A baker in Denver is facing a religious discrimination complaint after declining to put an anti-gay decoration on a cake. That's an unfortunate but inevitable result of the same laws that have led to complaints about bakers who won't decorate same-sex wedding cakes.
When you open the doors for the business of cake decoration, you can't discriminate in the message on religious grounds, any more than on other protected class grounds.
Reading the comments, a lot of people think this is an apples-and-oranges case, that there's a huge difference between telling a gay couple that you won't sell them a cake for their wedding and telling an anti-gay creep that you won't sell him a cake decorated with anti-gay messages.
I disagree. The idea that a cake for a same-sex wedding is not at all offensive but that an anti-gay cake is offensive demonstrates a myopia of perspective. One can debate whether someone should be morally offended by the idea of a cake being used by a same-sex wedding, but the fact is that some people are, and denying that is unjust.
At the same time, what should be kept clear is that being religiously offended by a cake you're being asked to make — doesn't mean you are allowed not to make it.
There's one small difference — the baker offered to sell the cake, but not decorated with the messages. So would a baker who would sell a wedding cake to a gay couple but not inscribe "Susan + Jane" on it be similarly covered?
It's also been suggested that this is a set-up — an effort to discredit such interpretations of the law. That's possibly true (see below), but makes no difference. An intentionally provocative breaking of a Jim Crow era lunch counter restriction is no different, legally, than someone sincerely wanting to eat lunch.
Conveniently, our demon-exorcising newest GOP dolt in the state legislature, Gordon Klingenschmitt, is all over this case, proud to fight on the side of the baker. In fact, he's working on legislation to "repair" the nondiscrimination law. "These laws have no religious or free speech exemptions. So right now there’s a loophole that’s allowing these bakers to be brought up on charges of discrimination. I think the loophole ought to be fixed so that every baker, every artist, every person in Colorado is not compelled by the government to produced anything they personally disagree with."
Klingenschmitt, of course, is more interested in protecting bakers from having to sell cakes to gays couples than in protecting Ms Silva's sensibilities. Regardess, he's wrong here, I believe. I don't think it should be up to bakers (or printers, or sign-makers) to decide which messages they will explicitly or implicitly convey, based on whatever they say their religious beliefs are — or, worse, as extensions of their "free speech" rights, which means being able to turn down messages on a whim.
(h/t +Stan Pedzick)
Man Files Discrimination Complaint After Denver Bakery Won’t Make Anti-Gay Cake
After a Denver bakery refused to make Colorado resident Bill Jack a cake with an anti-gay message, Jack filed a discrimination complaint with the state Department of Regulatory Agencies’ Civil Rights division, according to Colorado television station KUSA.Marjorie Silva (pictured above), the owner of Azucar Bakery, said Jack asked her to write phrases like “God hates gays” on a cake in March 2014, according to KUSA. He also wanted an image of t…
With all due respect, if you can't see the difference between a cake baked for two women who get married (and might have their names on it for some reason) and a cake that says 'God Hates Fags', then I think we don't have a lot of common ground.
Similarly sign painters should just paint the sign, regardless of the message. The people screaming freedom don't reallyn want it. They want freedom to enforce their beliefs
+Curt Thompson _I_ see definitely see a difference, but I don't think there's a way to objectively codify that difference into law in a way that doesn't have poor consequences. I think the message of a "God Hates Fags" cake is deeply offensive, and wouldn't to have to produce one. On the other hand, some folk are deeply offended by the message of a wedding cake for two women; I'm not (a long, happy, and loving life to them), but others are. I don't see how my being offended should trump someone else's being offended in a legal sense. Either both bakers should be let off the hook, or neither; I think the better answer is neither.
It's a stupid issue. The only problem is that all the other objections to marriage equality are even stupider
The challenge in the U.S. is to allow freedom of speech, even when you personally disagree with the speech itself.
The reason to support such speech? If we outlaw "Adam + Steve," and outlaw "God hates fags," then we may find that our own speech is the next to be outlawed.
(Incidentally, this is why thoughtful Christians support religious freedom for Muslims. Christians don't want to be the next target.)
I saw this a few days ago and am of the notion that it was, indeed, a "set up" in that someone wanted to "make a point".
On the other hand, though, the same could also be said for the same sex couple who insisted a certain baker make their cake (even though there were other bakers in the area and they had even driven across to a different county, to boot).
Agree with the above, or not, you're right Dave. These are the sort of worms that crawl out when the can is opened.
Right, +Mark Means It was stupid of the gay couples to complain in the first place. Sore winners. Out of a nation of 330 million, there has been 3 or 4 of these type of incidents, and none recently.
Well, I wouldn't say it was "stupid", per se'….but, had it been me, I would have said "O.k" and found another baker. There would be no way I'd try to force someone to do something where there's food concerned. I used to work in a restaurant……
+John E. Bredehoft Exactly.
They did find another baker, naturally. I doubt gays will find ourselves in a critical shortage of florists, hairdressers, wedding cakes or wedding planners.
+Mark Means From a practical perspect, I agree. But that's also an approach one can only take when when in (or supported by) a comfortable majority, i.e., when there are (presumably) a number of other alternatives that you can take your custom to.
That same logic applies, though, for any accommodation. An African-American faced with a sign that says "We serve whites only" might say, "Well, that's fine, I'll find another restaurant to visit," or a woman being told "We only hire men here" might think that, well, why want to work at a place with that kind of attitude — but I don't think that's the kind of segregated country we want to have.
This is absolutely a setup, to get national attention and promote the value of a "choose your values" legislation.
And, I have to agree that as a public place, I'm obliged to make whatever cake you want–though I'm not obliged to "display" it, nor do you get to advertise that I made it.
Can't wait for the strike against gay couples by Christian conservative interior decorators. Oh, boo-hoo. How will we ever survive then?
+Greg Stockton You're certainly not obliged to display it, but I'm not sure you can stop me from saying where I got it from.
I see a pretty clear distinction between offended religious sensibilities and hate speech, but maybe that's just me…
+Brittany Constable I think it's a difference in perspective, though one I have personal problems getting my head around. "Hate speech is speech that offends, threatens, or insults groups, based on race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, disability, or other traits." There appear to be some Christians who feel that the celebration of gay marriage is not just personally offensive, but an affront to God and and an implicit attack on their True Biblical Christianity. Does that rise to the level of "hate speech" — again, according to some rhetoric, it does, and I try to give the benefit of the doubt there.
One could tweak the parameters of the thought experiment here. One cake says, as a religious sentiment of a customer, "Gay marriage is condemned by God"; I can see folk being offended by that, and feel personally, morally opposed to even writing that out with frosting. The other cake says, as a religious sentiment by a different customer, "Gay marriages are blessed by God". I can see folk being offended by that, too, and likewise feel moral repugnance to writing it out. I don't think I can articulate in an objective way why just one of those cakes could be declined by the baker. Either both are protected by the religious rights of the baker, or both are protected by the religious sentiments (or other protected classification) of the customer.
First +Dave Hill , well spoken. Second +Brittany Constable what bothers me is that NO ONE has a right NOT to be offended. Too many cannot distinguish between Offended and Discrimination.
+Paula Jones Yes! Commonly referred to as Liberalism
+Rob Man I have to ask…why do people use the word "Liberal" when they so obviously mean "every person who doesn't agree with my politics, and are therefore assholes" because it's clearly the same thing? Is it a polite speech thing, or just shorthand?
+Greg Stockton Idk, looks like you asked and answered already.
Re +Mark Means' earlier point about finding another vendor – one would think that in a free enterprise society, multiple vendors would spring up that would cater to the needs of specific segments of the population, but in practice it often doesn't work out that way.
Take smoking. My libertarian bent leads me to prefer a world in which some restaurants could freely choose to be smoking establishments, and some could freely choose to be non-smoking establishments, without any mandates from the government either way. In a similar fashion, anyone who wanted to work in a restaurant could easily choose whether to work in a smoking restaurant or a non-smoking restaurant.
However, in practice, it didn't work out that way. Before all of this was legislated, all of the restaurants were non-smoking, with the possible exception of restaurants that honored certain religious principles that prohibited smoking.
Of course, such an establishment would be subject to a lawsuit… 🙂
+John E. Bredehoft I think you mean "smoking" in the penultimate paragraph, but, yes.
I am also reminded of the Jim Crow era. In theory, you'd think that an eager restaurateur in, say, Montgomery, would grab some market share by allowing both whites and blacks at the lunch counter — but, in reality, such a restaurateur would have probably seen his white customers leave, would have faced pressure from other businessfolk in the city to conform to racist tradition, might have gotten in trouble with his landlord, might have found a few bricks thrown through his window — and, the fact is, the majority of white restaurateurs were actually quite happy with the segregated situation, and left it to others to cater to the "colored trade."
It is not difficult to imagine situations where a given service or product is not easily obtained by gay people should the provider be aware that the person is gay, esp. when it comes to something still controversial in some quarters such as gay marriage. If there are four wedding arrangers in your town, and all four are upstanding members of the First Baptist Church and choose to think of a same-sex marriage as an abomination, what are you going to do? Yes, there are ways around that, just as there were places for blacks in 1960 Montgomery to eat lunch at, or seats in the back of the bus they could sit in. Is that, though, what we're looking for in our country?