Baker faces complaint for refusing anti-gay message on cake

Associated Press ^ | Jan 22, 3:30 AM EST | Ivan Moreno

[Olog-hai]

A dispute over a cake in Colorado raises a new question about gay rights and religious freedom: If bakers can be fined for refusing to serve married gay couples, can they also be punished for declining to make a cake with anti-gay statements?

A baker in suburban Denver who refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding is fighting a legal order requiring him to serve gay couples even though he argued that would violate his religious beliefs.

But now a separate case puts a twist in the debate over discrimination in public businesses, and it underscores the tensions that can arise when religious freedom intersects with a growing acceptance of gay couples.

Marjorie Silva, owner of Denver’s Azucar Bakery, is facing a complaint from a customer alleging she discriminated against his religious beliefs. …

[Olog-hai]

Sorry, but that “religious discrimination” trick only works if you are Muslim.

[nathanbedford]

It seems to me that the government has no more right to compel speech than to restrict speech.

The same First Amendment which protects freedom of speech also protects the free exercise of religion but forbids its establishment. By way of corollary, speech should be protected from establishment, that is, compulsion.

So I am opposed to punishing a baker for failing to decorate with anti-gay slogans just as much as I am opposed to forcing a baker to decorate with pro-gay slogans or symbols.

An interesting question arises when we extend the principle: can we permit the telephone company to decline to transport speech it disapproves of on its lines? The telegraph, the Internet provider? Harder question, should we permit Google to discriminate in its search engine based on religious or ideological preferences? May we require the telephone company or Google to discriminate?

The First Amendment, even as applied to the states by the 14th, prohibits the government from restricting speech it does not prohibit individuals from restricting speech. If we are talking about a common provider with monopolistic phone lines etc. we can at least argue that these institutions are if not agents of the government at least entities which could not exist without provision of government and so are somehow subject to the considerations which restrict the government contained in the First Amendment. Does Google's impact on interstate commerce justify regulating how it operates? As a matter of practical reality, there is no longer any activity undertaken (or refrained from) by mankind not subject to control by Congress as part of interstate commerce.

But the question is not what is the current state of departure from the Constitution but what is the right principle?

[samtheman]

Hey, here’s a thought: maybe the government should have no opinion at all on who sells cakes to whom and what’s written on them. Just a thought.

[jaydee770]

Hey, here’s a thought: maybe the government should have no opinion at all on who sells cakes to whom and what’s written on them.

Abso-dang-lutely!!

Businesses should have the right to refuse service or provide service however they choose. Whether the business is deemed appropriate or out of line should be left up to the customers. The market will always sort itself out.

[John O]

Turn about is fair play. Every pro-gay baker (or other business) should be hit with this very same tactic. Lets see how the perverts enjoy it when the shoe is on the other foot.

Also, the so called “civil rights commission” or whatever the pro-gay “regulatory” body there is called should be swamped with cases defending Christianity. Keep them so busy with the junk that they can’t do any further harm to innocent people.

[John O]

Exactly correct. But until we force them to leave us alone (often by using their own tricks against them) they never will.

[ExCTCitizen]

Turnabout is fun...I’m glad this bakery is being sued.

[IronJack]

It will be interesting to see how libs distort “equal protection” to deny anti-homos their rights but still preserve the same rights for the pro-degenerate crowd.

[logic101.net]

Freedom? Now you are talking crazy!

I was wondering, if the baker is forced to make the cake maybe a can of salt could accidentally be dropped into the batter?

[goldi]

Only if you want to be sued.

[Flick Lives]

With enough government intervention, every small business will be destroyed. I can almost picture an end-game for bake shops. To avoid offending anyone, they will have to offer just one kind of cake, a combination of chocolate and vanilla. It would be covered with a medium gray frosting with no message, to not offend anyone. Basically imagine a soviet-style bakery product and you’ve got the idea.

[Susquehanna Patriot]

Regarding your “interesting question” question...

As you note, the government can become implicated in 1st Amendment-type of interactions between non-governmental participants (e.g. licensing the airwaves, public businesses)- usually where one of the participants wants to force the other to do / not do something opposed by the other. The question - what is the “right principle” may be decided more by practicality than by principle.

The cake baker’s speech or religious beliefs can be controlled quite easily by financial penalties - up to the point of shutting down a business. Today it is not feasible for e telephone company to listen to all calls. It is also not technically practical to be able to identify and control all speech that it won’t carry. Voice recognition technology,, as good as it may seem is not there...yet. Google falls somewhere in between and China is one of the leaders of the pack in controlling internet content - and that control starts with the search words in the search engine.

Maybe another question to be considered when answering the question - What is the right principle? - should practicality / feasibility be a deciding factor in a society where individual freedom needs to be protected from government overreach and others seeking to use the government to control others’ thoughts, speech and religious beliefs?

This new case in Colorado is a reaction, a pushing back. It would not have arisen but for the case that preceded it. It goes to the heart of the left’s justification for using the government to force another to bake a cake or ruin him financially.

[a fool in paradise]

One of the baker cases even occurred in a state that itself did not recognize same sex marriage.

The homofascists and gods in black dresses make “a” ass of the law.

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/the-law-is-an-ass.html

[a fool in paradise]

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/12/child_named_after_adolf_hitler.html
Child named after Adolf Hitler is refused cake request
2008

ASTON, Pa. — Three-year-old Adolf Hitler Campbell is cute, cuddly and, for now, blissfully unaware of the shock value conveyed by his first and middle names. That may be changing, though.

The youngster was at the center of a recent dispute between his parents and a local supermarket that refused to spell out his name on a cake for his birthday party last weekend. A story in a local newspaper prompted an outpouring of angry online responses directed at Heath Campbell, 35, and his wife Deborah, 25...

[nathanbedford]

I think it is a very useful to distinguish between the harm caused by the repression of speech (or the compulsion of speech) when done by the government as opposed to when it is done by the individual. This is a distinction rarely acknowledged by the left because the left wants to control all individual behavior through the government and so it never will acknowledge either that the government has no business regulating speech or that such regulation when done by the government is worse than when done by a private entity.

Nathan Bedford's Maxim, all politics in America is not local but ultimately racial comes into play here. The left believes that racial discrimination is so heinous that it is not just proper but morally required to deploy government to stop individuals from discriminating. In Europe, where I live, it is advanced beyond this point and it has become the job of government to enforce civility in speech which might offend some group. A conservative naturally reacts in horror, believing that the government has far more capacity and far more leverage to do evil than an individual.

So if were talking about principle vs. practicality, I think a great problem is we have lost sight of the principal of individual sovereignty and collective tyranny.

[heartwood]

It’s not fair to the poor baker to drag her into the mess. Just because militant homosexuals want to force someone who doesn’t want to decorate THEIR cake out of business, doesn’t mean this guy harassing a baker to prove his point.

What if a baker said, I really, really don’t want to make your cake saying Congratulations Ed and Charlie, I think you’re going to hell if you don’t repent, but I’ll make it anyway because of the law. Would Ed and Charlie really want that kind of karma in their cake.

BTW, a NJ couple lost custody of their children when they tried to get a supermarket to write Happy Birthday Adolf Hitler on the cake for their five year old son, who was in fact named Adolf Hitler.

[MrB]

Everyone needs to keep it firmly in their mind.

The left is anti-CHRISTIAN, not anti-”religion”.

And the homosexual movement is simply a convenient weapon to use to criminalize Christianity.

[MrB]

No offense, but I found it amusing that you mentioned “karma” in the same context as someone expressing Christian beliefs whilst making Ed and Charlie their cake.

[Susquehanna Patriot]

We are aligned here - that a great problem is we have lost sight of the principle of individual sovereignty and collective tyranny. The danger is that collective tyranny can be imposed to a greater degree and to the extent that it can be practically and quickly implemented...from local licensing to controlling the internet.

The existence of individual freedom requires a moral people. Government enforcement of civility is an indicator of the loss of freedom - i.e a loss of morality. I am interested to learn more about the Europe situation, as it is happening in the US as well in a variety of ways - but maybe not as advanced to date as Europe.

[Olog-hai]

The left is just as much anti-Judaism as anti-Christianity.