Posted on 06/05/2018 6:59:19 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Jack Phillips maintains he would 'serve everybody that comes in my shop,' but that he wouldn't 'create cakes for every message.'
The baker at the center of a Supreme Court ruling that he cannot be forced to make a cake for a same-sex wedding told “Today” on Tuesday that he doesn’t “discriminate” against anybody and that he simply doesn't want to bake cakes “for every message” — saying that he would also refuse to create a dessert that insulted the LGBTQ community.
Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cake in Denver, had argued that his cakes are works of art and that requiring him to bake them for same-sex weddings would force him to express a view that violated his religious beliefs. And in a narrow 7-2 decision, the high court said legal proceedings in Colorado had shown a hostility to the baker's religious views.
Phillips, however, maintained during an interview with “Today,” that he would “serve everybody.”
“It's just that i don't create cakes for every occasion they ask me to create,” he said.
“I don't discriminate against anybody, I serve everybody that comes in my shop,” Phillips said. “ I don't create cakes for every message that people ask me to create.”
“This cake is a specific cake, a wedding cake is an inherently religious event and the cake is definitely a specific message,” Phillips said, explaining his objection to making the wedding cake for the same-sex wedding.
But Phillips said there were several other messages he would never agree to put on any of his cakes — including anything that would disparage a member of the LGBTQ community.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
As soon as the idea of “Hate” Crime took hold, any reasonable discussion about applying the Law consistently went out the window.
Because of this Ruling, the Leftists want the Constitution changed. I guess that famous line from the Godfather works for them, either your signature or your Brains will be on that Contract.
Nowadays the Law is just a matter of opinion which makes the SCOTUS a dangerous institution.
When we have to worry about nearly half the Justices on the Court who would do anything to abridge our God Given Constitutional Rights we are in deep trouble, especially with half the Country agreeing with them.
Under the laws in place in Colorado at the time. Those laws gave businesses some latitude to refuse to create specific messages they considered offensive. At the time gay marriage was also illegal in the state. Since then gay marriage is now legal and the anti-discrimination laws have changed.
No matter how they or you parse it, this ends the ability to claim someone is discriminating against you based on their refusal to provide a cake to help you celebrate your cause.
In this particular case, yes. There are other cases working their way through the system concerning businesses refusing to do work for gay marriages. This decision may or may not support upholding those.
Therefore it is not a narrowly based decision.
I guess our definition of "narrow" as applied in this situation differ.
Maybe now, that “gay clientele” can go to the Your Black Muslim Bakery and demand a gay same-sex wedding cake.
Don’t hold your breath; they fight back.
I know it is just amazing the propaganda. Do a Google search for “supreme Court narrow decision” and filter out this year. The results are all cases that were in a conservative-sided ruling. They use the word ‘narrow’ only for those outcomes.
Are you talking about Trump?
no
Cakes are $50,000 each for some messages, and are subcontracted.
Renting a suit to a person going to take part in a homosexual wedding is not something you can refuse. It doesn’t signify support for the wedding. The renter wouldn’t even have to say where they were going to use the suit. They just need a suit.
Specifically making a cake with a focused motif to celebrate a homosexual marriage does intimate that. “Congratulations on your marriage, Bob and Bill.” That is specific.
This owner said he would sell them merchandise, it’s just that he would not help them celebrate something he does not approve of.
I liken the refusal to rent a suit to the sale of normal non-event specific baked goods.
Now if they had tried to get someone to make a suit with a message on the back, focused on the celebration of a homosexual marriage, that would be different.
The SCOTUS just made it okay for people to refuse service if a focused message supporting something the service provider didn’t wish to be seen supporting.
That is not limited to cakes. Signs, personalized clothing, and other event or message specific items should now be okay to refuse to provide.
That lops off a whole category of things a service provider MUST provide.
If no person in the nation can be taken to task for these things any longer, do you really see this as a narrow decision? Seems pretty broad to me.
A lot of service providers will be protected by this decision.
“And in a narrow 7-2 decision,
Newsies are reprobates “
It’s a set up for the next time they win something on a 5-4 squeaker they can call it a “landslide victory.”
sometimes idiots can;’t keep their mouths shut
bump
[[Well after all this publicity I don’t think he needs to worry about a gay clientele anymore.]]
Actually he does- the ruling was given in such a way as to make it clear that if he were to start making wedding cakes again, he can no longer refuse to make them for same sex couples due to ‘anti-discrimination laws’ in colorado and due to gay marriage being made ‘legal’ in 2014. Phillip’s case hinged o n the fact that the couple sued him before gay marriage was legal, and phillips had the right to refuse to bake them a cake for that reason basically- that wasn’t the total reason for the ruling, but it was a part of it- those conditions no longer apply
Sadly we’ve got a long battle that’s going to happen- As soon as he begins making wedding cakes again- a gay couple will immediately demand he bake them a cake- and it’s off to the courts again-
The decision made it clear that the colorado court probably would have prevailed IF they hadn’t been so openly hostile to his religious beliefs
“And in a narrow 7-2 decision,
Newsies are reprobates “
Narrow refers to the content of the decision, not the margin of the vote.
“...in a narrow 7-2 decision...”
If they regard a 7-2 opinion as narrow, how would they categorize a 5-4 vote?
Nope, no lefty spin on that article...
(sarcasm)
Anyone know what the gay couple requested?
A run-of-the-mill wedding cake is what I understand. But they made it clear it was for a gay wedding.
I have a friend who knows the Baker well. He is a wonderful, Godly Christian man who lives his faith. He was targeted by these two sniveling little creeps with an agenda. I hope he goes back to baking his cakes and the two creeps rot in hell.
In legalese, “narrow” means closely tied to the facts of a specific case, so that the finding does not set a more generalized precedent. It has nothing to do with how many concurred or dissented.
Ditto
RE: Anyone know what the gay couple requested?
I know that Mr. Phillips offered to sell other baked goods. But what was never entirely clear from the record was whether he was only refusing to make a custom wedding cake, or whether he would have refused to sell them any wedding cake at all. It’s very hard to infer one way or the other. His statement in this particular NBC interview infers that he was asked to make a custom cake.
His website has said for several years now that he is not taking orders for custom wedding cakes. But many wedding cakes are shown pictured on his website, and I have seen photos of him in his shop where there are wedding cakes on display. It seems that he continues to sell “off the shelf” wedding cakes, although not custom ones.
Can a gay couple come in and purchase one of those off-the-shelf wedding cakes? If they cannot, that greatly increases the odds that Phillips has engaged in unlawful discrimination.
See, for example, Kagen’s concurrence, where she makes the logical argument that discrimination exists when a baker won’t sell to a gay couple the same product he sells to others.
But so long as Phillips has no objections to selling his off-the-shelf wedding cakes to both gays and straights, then his refusal to make custom cakes for gay weddings suddenly implicates the free speech arguments made by Thomas’s concurrence.
However, Thomas’ concurrence had no supporters other than Gorsuch, and all the other Justices focused only on the free exercise claim.
That may very well have been because of bad (or, to be more precise) uncertain facts on the record.
The SCOTUS’s jurisdiction is unique in that, more than most courts, it picks and chooses the cases it wants to hear.
In this Masterpiece case, the facts as briefed contained too many ambiguities for a majority to form on the Constitutional issues.
So they punted, and disposed of Mr. Phillips’ case by declining to provide him (or any other store owner) guidance whether claiming religion creates an exception to generally-applicable laws against discrimination.
Of course, one could say that the question was asked and answered over 40 years ago, in the Piggie Park case. There, shortly after the 1964 Civil Rights Act, a bigot claimed religion as the basis for not seating blacks in his restaurant. The Supreme Court quickly and without controversy held that what he did was not lawful.
So, for me, this issue is narrowly tailored only to Mr. Phillip’s case. It does not address the LARGER issues of religious liberty.
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