FredHayek wrote: So now the baker refuses to make any wedding cakes.
One LESS bigoted baker......now OTHER bakers can reap the rewards of serving ALL patrons....
thereby INCREASING their bottomline....IT'S WIN,WIN...... :clap:
The Colorado Court of Appeals handed down their decision today against the Masterpiece baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple. Essentially, the court's decision stated that 1) the refusal to bake a wedding cake for the gay couple constituted discrimination exclusively based on sexual orientation, 2) that Colorado law precluded such businesses from discriminating solely based on sexual orientation; 3) that requiring the baker to bake the cake was not "compelled speech" or "compelled symbolic expression" since [T]he act of designing and selling a wedding cake to all customers free of discrimination does not convey a celebratory message about same-sex weddings likely to be understood by those who view it…. [T]o the extent that the public infers from a Masterpiece wedding cake a message celebrating same-sex marriage, that message is more likely to be attributed to the customer than to Masterpiece.”, 4) the bakers are not entitled to a "religious exemption" from the Colorado law since the law itself is neutral and generally applied.
The baker also argued that their refusal to sell a wedding cake to the gay couple did not constitute discrimination based on sexual orientation, since they did sell other products to gays, but was merely a protest against conduct they found offensive. The court threw that argument out as against well settled law set forth by the Supreme Court wherein when the conduct is closely related to the status of the individuals, it is treated as one and the same. For example, a tax on yarmulke is considered to be a tax on Jews, etc. Further the Supreme Court expressly ruled in Lawrence and in Oberfell that discrimination against homosexual conduct is discrimination against homosexuals.
FredHayek wrote: So now the baker refuses to make any wedding cakes.
One LESS bigoted baker......now OTHER bakers can reap the rewards of serving ALL patrons....
thereby INCREASING their bottomline....IT'S WIN,WIN...... :clap:
This isn't the civil rights fights of the 1960 where major corporations where refusing to serve African-Americans like Woolworths and Holiday Inn. This is the homosexual lobby bullying an independent, bigoted baker. Forcing one man to bake a cake against his belief. I hope you are very happy with your victory, your intolerance of his faith doesn't make America a better place. And Home Again, this decision doesn't create one less bigoted baker, he will still be bigoted but just quieter about it.
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
hillfarmer wrote: Love the irony. Homophobes calling homosexuals bigots. Wrong is wrong.
I am not a homophobe. I have supported same sex marriage for decades, long before Hillary Clinton caught a clue.
But do you have religious freedom if the government gets to choose your beliefs?
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
The government is not setting anyone's religious beliefs. It is simply uniformly applying a Colorado law that does not allow businesses serving the general public to deny services against individuals based solely on the sexual orientation of the individual. It is not requiring the business endorse the legal conduct of the individuals, only to sell the same product to those individuals that it would sell to others but for the sexual orientation of the individuals.
I do note the hypocrisy of the Masterpiece baker. He claims that selling a wedding cake to gay individuals would violate his evangelical christian beliefs, even though there is not a single teaching of Christ against gay marriage, while at the same time he does not object to selling wedding cakes to divorced individuals marrying for a second time, which Christ expressly condemns. Pretty much proves that it is just bigotry on his part.
"Remember to always be yourself. Unless you can be batman. Then always be batman." Unknown
And Home Again, this decision doesn't create one less bigoted baker, he will still be bigoted but just quieter about it.
Love the irony. Homophobes calling homosexuals bigots. Wrong is wrong.
