Not if you sell alcohol, tobacco, pharmaceuticals, guns, pornography, fertilizer, insecticides, explosives, fireworks, run an amusement park ...
Posted on 01/20/2014 10:45:45 PM PST by yoe
Officials in Oregon have ruled that Sweet Cakes by Melissa, a bakery that made national news after refusing to make a cake for a gay wedding last year, violated a lesbian couple’s civil rights.
Owners Aaron and Melissa Klein, Christians who oppose same-sex unions, reacted to the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries’ ruling in an interview with KATU-TV, telling the outlet that they stand by their convictions.
“We still stand by what we believe from the beginning,” ( said Aaron Klein). “I’m not sure what future holds, but as far as where we’re at right now … it’s almost as if the state is hostile toward Christian businesses.”
(Excerpt) Read more at theblaze.com ...
Not if you sell alcohol, tobacco, pharmaceuticals, guns, pornography, fertilizer, insecticides, explosives, fireworks, run an amusement park ...
We agree completely. In the last two years that I was willing to work (political polling) for liberals, I charged them more than triple what I charged decent people. Rather oddly, they actually paid because they liked the quality of my work. Since then, I stopped working for them completely, and then retired. I set my own rates, and I decide whether I have time for a new commission and from whom.
With a custom baker (or wedding photographer), the situation is exactly the same. In the terrible political climate of today, a decent person has two choices. One can lie (there is no moral issue with lying to those who are evil), or one can stand on principle and accept the extremely unpleasant consequences while working to restore freedom. I have no objection to accepting a perverted commission with the intent of cancelling at the last minute due to a personal conflict, health, unforeseen circumstances, or some other excuse, to avoid these lawsuits. I also have no problem with accepting the fines after a long and painful fight in court, so long as the money extorted in illegitimate fines does not go to the perverted bullies.
Your post is just as confusing here on FR as it was in the comments section of the original article. I assume you mean that a birthday cake is just a cake, the sexual choice of the customer not withstanding, but a cake to celebrate a homosexual “wedding” is a travesty, the baking and sale of which would violate the Kleins’ religious beliefs.
The state has violated the Kleins’ 1st Amendment protections by “prohibiting the free exercise thereof” of their chosen faith. As far as the rights of lovely couple are concerned, being queer is not a religion needing protection.
As General Anthony C. McAuliffe once said, “NUTS!”
Was it life?
liberty?
or the pursuit of happiness ?
Actually, it's pretty different. This whole public accommodation thing got launched because of a private business refusing to serve black customers. I'm not arguing that the public accommodation premise is correct. I do think there's quite a difference between accommodating people with a certain skin color not of their own choosing versus freely chosen political or religious beliefs, particularly where the accommodation requires a business owner to effectively surrender their belief in deference to the contrary view of their customer.
Here a thought experiment to demonstrate the difference. If it was a black couple that ran the Heart of Atlanta motel, and the Klan wanted to rent some rooms and hold a conference there on the inferiority of non-white races, do you think the black couple might have a right to refuse them a venue for expressing that political view, as a private business? If not, wouldn't that mean that the federal government was using the commerce clause to suppress the more basic freedoms such as the freedom of association and freedom of speech of the black couple? If such a case actually made it to SCOTUS, how do you think the current Court would decide?
So in the cake case, while the lower courts will be predisposed (for a variety of adverse reasons) to agree with your overly expansive application of public accommodation, the fact is this situation with gay marriage puts a uniquely difficult burden on religious free exercise. The Smith precedent would no doubt be invoked to claim the commerce clause requirements are just a general law neutral to religion and therefore can coerce the baker to either create speech that violates his faith, or be forced out of commerce altogether.
But such a result would be absurd, as there is also case law to the effect that one cannot be compelled to speech that is contrary to one's beliefs. That is as much a violation of the first amendment as being coerced into silence. In fact, it is a variant form of being forced into silence.
So what we really have here is a point of winner-takes-all conflict between public accommodation and religious accommodation, which is also well established in black letter law. The tiny acorn that is Wickard v Filburn made this day of conflict inevitable. The commerce clause is overextended and is being used to swallow up our most cherished freedoms. Time to roll it back.
Two possible options:
1. Stop making wedding cakes altogether, if they can afford to do so.
2. Make the lesbians a chocolate sh!t cake, like the woman baker in New Zealand.
People have the right to discriminate based on most things of their whim but not on certain specific things.
The context is in 'wedding' cakes, not cakes of other origin. Wedding cakes are adorned with expressions, symbols and sacraments of matrimony. Such cakes are art forms or expressions of spiritual values. Hence, they are specialized to the occasion and are not subject to coercion, legal or otherwise.
A customer of a cake maker cannot specify to the cake maker what is to be made. That is up to the designer, producer and creator of the cake. A customer can only choose what is offered. For example, a customer cannot demand that a cake be Kosher if it is not offered. A customer cannot demand a musical group play satanic music that hails Satan and condones murder.
And what constitutes an 'offer' in business is subject to the wide interpretation of the producer who may restrict any offering based on religious tradition or artistic inspiration.
Of course there must associate a reasonable basis for restricted offers. For example, refusing to serve a regular meal to a family of African ethnicity, a 'black family' based on the reason they are black is not reasonable in the eyes of any court of law. Refusing to serve a black family or any family or any person a pork sandwich inside a kosher restaurant is reasonable. Even if the kosher restaurant has a separate kitchen for preparation of non-kosher products, it would be unreasonable for any customer to demand that the non-kosher product be prepared in the kosher kitchen.
A Wedding is a religious rite and is therefore protected under the First Amendment and this includes participating producers to the performance and enactment of weddings.
A homosexual group cannot demand and threaten a religious producer to perform that which goes against the tenets of their faith. Laws of civil rights are based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, where:
Terms “because of sex” or “on the basis of sex” include, but are not limited to, because of or on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions; and women affected by pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, ...
http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/titlevii.cfm
Civil rights laws do not include sexual orientation as a type of discrimination that is prohibited by law:
http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/index.cfm
Proposed amendments to civil rights laws to include 'sexual orientation' as a prohibited type of discrimination fail legal tests under first amendment protections.
Well said. Of course an argument for trial.
“...as there is also case law to the effect that one cannot be compelled to speech that is contrary to one’s beliefs...”
-
What do you refer to?
Give my old thick head a clue.
We are governed by consent.
We chose....
it’s almost as if the state is hostile toward Christian businesses.”
Yes.
A fish rots from the head - in this case, the doofus in the White house and his moronic immediate predecessors.
The governor is currently drafting an announcement stating, "Anti-homosexual wedding cake bakers are not welcome in Oregon."
Why arent' these people patronizing their supporters? Aren't there any homo-bakers?
The Gaystapo will ruthless purge any dissent to the approved ideology.
The Laws are that Government may not prohibit the free expression of religion nor enslave you for another. It has been held many times you do not give up your constitutional protected rights to start a business.
A huge problem with your argument is this situation does not involve fungible goods but personal labor and services.
Your position may be better if this were the only wedding cake outlet available to the gay pair. But it’s not. They can get their cake at any of a zillion other places.
That’s the relief.
EXACTLY what I was thinking - thanks for putting it into words! How would that be argued?
So what you suggest is find a Muslim bakery and ask for cake made with bacon fat frosting? If they wouldn’t make it then sue. Makes sense to me.
Imagine losing your business over this insanity. Mean liberals suck.
And that was a mistake. A well-intentioned mistake, but a mistake nonetheless.
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