i still say it's easier to make them a cake that tastes bad or shoot pictures that are blurry and out of focus than fighting them in court and have fun doing it
Posted on 04/28/2016 12:07:55 PM PDT by Rio
Kind of hard to separate the two. It's like saying, "But your honor, I didn't refuse him service because he was Jewish. I refused him service because he was wearing a Yarmulke." Hell hath no fury like a lesbian scorned and they used the state and the law to extract their revenge far out of proportion to the damages. That's probably their best argument on appeal; the punishment far out-weighed the infraction.
IIRC, GoFundMe kicked them out in a huff early in this saga. Eventually another site picked them up, and I believe it is this site at ContinueToGive.com/, but if I were to donate, I would check to make sure it is still their legitimate site:
ContinueToGive: Help Sweetcakes by melissa
Sweet Cakes By Melissa Facebook page
This Portland media station's story from July 2015 says Continue to Give is indeed their site:
New U.S. Attorney General.
State courts, not federal.
i still say it's easier to make them a cake that tastes bad or shoot pictures that are blurry and out of focus than fighting them in court and have fun doing it
Freedom of association, under pressure for decades, is gone.
Exactly. And toleration has been redefined from leaving people alone to live their lives as they see fit without interference to the so-called “right” to force people to take part in other people’s lives whether they want to or not.
Sweet Cakes did not refuse to make a cake because the customers were gay. They refused to make a wedding cake to celebrate a gay marriage. It was the activity that they did not want to support. At the time, the activity was not even legal in Oregon.
Westboro has a Constitutional right to hold God Hates Fags rallies. Why should gay caterers be allowed to refuse to support a Constitutionally protected activity?
And yes, they are hate-filled assholes, but hate-filled assholes have the same rights as gay activists.
Not at all. It is more analogous to the difference between refusing to serve someone because they are Jewish and refusing to cater a Kosher bar mitzvah.
You can't really separate the two.
Westboro has a Constitutional right to hold God Hates Fags rallies. Why should gay caterers be allowed to refuse to support a Constitutionally protected activity?
People in Missouri have a constitutionally protected right to open carry. If I own a business I can deny them entry if they are carrying a weapon and I'm not breaking the law. Now if I refused entry to only black gun owners then it'd be discrimination and the state can go after me.
And yes, they are hate-filled assholes, but hate-filled assholes have the same rights as gay activists.
Depends on the circumstances.
Here is a better analogy.
Let’s say you are an artist. You have a gallery in which you sell existing paintings but you also do custom portraits. If a gay couple wants to buy one of your existing paintings and you refuse because they are gay, then you are discriminating against them on the basis of their homosexuality. If a gay couple wants to commission you to paint a portrait of them kissing (or nude or having sex) and you refuse, are you discriminating against them on the basis of their homosexuality?
Yes, that is an extreme scenario, but entirely analogous. Sweet Cakes did not refuse to sell a lesbian couple any products off their shelves. In fact, the lesbian couple were existing customers that the bakery had sold products to before. They refused, however, to create a wedding cake for them and decorate it to celebrate a gay wedding that they found offensive to their religious beliefs.
Hmm... good point. I suppose money’s probably the main motivator. The fact they can put a Christian baker out of business was a bonus deal.
I’m surprised we haven’t seen a lot of ‘ask a homo baker to bake a Traditional Marriage’ cake videos or something like it.
Yep - democrats ran out of ‘real’ problems to get upset about 30 years ago. Now they have to stoke the flames of division to keep their jobs. What is next after every queer and tranny get what they want? Start fighting for pedophiles and zoophiliacs?
Native Americans need some stirring up. and America is ripe for guilt. I predict we’ll see them start making headlines next year, especially if Trump wins.
Sure you can. As the other poster said, it's the difference in refusing to serve someone because they're Jewish and refusing to cater their Bar Mitzvah. This is not a hard distinction to understand.
But you have to understand how Obama has obtained so many judicial victories. The Justice Department sends out memoranda to all levels of appellate courts in the U.S.; and if an issue is really hot-button, they send legal representatives to join the suits or provide pressure on the attorneys. The DOJ actually sent taxpayer-funded “advisors” to the street demonstrations over Trayvon Martin and against George Zimmerman.
Certainly this gay marriage vs. religious liberty case is a hot button issue.
That would depend on why you refused to cater it, wouldn't it?
If you do portraits of heterosexuals kissing (or nude of having sex) then yes you are. If you have never done such portraits then no you aren't.
They refused, however, to create a wedding cake for them and decorate it to celebrate a gay wedding that they found offensive to their religious beliefs.
And I'm not arguing that they should have suffered the punishment they received. The problem with cases like this is that one side can have their rights respected only when the other side has their rights denied. Legally the customer had the right not to be discriminated against based on their sexual orientation. Constitutionally the Klein's have the right to practice their faith as their conscience dictates. Rather than choose sides the government should never have been involved.
But a hard comparison to make. What would be the gentile equivalent of a Bar Mitzvah?
I don’t think it’s all that difficult to separate the two things.
First, Sweet Cakes had already served the complainant by providing cake for other events.
Second, the specific demand was for a cake celebrating a homosexual “marriage”, which for the Kleins is an event with specific religious connotations, and under their religion is recognized as a one-man, one-woman institution.
To conflate the two requires disregarding the rights of the Kleins to act on their religious belief.
JMO, of course.
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