greg775 Posted June 6, 2018 Share Posted June 6, 2018 13 minutes ago, StrangeSox said: In Colorado, it is illegal to discriminate based on someone's sexuality. You may as well be asking "couldn't that black couple just have gone to a different bakery?" as far as public accommodations civil rights law goes. Per the court, the commission was wrong for mocking the baker's beliefs and that's why the court ruled the way it did. The Court made no ruling on the underlying issue. I thought they would sell the cake, they just wouldn't write the words of congratulations on the cake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
southsider2k5 Posted June 6, 2018 Author Share Posted June 6, 2018 Just now, greg775 said: Thanks for hating on me and being so unwelcoming. Doesn't feel great does it. But hey, that is exactly what you are telling people to do. If they don't like it, go somewhere else. I am just leading by your example. Thanks greg! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greg775 Posted June 6, 2018 Share Posted June 6, 2018 14 minutes ago, StrangeSox said: In Colorado, it is illegal to discriminate based on someone's sexuality. You may as well be asking "couldn't that black couple just have gone to a different bakery?" as far as public accommodations civil rights law goes. Per the court, the commission was wrong for mocking the baker's beliefs and that's why the court ruled the way it did. The Court made no ruling on the underlying issue. I know if my bakery made it clear they didn't want my business I'd say frick you and go to another bakery. There are a lot of bakeries. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greg775 Posted June 6, 2018 Share Posted June 6, 2018 Just now, southsider2k5 said: Doesn't feel great does it. But hey, that is exactly what you are telling people to do. If they don't like it, go somewhere else. I am just leading by your example. Thanks greg! I personally would bake a cake for anybody (I might not do it for a hardened criminal), but I'm thinking if the baker's religion said it was a no no, the couple probably should go somewhere else and not even give that particular baker their money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenksismyhero Posted June 6, 2018 Share Posted June 6, 2018 11 minutes ago, StrangeSox said: In Colorado, it is illegal to discriminate based on someone's sexuality. You may as well be asking "couldn't that black couple just have gone to a different bakery?" as far as public accommodations civil rights law goes. Per the court, the commission was wrong for mocking the baker's beliefs and that's why the court ruled the way it did. The Court made no ruling on the underlying issue. I think it's going to depend on the set of facts in the next case. This guy said he didn't want to bake a cake for the purpose of a wedding, but it was undisputed that he offered to provide them his goods and services for anything else. Not sure how you can read that as discrimination against gay people in violation of the Constitution. At best it's a discrimination against an occasion/event. I think the Court would probably agree with that if this issue ever came up again given the pretty lengthy discussion about freedom of religious speech in the opinion. Also, I listened to an NPR interview with the couple and it kind of annoys me that they readily admit they had no expectation (and probably intention) of actually getting a cake from this guy for their wedding. It was all set up. I'm sure there are other people out there facing actual discrimination whose cases are not being heard because these guys wanted to prove a point and took a space on the court's docket. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
southsider2k5 Posted June 6, 2018 Author Share Posted June 6, 2018 Just now, greg775 said: I personally would bake a cake for anybody (I might not do it for a hardened criminal), but I'm thinking if the baker's religion said it was a no no, the couple probably should go somewhere else and not even give that particular baker their money. My personal beliefs tell me people who endorse discrimination are a no no, so I want you to go somewhere else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrangeSox Posted June 6, 2018 Share Posted June 6, 2018 I thought they would sell the cake, they just wouldn't write the words of congratulations on the cake. It's still discriminatory. They refused to write the words "congratulations," a service they've offered numerous times before and since to hetero couples, simply due to sexual orientation. According to Colorado state law, that isn't legal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greg775 Posted June 6, 2018 Share Posted June 6, 2018 1 minute ago, Jenksismyhero said: Also, I listened to an NPR interview with the couple and it kind of annoys me that they readily admit they had no expectation (and probably intention) of actually getting a cake from this guy for their wedding. It was all set up. That kind of sucks. Hope they are independently wealthy, cause I expect they spent a lot of money on lawyers, unless the lawyers did it for free cause of all the publicity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenksismyhero Posted June 6, 2018 Share Posted June 6, 2018 Just now, greg775 said: That kind of sucks. Hope they are independently wealthy, cause I expect they spent a lot of money on lawyers, unless the lawyers did it for free cause of all the publicity. The ACLU represented them. They paid nothing. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greg775 Posted June 6, 2018 Share Posted June 6, 2018 2 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said: My personal beliefs tell me people who endorse discrimination are a no no, so I want you to go somewhere else. I mainly was trying to make the point in my initial post that you don't want people baking you cakes and cooking you up a steak and potatoes if you offend them. They can do all sorts of nasty things to your food. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
southsider2k5 Posted June 6, 2018 Author Share Posted June 6, 2018 1 minute ago, greg775 said: I mainly was trying to make the point in my initial post that you don't want people baking you cakes and cooking you up a steak and potatoes if you offend them. They can do all sorts of nasty things to your food. And I was making that point that your point endorses discrimination by pretending that everything else but the problem, is actually the problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrangeSox Posted June 6, 2018 Share Posted June 6, 2018 3 minutes ago, Jenksismyhero said: I think it's going to depend on the set of facts in the next case. This guy said he didn't want to bake a cake for the purpose of a wedding, but it was undisputed that he offered to provide them his goods and services for anything else. Not sure how you can read that as discrimination against gay people in violation of the Constitution. At best it's a discrimination against an occasion/event. I think the Court would probably agree with that if this issue ever came up again given the pretty lengthy discussion about freedom of religious speech in the opinion. Also, I listened to an NPR interview with the couple and it kind of annoys me that they readily admit they had no expectation (and probably intention) of actually getting a cake from this guy for their wedding. It was all set up. I'm sure there are other people out there facing actual discrimination whose cases are not being heard because these guys wanted to prove a point and took a space on the court's docket. Because he offered to bake cakes for weddings for non-gay couples. The complaint was also not a Constitutional one but one about Colorado state law. LGBT rights aren't protected federally. If the court could get 5 votes for the ruling that "it's not anti-gay discrimination to refuse to bake a cake for their wedding," they'd have issued it yesterday imo. Rosa Parks was a "set up," too. Good. Challenge bigots breaking the law. These people faced actual illegal discrimination. The Court gets tons of petitions a year and there's a broader claim that they were at least considering addressing far beyond the individual couples' complaint, so I'm not sure saying "someone else had to continue facing discrimination" makes much sense here. Since they ended up punting anyway, I'd have agreed that the court shouldn't have bothered taking it up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greg775 Posted June 6, 2018 Share Posted June 6, 2018 3 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said: And I was making that point that your point endorses discrimination by pretending that everything else but the problem, is actually the problem. Oh well. I give up on this point. I lose this argument. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenksismyhero Posted June 6, 2018 Share Posted June 6, 2018 6 minutes ago, StrangeSox said: Because he offered to bake cakes for weddings for non-gay couples. The complaint was also not a Constitutional one but one about Colorado state law. LGBT rights aren't protected federally. If the court could get 5 votes for the ruling that "it's not anti-gay discrimination to refuse to bake a cake for their wedding," they'd have issued it yesterday imo. Rosa Parks was a "set up," too. Good. Challenge bigots breaking the law. These people faced actual illegal discrimination. The Court gets tons of petitions a year and there's a broader claim that they were at least considering addressing far beyond the individual couples' complaint, so I'm not sure saying "someone else had to continue facing discrimination" makes much sense here. Since they ended up punting anyway, I'd have agreed that the court shouldn't have bothered taking it up. Yeah I don't buy it. It's not discrimination against a protected class of people if you're willing to perform a service for those people. It's about the message, not the class. If they had come in and asked for a cake that said "congrats on the abortion!" do you think he would be within his rights to say no? Or would he be discriminating against them simply by virtue of saying no? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrangeSox Posted June 6, 2018 Share Posted June 6, 2018 (edited) He would be well within his rights to say no if he categorically refused to make cakes that said "congrats on the abortion!" for anyone. He would not be within his rights if he, say, would make those cakes for black women but not for white women. That's where a lot of these hypotheticals responses you see go off the rails--public accomodations laws don't mean you have to offer people in a protected class whatever service they can demand. It means you can't deny services you otherwise regularly offer based on their protected class. He offers a service to make wedding cakes that he refused to provide to that couple on account of the sexuality. That he offered other, different services doesn't change that any more than saying "well I offered that black couple a meal but I wouldn't rent them a room" gets around the discrimination. I don't think the baker was making a legal argument along the lines you're putting forth at all, anyway. His was a 1st amendment free speech/religious freedom claim that he is allowed to refuse to provide a service because of their orientation. That's why we got Thomas's weird digression into "what even is a cake?" territory in his concurring opinion. e: I guess the underlying idea is that a "wedding" and a "gay wedding" are not different things, so he can't refuse to offer a wedding cake to a gay couple because they are a gay couple. Edited June 6, 2018 by StrangeSox Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
southsider2k5 Posted June 6, 2018 Author Share Posted June 6, 2018 6 minutes ago, StrangeSox said: He would be well within his rights to say no if he categorically refused to make cakes that said "congrats on the abortion!" for anyone. He would not be within his rights if he, say, would make those cakes for black women but not for white women. That's where a lot of these hypotheticals responses you see go off the rails--public accomodations laws don't mean you have to offer people in a protected class whatever service they can demand. It means you can't deny services you otherwise regularly offer based on their protected class. He offers a service to make wedding cakes that he refused to provide to that couple on account of the sexuality. That he offered other, different services doesn't change that any more than saying "well I offered that black couple a meal but I wouldn't rent them a room" gets around the discrimination. I don't think the baker was making a legal argument along the lines you're putting forth at all, anyway. His was a 1st amendment free speech/religious freedom claim that he is allowed to refuse to provide a service because of their orientation. That's why we got Thomas's weird digression into "what even is a cake?" territory in his concurring opinion. What if he did birthday cakes and not abortion cakes? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenksismyhero Posted June 6, 2018 Share Posted June 6, 2018 4 minutes ago, StrangeSox said: He would be well within his rights to say no if he categorically refused to make cakes that said "congrats on the abortion!" for anyone. He would not be within his rights if he, say, would make those cakes for black women but not for white women. That's where a lot of these hypotheticals responses you see go off the rails--public accomodations laws don't mean you have to offer people in a protected class whatever service they can demand. It means you can't deny services you otherwise regularly offer based on their protected class. He offers a service to make wedding cakes that he refused to provide to that couple on account of the sexuality. That he offered other, different services doesn't change that any more than saying "well I offered that black couple a meal but I wouldn't rent them a room" gets around the discrimination. I don't think the baker was making a legal argument along the lines you're putting forth at all, anyway. His was a 1st amendment free speech/religious freedom claim that he is allowed to refuse to provide a service because of their orientation. That's why we got Thomas's weird digression into "what even is a cake?" territory in his concurring opinion. But you can if you are exercising your own constitutionally protected religious freedom/speech. And that's where I think he's got a good argument. I doubt this case ever comes back up because it's a very limited fact pattern. I think the next one will be a challenge of Indiana's law (I think it's Indiana) that expressly states you can refuse service based on your religious beliefs and the question will be if it is narrowly tailored enough. IMO this whole area has very limited application. There are very few "because of my religious beliefs" applications. Weddings would be one. I really can't think of another. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrangeSox Posted June 6, 2018 Share Posted June 6, 2018 2 minutes ago, Jenksismyhero said: But you can if you are exercising your own constitutionally protected religious freedom/speech. And that's where I think he's got a good argument. I doubt this case ever comes back up because it's a very limited fact pattern. I think the next one will be a challenge of Indiana's law (I think it's Indiana) that expressly states you can refuse service based on your religious beliefs and the question will be if it is narrowly tailored enough. IMO this whole area has very limited application. There are very few "because of my religious beliefs" applications. Weddings would be one. I really can't think of another. Well, that's a different argument than "he wasn't discriminating because he still offered them different services." I disagree that he has a good argument and that 'religious belief' should be a 'get-out-of-legal-compliance-free' card, but as you noted the court didn't address that here. I think this will come back around to them again, though. It's a classic Kennedy word salad of a ruling that avoids the big issue, so someone somewhere will find another test case after plaintiff-seeking for a bit on one side or another. Whether they grant cert in the future will depend on what the court's makeup looks like at that time because they obviously don't have 5 votes on the free speech/religion ruling right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greg775 Posted June 6, 2018 Share Posted June 6, 2018 (edited) 1 hour ago, Jenksismyhero said: Yeah I don't buy it. It's not discrimination against a protected class of people if you're willing to perform a service for those people. It's about the message, not the class. If they had come in and asked for a cake that said "congrats on the abortion!" do you think he would be within his rights to say no? Or would he be discriminating against them simply by virtue of saying no? Good point. No way a religious baker would write that based on his/her religious beliefs about abortion. What if a rowdy customer wearing ominous clothes and a mohawk wanted a cake that said, "Frick you all; you're dead" with a picture of an automatic weapon? No way you'd bake him that cake. Interesting stuff. The baker should just play dumb the next time. If somebody wants a cake and the premise is against his religion, he should bake the cake and mis-spell the key words. Just play dumb if the customer complains and say, "I must have erred. Sorry." There are creative ways around these things if the government isn't going to back your right to religious freedom. Edited June 6, 2018 by greg775 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
southsider2k5 Posted June 12, 2018 Author Share Posted June 12, 2018 It continues to amaze me how similar Clinton and Trump can be. Bill Clinton: 'Norms have changed' for what you can do to somebody against their will Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reddy Posted June 12, 2018 Share Posted June 12, 2018 Y'all want a trip? This is the argument I agree with: "He would be well within his rights to say no if he categorically refused to make cakes that said "congrats on the abortion!" for anyone. He would not be within his rights if he, say, would make those cakes for black women but not for white women." I don't want to be forced to make a cake for the WBC that says God Hates F*gs. I don't want to make one that says Long Live the KKK. etc. I support the freedom of religion and free speech arguments in this case. But as far as the discrimination part goes, you can't offer the same basic service to one group and not to another. You've got to sell the gay couple a cake for their wedding, but you don't have to *write a message* that explicitly endorses gay marriage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greg775 Posted June 22, 2018 Share Posted June 22, 2018 Since the election I've made it a point to not watch the cable TV political shows (I can't stand the guests talking over each other) so I mainly read a lot of the negative stories about Trump at cnn.com and yahoo and other sites. It's all so negative, albeit mostly deserved, that I have to confess it was refreshing to turn on Rush the other day when driving and hear two segments of him praising Trump and blasting the left, etc. Trump is hated so much by the people I know and associate with that it was nice to hear some words of praise about the U.S. for the first time in a long time. Rush is anti left, thinks there's a great big media bias against Trump and stuff like that. Q: Is this the most divided our country has ever been? I don't run into them much but allegedly Trump would win again if the election was tomorrow, so he has a lotta supporters (cue him losing the popular vote argument; electoral college argument). Thus is this the biggest divide in US history cept for the C. War? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caulfield12 Posted June 22, 2018 Share Posted June 22, 2018 No Greg. Try Watergate, 1968, Civil Rights era, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reddy Posted June 23, 2018 Share Posted June 23, 2018 Since the election I've made it a point to not watch the cable TV political shows (I can't stand the guests talking over each other) so I mainly read a lot of the negative stories about Trump at cnn.com and yahoo and other sites. It's all so negative, albeit mostly deserved, that I have to confess it was refreshing to turn on Rush the other day when driving and hear two segments of him praising Trump and blasting the left, etc. Trump is hated so much by the people I know and associate with that it was nice to hear some words of praise about the U.S. for the first time in a long time. Rush is anti left, thinks there's a great big media bias against Trump and stuff like that. Q: Is this the most divided our country has ever been? I don't run into them much but allegedly Trump would win again if the election was tomorrow, so he has a lotta supporters (cue him losing the popular vote argument; electoral college argument). Thus is this the biggest divide in US history cept for the C. War? Jesus effing christ. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greg775 Posted June 23, 2018 Share Posted June 23, 2018 1 hour ago, Reddy said: Jesus effing christ. Heard today on radio that picture making the rounds is doctored/photo shopped. Is that true? The one with the little girl crying and Trump staring down at her? Fake apparently. This is a crazy time, folks. Nobody knows what's real and what's agenda driven. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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