The difference being that sexual orientation is protected by state anti-discrimination laws and hateful people are not.
Living in a free society, with the freedom to pursue happiness, means we have a right to discriminate. Most will not, but others should be free to do so.
I’ll take all this seriously when they start fining m*slims for refusing to bake cakes for gays and for refusing service to people with dogs.
Until the favoritism and a$$ kissing of m*slims stops, it’s all bull$hit.
Logic? We don’t need no stinking logic.
Bump
Cracker Barrel, on the other hand, is refusing service because of someone's beliefs. This is clearly wrong but it also demonstrates how easily confused the issue can be.
Who wants to eat at Cracker Barrel?
Jack Phillips *is* his business while Cracker Barrel is a publicly-held company. I’m sure Cracker Barrel has a policy where they have the right to refuse service to anyone whose dress or behavior is incompatible with the company’s need for cleanliness and order.
Cracker Barrel could deny Mr. Fritts the use of their property for their group events the same way Phillips could deny gays from staging a wedding in his bakery. But they can’t deny *individuals* who come solely to eat access to his restaurant if they are not trying to draw attention to themselves. Likewise, gays are welcome to buy cakes from Mr. Phillips. They just can’t force him to put objectionable messages on the cake.
Imagine NAMBLA holding a Fundraiser at Chuckie Cheese.
If the baker merely sold ingredients, to be used as the customer saw fit, then the comparison would be valid. That is not the case.
Cracker Barrel is not being forced to endorse the customer’s personal beliefs by selling; the baker is. The First Amendment Rights of the proprietor of Masterpiece Cakeshop are being violated; the Cracker Barrel proprietor’s are not.
Masterpiece Cakeshop is not an “open platform” as Twitter and Facebook are legally obliged to be (but are not punished for not being); the bakery is a “publisher” that does not want to publish certain messages. Cracker Barrel is more like a non-publishing open platform.
The legal concept of protected class should be abolished...
The problem is that when a Christian denies a special service for an express purpose of celebrating a homosexual event - even though he or she provides the same customer with the same off-the-shelf items anyone can buy - then such is charged with sexual discrimination, even though the reason for the denial is due to what the customer intends to use it for.
However, when a business denies a religious customer any service based upon something that person believes (not is actions), then the right of a businesses to choose whom it will serve may be upheld.
The latter is akin to a "no blacks served here," but the former is not, but is at least akin to patriot refusing to sell a flag to someone who has expressed his intent to dishonor/defile or burn it. Or a Uber driver refusing to drive a women to an abortion clinic after she makes it clear her intent to get an abortion. And even that of a Muslim denying a special work for the celebration of the rebirth of the modern state of Israel, although not denying any product available to all. And which, to be consistent, I think the Muslim should be able to do, if the service is a special one, and knowingly for the express purpose of something he can show his faith finds morally objectionable, and which is not for a amoral service one actually needs, like medical care.
The high court ducked providing a direct answer on whether businesses can legally opt out of providing a product/service when doing so would represent an affront to their beliefs.
Indeed, and if there was ever a case yet that would vindicate an owner denying custom service based upon the expressed intention for it, then this certainly was it.
For Masterpiece Cakeshop offered the 2 sodomites any off-the-shelf items available for sale, but refused to enter into a contract to create a special work (a wedding cake, which usually must be contracted for far in advance, and as very high cost) which was for the express purpose of celebrating a (out-of-state) "wedding" that was/is not only contrary to the law of God, but was also against the highest law of the state at that time (the CO constitution did not recognize any homosexual marriage).
SCOTUS should have not only ruled that CO the Colorado Civil Rights Commission discriminated antagonism against Phillip's Christian faith.but that regardless, Phillip's had a right to refuse to be complicit in the celebration of an event that was contrary to the law of His God, as well as his state.