Christian Baker Refuses to Back Down After Gov’t Punishes Him for Refusing to Make Gay Wedding Cake

Faithwire ^ | 04/24/2017 | Billy Hallowell

[ForYourChildren]

Amid the religious liberty cases increasingly heading to the courts, there’s one prominent legal battle that could potentially have some sweeping ramifications: Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission.

It’s a case that surrounds baker Jack Phillips and his Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colorado. Phillips, much like Oregon bakers Aaron and Melissa Klein and numerous other wedding venders across the U.S., has found himself in the crosshairs of the government as well as LGBTQ activists after declining in 2012 to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.

The baker is waiting for the Supreme Court to decide whether to weigh in on his case, as he’s been locked in a tough legal battle with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission for the past five years. The agency ruled that his cake refusal was in violation of anti-discrimination laws and punished him accordingly.

{..snip..}

[Celtic Conservative]

Perhaps he should’ve just baked the cake and put “Congratulation Faggots” on the top.

CC

[exnavy]

When i was growing up it was common to see signs in some small business claiming the right to refuse to serve some customers at the business discretion.

[dp0622]

How is refusing to make a dress for Mrs. Trump different?

Has this comparison been made on TV yet?

[BestPresidentEver]

There’s a video of someone going to muslim bakeries in Dearborn, MI asking to make a cake for a gay wedding. The reactions were predictable, including the media not caring.

[Kalamata]

If a gov’t can force a private citizen who owns his private business to produce a custom product, and force him to sell it to another private citizen, is he a free citizen or subject of his gov’t master?

I think we’ve known the answer to that for a long time now.

[Slyfox]

He could have baked the cake and the gays could have had someone else decorate it.

With all the gay wedding planners, surely they should know of some gay cake decorator. Why don't they get gay people or those who sympathize with those people to do the job instead of dragging straight bakers thru the mud and into court?

The bottom line is that gays want to push for a law that discriminates against the people they want to target.

[ForYourChildren]

How about a government that can force a private citizen to purchase a product just because they are alive?

All private citizens must purchase a product as designed by the government, penalty for non-compliance is ultimately the threat of jail.

[Kalamata]

Yep. The free republic has been gone for some time. No illusions now.

[Kalamata]

That is disgusting, noob. You shouldn’t post that kind of stuff on Free Republic.

[Telepathic Intruder]

Isn’t forcing someone to provide a service slavery? And wasn’t that abolished by the 13th amendment?

[Ciaphas Cain]

“We all have a right to our personal beliefs, but we do not have a right to impose those beliefs on others and harm them,” Mar said in a statement issued last year.

What. The. HELL?!?

So a Christian baker has the right to his beliefs but not to "impose" them on others when in fact he never sought anyone to impose his beliefs upon in the first place. And he's the one who got fined.

But the gay couple has personal beliefs too. However they CAN impose their beliefs on others and compel them via force of law to act against their own beliefs and convictions. And the ACLU insists that the gay men are "the violated party" in the matter.

Incidentally, here is a photo of Ria Tabacco Mar and her "wife":

[laplata]

That’s crude and rude. I hope you don’t have daughters or elderly ladies following your posts here.

[Retain Mike]

Every year now I send the following letter to papers and commentators.

The 2015 gay marriage ruling means equal legal protection excludes tens of millions of Jewish, Christian and Muslim believers who consider classical scholarship finds homosexual relationships separate people from God. The Bible continually speaks of the character, identity, and purpose of God; identifying Him as masculine and humans as feminine in relation to Him. After creating all things, He created the covenant of heterosexual marriage to example the unconditional love relationship He desires with humanity. Without disturbing the spiritual quality of marriage, equal protection could have been maintained by civil contract with the elegant, endless expressions legislators enjoy.

The First Amendment says and used to mean, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press….”

We are familiar with the term “speech or expression’, which seems an innocuous expansion of the above amendment. However, “expression” enables a nearly unbounded multi-billion-dollar pornography industry.

Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion stated, “The First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to advocate and teach the principles that are so fulfilling and central to their lives and faith”. Such language severely restricts religious freedom by excluding “free exercise thereof”.

The country has so departed from first principles that a woman can express herself in the adult film industry, but cannot operate a bakery and exercise her religious convictions by refusing to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple.

The Formal End to Judeo-Christian America
http://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2015/06/30/the-formal-end-to-judeochristian-america-n2018986/page/full

Wayne Cordeiro
https://www.facebook.com/pastorwaynecordeiro/posts/10153325310351210

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES GAY MARRIAGE
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf

[Yaelle]

How is refusing to make a dress for Mrs. Trump different?

Has this comparison been made on TV yet?

---

Excellent point.

In today’s USA, there are populations who MUST be worshipped and others who MUST be trashed. That is not tolerance. It’s exactly the same as the world the liberals still see everywhere, the world where innocent blacks and gays are treated poorly because of who they are. Only now it is exactly in reverse.

[jonrick46]

This is the same as someone going to a photographer and asking him to shoot a porno scene. The photographer can refuse based upon religious grounds. However, the same indecency of the homo lifestyle has been made equivalent to a racial identity because of a fraudulent argument. Because of that, the photographer has to film a homo wedding.

[vigilence]

It will be interesting to see if the plainly written right to practice your religion gets shunted aside by a “right” carved out by LGBTQ lawyers again.

[SaraJohnson]

I don’t see why the Christian bakers don’t just make them horrid cakes that reflect the moral quality of the occasion. So you have to give them their money back when they are unhappy with the cake and that it will end the transaction.

This will help gay celebrators carefully choose their cake providers. A baker with a cross and traditional cakes on display in the store might not be the best baker for queer weddings and other queer occasions.

It’s so easy to make a planning date mistake.
It will be a crap shoot.

[ConservaTeen]

I’m glad he’s fighting...yes!