Posted on 12/05/2017 7:13:17 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Well stated.
I never followed this closely......but just realized the baker didn’t refuse to make them a cake because they were gay.....he just refused to make them a rainbow (gay) cake. Changes the whole story. I would think the response would be the same if it was a Nazi cake or a Klan cake or any other “theme” the baker might object to. Stunning the SC has to decide this.......
I think a ruling for the baker will still have the same effect of knocking down anti-discrimination laws. How do you enforce them once the Supreme Court has said you can't?
Will was actually pretty good when conservatism held sway and politicians didn’t become afraid of the label. But he turned out to be a fair weather columnist.
His reasoning in the 2000 election “recount” fiasco were gold and a keeper. So were his commentaries on abortion.
George Will is usually wrong.
No, he's a nutcake. (keeping up with the food metaphor...)
Good point. But it will be more likely that the Court just might "split the baby" in the spirit of concession (as is the modern practice) and actually give the Gaystapo an unexpected victory by making them a protected group by judicial fiat, while allowing the baker to withhold services. So, the GLBTXYZ group gets special federal status, to be used for future attacks against unwilling conservatives, while a very narrow "exemption" (how I HATE that concept) allows bakers to refuse the order, perhaps being required to publish his beliefs beforehand, like the Jews were required to display Stars of David in their shop windows.
After his support of gay marriage, he’s a cupcake.
You win!
Interesting about Will’s private life. I always wondered why he stopped writing about his son - the one with Down Syndrome. Now I know!
I could see a baker choosing to specialize in exclusively creating cakes celebrating homosexual unions and issues. Would there be any clamor or outrage if that baker subsequently refused to expand his specialty to include cakes intended to celebrate actual marriage?
No, of course not - no one is going after muslims who refuse to bake those cakes. Most “straights” would be too intelligent to use them anyway. Who knows what they’d put in the cake.
Things like sexual orientation, gender identity, even religion to some extent, aren't obvious in routine transactions, and we can't become a society where everyone is required to wear their color-coded star in public so that the "authorities" can sort out the winners from the losers.
-PJ
Cake is food. Icing is food. But design and the skill to decorate a cake beautifully = artistic expression. If not true then bake a cake and sell them the unassembled cake and icing and anyone can put it together since it is just food. A painting is just paint and paper then? George, ever hear of gestalt? The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
They were meant to protect specific classes regardless. An unforeseen consequence of those laws is what happens when protecting one classes rights violate another classes rights. Which one wins? Does opening a business and catering to the public mean that you voluntarily forego your own protections? If the answer to that is no then anti-discrimination laws are unconstitutional.
Sounds like we’re going to have to get some people to run around San Francisco asking businesses to bake Confederate flag and swastika cakes.
Its not the states place to conscript anyone. I’d argue that it shouldn’t be able to even do that for military service. We are either a free nation or not. It doesn’t mean we are free to do whatever we want or demand whatever we want from others compelling them against their will. Consent is the founding principle of this nation. Its better to tolerate bigotry than to institute slavery in the name of combating it and by tolerating I don’t mean passively accepting. There will always be the freedom to protest perceived bigotry.
What the George Will’s of the world want to do is allow the federal government to use the heavy hand of the state to FORCE acceptance of homosexuality and the promotion of it. MSNBC can refuse to run pro life commercials but a cake baker can’t refuse to make cakes with a pro ssm message. It is exactly the same thing and no matter how much I think MSNBC not allowing paid ads for Pro Life messages they don’t like is awful I fully support their right to be awful.
The LGBT movement has been one of the most anti liberty big state movements in history. They are not demanding liberty from the state but liberty to control others through edicts that force adoration of them and their depravity. Religious liberty and further more freedom of conscience are the keystones to stopping dead this movement. One more Conservative Supreme Court Justice and Religious liberty will be unassailable and this depraved group can be shoved firmly back into their gutter where they belong.
We take our $'s elsewhere.
You posted: I also think it is incumbent upon the shopper to shop where they are welcome.
Thanks for that information on Will. Context is everything.
I used to read Will regularly years ago but I cannot recall when the last time I read one of his essays.
Now I put him in the General Petraeus category.
A lot would depend on the number of options the prospective customer has. The gay couple had many cake makers to choose from, yet deliberately chose a Christian bakery for the express purpose of forcing them to create a message.
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