This is the best take Iāve seen in this thread so far. Itās an issue of compelled speech, not of this or that demographic or ideology of the client or service. Iām not trying to dog whistle here, I hate that any business would exercise this in a hateful way, but another example of the reverse would be compelling a black-owned bakery to write an awful racist message on a cake. Obviously no person should be compelled to say what they donāt believe, regardless of the level of asshattery they dabble in.
Is it ok to refuse service to a mixed race couple getting married?
Is it ok to refuse service to a couple, both of whom are black who are getting married?
I think these examples are much closer to the analogies people are coming up with in this thread. Or do you think being gay is an ideology? Is being gay a religion? Is being gay like being a racist?
Or is being gay something that a person is born as? If so isnāt this a lot like being refused service because of race?
The question THIS LAW interacts with is the CONTENT of the message. If youāre providing tables for a wedding this law wouldnāt protect you. If you were asked to write something specific for the wedding and the content of the request is antithetical to your beliefs, this law would protect you, if you could show that. Not a lawyer, but thatās how I read it.
Now. Is it ārightā to do so? I would say in absolutely no universe. Itās morally wrong, it undermines our liberal society, and I have no tolerance for it. My point is that this particular law isnāt about whether someone is a Christian, their race, or sexuality. This decision wouldnāt protect me from writing some basic software for a nazi (others might) but it DOES protect me from building a website supporting them, or writing prose related to nazism, or anything else which would be CLEARLY against what I believe. Please DONāT read that Iām saying that being a nazi is the same as being homosexual, it isnāt, Iām not, fuck nazis.
To get back to your question: as I read this decision, a cake maker could potentially be compelled to make a cake for an interracial couple, but they might not be compelled to make a cake with something like āinterracial is the only way to goā
This all sounds like the staff using religion as an excuse to discriminate against gay people. Doesnāt seem all that Christian to me, and in fact it seems like theyāre taking Our Lordās Name in vain by using it to justify their hateful actions.
But maybe they donāt follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and donāt follow the Commandments. Even if thatās the case, the business is responsible for ensuring that customers arenāt discriminated against by staff. If the business owners arenāt up to meeting that standard, then they shouldnāt be trying to run a business.
Youāre right, and it doesnāt to me either, and I feel that itās wrong, and I wouldnāt go and get a cake made with someone I know does this. I also think that you and I would agree on more than not. Iāll also add that I donāt have a dog in the religion debate here. But I still feel very strongly that in a free society it is their right not not be compelled to write something which directly contradicts their belief. Iāll need to think about this more in general, I might end up changing my mind on it, but at least for right now the right to not have to say something you donāt believe feels important to me. Let me ask you this, if an atheist baker were asked to write āJesus is Lordā on a cake and said no, would you take issue with that? I wouldnāt; Iād argue that is a very clean first amendment right, and an important part of living in a liberal society. I also would go as far as to say that isnāt even intolerance from the atheist, itās simply them believing something.
To your second point, while I agree that a business owner should not discriminate against a particular demographic, Iām not sure Iād go all out on any time someone says this theyāre discriminating. Every religion and value system has prohibitions, and few of them are aligned. Itās possible to respectfully decline to do something as it directly contradicts your beliefs. Now if your beliefs are discriminatory, thatās a different and more complex question entirely. Iām not sure what to think about that case.
To me there needs to be a distinction between a business and a person. Sure maybe a person canāt be compelled to do something against their beliefs, but a business canāt claim to have beliefs and therefore can be compelled to do whatever the law requires.
And claiming religious beliefs isnāt a card you can lay down anytime you want to get out of your responsibilities. I mean if I claim that paying taxes is against my religious beliefs do you think the government shouldnāt be able to compel me to pay taxes simply because itās against my religious beliefs?
Thereās always an element of common sense judgement needed in the law which is why the people that do that are called Judges. So if in our best judgement these people simply donāt like gay people and in our judgement theyāre just using religion as a way to trick people into thinking theyāre motives are based in religion and not based off on their prejudice, then what is the decision? To go along with their trickery thatās using religion as an excuse? Or just tell them their arguments about religion is bullshitt and they have to get over their dislike of gay people and follow the law?
The problem here is members of Supreme court are willing to abdicate their responsibility to use judgement and go along with the obvious trickery because they share the bakerās dislike for gay people.
I think that I agree with you in general on your first point. A business isnāt a person, it doesnāt have a religion, it canāt have an opinion on people. But weāre talking about a small business. If someone is running a web design company, they donāt have a huge staff, theyāre just one person, so their individual convictions are at play, donāt you think?
The example you give in your second point isnāt quite congruent with this case, taxes are not speech. Weāre talking about speech. Now I have a personal conviction that the USA shouldnāt be spending nearly so much on the military, but unfortunately for me, my taxes, and many people around the world, I donāt have a say in the matter. If someone said something like āI donāt want to pay this tax because itās being spent on something antithetical to my religious beliefā even there, itās not speech.
Alright Iām sorry, I donāt either. Which is actually why I pointed out specifically that I hate that anyone would use this in a hateful way. Iām surprised you think that I do think that itās the same. Is there something in my comment which indicates that I believe that?
You reached for a completely non sequitur analogy.
compelling a black-owned bakery to write an awful racist message on a cake
Itās not at all like that. If youāre in the business of making cakes, and if you make cakes that have peopleās names on them for their weddings, and then you refuse a cake that looks like all the other cakes to a couple because you donāt approve of which two consenting adults want their names on the goddamn cake because you just think exactly only one peen should be named in their relationship, that is just bigoted bullshit, and yes, this free country should stamp that shit out and not apologize for it, and we should all burn sparklers and celebrate that this free country offers us all the same freedom to buy a cake from the already-putting-peoples-names-on-wedding-cakes baker. There is no analog there for hateful messages on cakes whatsoever.
Edit: And if I missed your point entirely, I apologize. Iām not trying to be combative with anyone, but I am trying to stop what seems like people rationalizing this situation as having anything to do with free speech. I emphatically believe that it is a shitty excuse to apologize for a clearly biased agenda from the people who wormed their way into the US Supreme Court.
Yeah sorry, a couple of people sound like they think I meant that, I must not have articulated myself well.
If this decision protects that cake maker from doing so, then I would worry about it. Imagining EVERY cake were the same, obviously that would be wrong. Iām just trying to say that it seems like the law has more to do with the content of the message. If a couple wanted a cake saying āonly gay sexā or something similarly funny, or a straight couple wanted a cake saying āall gays are badā, I would feel that while we donāt need to be tolerant of the former business person, or the latter client, neither business person should be compelled to write the message on the cake. In the former case, they should be compelled to make a blank or similar cake with no message, simply not compelled to write the message.
Again, Iām not a legal expert so if Iām misreading the decision, thatās a different story.
This is the best take Iāve seen in this thread so far. Itās an issue of compelled speech, not of this or that demographic or ideology of the client or service. Iām not trying to dog whistle here, I hate that any business would exercise this in a hateful way, but another example of the reverse would be compelling a black-owned bakery to write an awful racist message on a cake. Obviously no person should be compelled to say what they donāt believe, regardless of the level of asshattery they dabble in.
A lot of shitty analogies abound.
How about these ones:
Is it ok to refuse service to a mixed race couple getting married?
Is it ok to refuse service to a couple, both of whom are black who are getting married?
I think these examples are much closer to the analogies people are coming up with in this thread. Or do you think being gay is an ideology? Is being gay a religion? Is being gay like being a racist?
Or is being gay something that a person is born as? If so isnāt this a lot like being refused service because of race?
The question THIS LAW interacts with is the CONTENT of the message. If youāre providing tables for a wedding this law wouldnāt protect you. If you were asked to write something specific for the wedding and the content of the request is antithetical to your beliefs, this law would protect you, if you could show that. Not a lawyer, but thatās how I read it.
Now. Is it ārightā to do so? I would say in absolutely no universe. Itās morally wrong, it undermines our liberal society, and I have no tolerance for it. My point is that this particular law isnāt about whether someone is a Christian, their race, or sexuality. This decision wouldnāt protect me from writing some basic software for a nazi (others might) but it DOES protect me from building a website supporting them, or writing prose related to nazism, or anything else which would be CLEARLY against what I believe. Please DONāT read that Iām saying that being a nazi is the same as being homosexual, it isnāt, Iām not, fuck nazis.
To get back to your question: as I read this decision, a cake maker could potentially be compelled to make a cake for an interracial couple, but they might not be compelled to make a cake with something like āinterracial is the only way to goā
This all sounds like the staff using religion as an excuse to discriminate against gay people. Doesnāt seem all that Christian to me, and in fact it seems like theyāre taking Our Lordās Name in vain by using it to justify their hateful actions.
But maybe they donāt follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and donāt follow the Commandments. Even if thatās the case, the business is responsible for ensuring that customers arenāt discriminated against by staff. If the business owners arenāt up to meeting that standard, then they shouldnāt be trying to run a business.
Youāre right, and it doesnāt to me either, and I feel that itās wrong, and I wouldnāt go and get a cake made with someone I know does this. I also think that you and I would agree on more than not. Iāll also add that I donāt have a dog in the religion debate here. But I still feel very strongly that in a free society it is their right not not be compelled to write something which directly contradicts their belief. Iāll need to think about this more in general, I might end up changing my mind on it, but at least for right now the right to not have to say something you donāt believe feels important to me. Let me ask you this, if an atheist baker were asked to write āJesus is Lordā on a cake and said no, would you take issue with that? I wouldnāt; Iād argue that is a very clean first amendment right, and an important part of living in a liberal society. I also would go as far as to say that isnāt even intolerance from the atheist, itās simply them believing something.
To your second point, while I agree that a business owner should not discriminate against a particular demographic, Iām not sure Iād go all out on any time someone says this theyāre discriminating. Every religion and value system has prohibitions, and few of them are aligned. Itās possible to respectfully decline to do something as it directly contradicts your beliefs. Now if your beliefs are discriminatory, thatās a different and more complex question entirely. Iām not sure what to think about that case.
To me there needs to be a distinction between a business and a person. Sure maybe a person canāt be compelled to do something against their beliefs, but a business canāt claim to have beliefs and therefore can be compelled to do whatever the law requires.
And claiming religious beliefs isnāt a card you can lay down anytime you want to get out of your responsibilities. I mean if I claim that paying taxes is against my religious beliefs do you think the government shouldnāt be able to compel me to pay taxes simply because itās against my religious beliefs?
Thereās always an element of common sense judgement needed in the law which is why the people that do that are called Judges. So if in our best judgement these people simply donāt like gay people and in our judgement theyāre just using religion as a way to trick people into thinking theyāre motives are based in religion and not based off on their prejudice, then what is the decision? To go along with their trickery thatās using religion as an excuse? Or just tell them their arguments about religion is bullshitt and they have to get over their dislike of gay people and follow the law?
The problem here is members of Supreme court are willing to abdicate their responsibility to use judgement and go along with the obvious trickery because they share the bakerās dislike for gay people.
I think that I agree with you in general on your first point. A business isnāt a person, it doesnāt have a religion, it canāt have an opinion on people. But weāre talking about a small business. If someone is running a web design company, they donāt have a huge staff, theyāre just one person, so their individual convictions are at play, donāt you think?
The example you give in your second point isnāt quite congruent with this case, taxes are not speech. Weāre talking about speech. Now I have a personal conviction that the USA shouldnāt be spending nearly so much on the military, but unfortunately for me, my taxes, and many people around the world, I donāt have a say in the matter. If someone said something like āI donāt want to pay this tax because itās being spent on something antithetical to my religious beliefā even there, itās not speech.
I donāt think it makes sense to compare being gay to being racist.
Alright Iām sorry, I donāt either. Which is actually why I pointed out specifically that I hate that anyone would use this in a hateful way. Iām surprised you think that I do think that itās the same. Is there something in my comment which indicates that I believe that?
You reached for a completely non sequitur analogy.
Itās not at all like that. If youāre in the business of making cakes, and if you make cakes that have peopleās names on them for their weddings, and then you refuse a cake that looks like all the other cakes to a couple because you donāt approve of which two consenting adults want their names on the goddamn cake because you just think exactly only one peen should be named in their relationship, that is just bigoted bullshit, and yes, this free country should stamp that shit out and not apologize for it, and we should all burn sparklers and celebrate that this free country offers us all the same freedom to buy a cake from the already-putting-peoples-names-on-wedding-cakes baker. There is no analog there for hateful messages on cakes whatsoever.
Edit: And if I missed your point entirely, I apologize. Iām not trying to be combative with anyone, but I am trying to stop what seems like people rationalizing this situation as having anything to do with free speech. I emphatically believe that it is a shitty excuse to apologize for a clearly biased agenda from the people who wormed their way into the US Supreme Court.
Yeah sorry, a couple of people sound like they think I meant that, I must not have articulated myself well.
If this decision protects that cake maker from doing so, then I would worry about it. Imagining EVERY cake were the same, obviously that would be wrong. Iām just trying to say that it seems like the law has more to do with the content of the message. If a couple wanted a cake saying āonly gay sexā or something similarly funny, or a straight couple wanted a cake saying āall gays are badā, I would feel that while we donāt need to be tolerant of the former business person, or the latter client, neither business person should be compelled to write the message on the cake. In the former case, they should be compelled to make a blank or similar cake with no message, simply not compelled to write the message.
Again, Iām not a legal expert so if Iām misreading the decision, thatās a different story.