4 ms·

The Bible cake story is new to me, so I had to Google it. (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/27/opinion/gay-wedding-cake.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/27/o

The Bible cake story is new to me, so I had to Google it. (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/27/opinion/gay-wedding-cake.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/27/opinion/gay-wedding-cake....) Apparently there is a small but critical nuance between the stories. Per this article, in the Bible quote incident, the owner was willing to sell the cake, and do everything except putting a quote on it -- even offering the icing to write those words if they wanted. In the gay cake incident, the owner was willing to sell the couple anything else in the store -- but the cake itself was not allowed to be bought. "Protected classes" are one of the few government mandated restrictions for the freedom of businesses to refuse service (something which I have some mixed feelings on, but given some of the climate that happened without these protections, I find them completely understandable). It's possible that the judgement will end up reading very narrowly -- for instance, if you use the above reasoning, it would be legal to discriminate on the messaging but illegal to discriminate on the product. (In other words, if the baker in the homosexual couple case didn't sell a homosexual marriage themed case, but would sell a generic cake and let the homosexual couple decorate it in any way they want, that would have been legal under this particular interpretation.) This is just an example, it's not the only way a narrow reading could go down, but there are probably more solutions out there then all one way vs. another.

TangoTrotFox 8y ago
The baker has stated in front of the supreme court that he would have been more than happy to sell them an off the-shelf-cake if that was requested, as opposed to him creating a wedding cake specifically for their wedding. One of the big problems here is that the interaction went from 0 to extremely hostile instantly. The couple asked about a wedding cake. The baker stated he does not create cakes for same sex marriages, but offered to sell them anything else or create custom goodies for a shower, birthday, or any other event. This was immediately met with expletives and rude gestures, and that was the end of their person to person interaction. That was followed by the couple presumably taking to social media the shop was bombarded with hateful calls and messages including a death threat. It might be that the baker is lying, but this isn't even a he-said, she-said. There was not even the slightest effort made at compromise.
- soundwave106 8y ago
  Interesting... customer interactions aside (the difficulty of the customer is probably irrelevant to the case), it didn't come off that way from the New York Times article, but it did in the official opinion from the Colorado Court of Appeals (https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/craig-v-masterpiece-opinion https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/craig-v-masterpiece-opin...). Might not change the scope for a narrow ruling, of course, but depending on the "scope" this might affect the outcome. It's worth noting that religion per se is not a protected class in Colorado's discrimination laws. Sexual orientation is. (https://law.justia.com/codes/colorado/2016/title-24/principal-departments/article-34/part-6/section-24-34-601 https://law.justia.com/codes/colorado/2016/title-24/principa...) Even if religion was a protected class, one problem I see here is that it really isn't "Christianity" as a whole in the Bible verse case that the owner found distasteful per se. Rather, it's the opinion expressed by the Biblical verse chosen. Christianity encompasses a wide range of opinions, after all. There are some Christians who downplay the anti-homosexual verses in the Bible (or have different interpretations to them, eg, they believe there is some degree of mis-translation). If the baker had refused to make a cake with a more universal symbol representing Christianity as a generic concept (say a cross), I think there's a stronger case that this is religious discrimination. But as it is, it's a message. Compare this to if the reference was non-Biblical but similar in intent. Say, the customer wanted to write a message like "ALL FAGGOTS WILL BURN IN HELL" on the cake (weird message for a cake, but so is an anti-homosexual Bible verse IMHO :) ). The owner certainly has the right to refuse here because they find the message distasteful. Is there much of a difference? Whereas, in the other case, it involved a class of people that the owner found distasteful, yet was protected by the law above. I will say that it is indeed these sort of cases that do make "protection laws" a bit troublesome... such codes force the baker to go against his or her own personal beliefs. If it's just one cake baker losing business over a moral code like this, it's probably better to err on the side of not worrying about it. The trouble is, we're well aware of the results that happened when a minority group isn't protected, and suppression of the minority group is systematic and widespread. In other words, from my vantage point, the alternative appears to be worse.
  - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
    In the Colorado laws, "creed" refers primarily to religion and distinguishes between what you're referring to here with a religion at large, and a person's belief system under that religion, which is their creed. In either case, religion itself is also a protected class under federal law. Though this may be tangential. The main defense in this case is one of freedom of speech. If you're interested in this there an immense number of really interesting filings, particularly 'friend of the court' filings on this case. You can read them all here: http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/masterpiece-cakeshop-ltd-v-colorado-civil-rights-commn/ http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/masterpiece-cakes... They are loaded with interesting anecdotes of the implications of a ruling either way, along with precedent. For instance in one famous case an individual in New Hampshire did not want the state motto, live free or die, on their license plate which was a part of the state standardized and controlled design. The courts ruled that free speech protects the freedom to say things as much as the right to not be compelled to say things. The reason that's relevant is that no reasonable person could think that it was the individual themselves saying "live free or die" but nonetheless it was still seen as compelled speech as the individual was being forced by the state to promote a message they disagreed with. So then the natural issue there is that the cake itself is not directly stating anything, again like your rationale on the bible cake verses. But there is court precedent declaring everything from photographs to engravings to stained glass windows to... topless dancing as protected speech under the first amendment. It seems likely that wedding cakes would follow in the same vein. When people spend hundreds of dollars on these cakes, they're implicitly spending most of their money not on the cake, but on the artistic expression of its creator.

TangoTrotFox 8y ago

The baker has stated in front of the supreme court that he would have been more than happy to sell them an off the-shelf-cake if that was requested, as opposed to him creating a wedding cake specifically for their wedding. One of the big problems here is that the interaction went from 0 to extremely hostile instantly. The couple asked about a wedding cake. The baker stated he does not create cakes for same sex marriages, but offered to sell them anything else or create custom goodies for a shower, birthday, or any other event. This was immediately met with expletives and rude gestures, and that was the end of their person to person interaction. That was followed by the couple presumably taking to social media the shop was bombarded with hateful calls and messages including a death threat. It might be that the baker is lying, but this isn't even a he-said, she-said. There was not even the slightest effort made at compromise.

soundwave106 8y ago
Interesting... customer interactions aside (the difficulty of the customer is probably irrelevant to the case), it didn't come off that way from the New York Times article, but it did in the official opinion from the Colorado Court of Appeals (https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/craig-v-masterpiece-opinion https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/craig-v-masterpiece-opin...). Might not change the scope for a narrow ruling, of course, but depending on the "scope" this might affect the outcome. It's worth noting that religion per se is not a protected class in Colorado's discrimination laws. Sexual orientation is. (https://law.justia.com/codes/colorado/2016/title-24/principal-departments/article-34/part-6/section-24-34-601 https://law.justia.com/codes/colorado/2016/title-24/principa...) Even if religion was a protected class, one problem I see here is that it really isn't "Christianity" as a whole in the Bible verse case that the owner found distasteful per se. Rather, it's the opinion expressed by the Biblical verse chosen. Christianity encompasses a wide range of opinions, after all. There are some Christians who downplay the anti-homosexual verses in the Bible (or have different interpretations to them, eg, they believe there is some degree of mis-translation). If the baker had refused to make a cake with a more universal symbol representing Christianity as a generic concept (say a cross), I think there's a stronger case that this is religious discrimination. But as it is, it's a message. Compare this to if the reference was non-Biblical but similar in intent. Say, the customer wanted to write a message like "ALL FAGGOTS WILL BURN IN HELL" on the cake (weird message for a cake, but so is an anti-homosexual Bible verse IMHO :) ). The owner certainly has the right to refuse here because they find the message distasteful. Is there much of a difference? Whereas, in the other case, it involved a class of people that the owner found distasteful, yet was protected by the law above. I will say that it is indeed these sort of cases that do make "protection laws" a bit troublesome... such codes force the baker to go against his or her own personal beliefs. If it's just one cake baker losing business over a moral code like this, it's probably better to err on the side of not worrying about it. The trouble is, we're well aware of the results that happened when a minority group isn't protected, and suppression of the minority group is systematic and widespread. In other words, from my vantage point, the alternative appears to be worse.
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  In the Colorado laws, "creed" refers primarily to religion and distinguishes between what you're referring to here with a religion at large, and a person's belief system under that religion, which is their creed. In either case, religion itself is also a protected class under federal law. Though this may be tangential. The main defense in this case is one of freedom of speech. If you're interested in this there an immense number of really interesting filings, particularly 'friend of the court' filings on this case. You can read them all here: http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/masterpiece-cakeshop-ltd-v-colorado-civil-rights-commn/ http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/masterpiece-cakes... They are loaded with interesting anecdotes of the implications of a ruling either way, along with precedent. For instance in one famous case an individual in New Hampshire did not want the state motto, live free or die, on their license plate which was a part of the state standardized and controlled design. The courts ruled that free speech protects the freedom to say things as much as the right to not be compelled to say things. The reason that's relevant is that no reasonable person could think that it was the individual themselves saying "live free or die" but nonetheless it was still seen as compelled speech as the individual was being forced by the state to promote a message they disagreed with. So then the natural issue there is that the cake itself is not directly stating anything, again like your rationale on the bible cake verses. But there is court precedent declaring everything from photographs to engravings to stained glass windows to... topless dancing as protected speech under the first amendment. It seems likely that wedding cakes would follow in the same vein. When people spend hundreds of dollars on these cakes, they're implicitly spending most of their money not on the cake, but on the artistic expression of its creator.