expect more of yourself.

The couple asked him to provide a cake for, and therefore somewhat participate in, a gay wedding. He chose not to.

The complexity of the cake is not relevant.

[spence]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

Spence, you should expect more of yourself.

The couple asked him to provide a cake for, and therefore somewhat participate in, a gay wedding. He chose not to.

The complexity of the cake is not relevant.

The guy is on record having baked a cake for a wedding between two dogs. Was he participating in that also?

-spence

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by spence

The guy is on record having baked a cake for a wedding between two dogs. Was he participating in that also?

-spence

What is the "record"? Were the dogs gay? Did they have a marriage license? Do they qualify for government marriage benefits? Did the dogs say "I do" and pledge faithfulness for the rest of their lives? Is the judge comparing a dog wedding to a gay marriage? Does the baker's religion say anything about dog marriages? I believe the bible condemns humans from sexual relations with other animals, but doesn't condemn dogs doing it with dogs.

Or was it one of those cutesy things pet owners do which have no relation or meaning to the rest of society? You wanna make your dogs get "married," which don't amount to a pile of dog poop in terms of what marriage is as recognized either by religion or government? Don't mean squat to me (the baker) since it ain't for real. Here's your cake.

This judge is the kind of progressive joke that has been played upon this country and its traditions and constitutional laws. He, like the progressive judges who have "transformed" this country's governing structure from bottom up to a top down, adjudicates not by law, but by personal or agenda driven points of view. His type has made the judiciary the high priests of morality and the good rather than judges of the law. It didn't used to be, under a legal system, the judge's role to decide what was harmful to society. That used to be a matter left for society itself to determine.