We have previously discussed (here and here) the growing conflicts over businesses that decline to accommodate same-sex weddings and events in a clash between anti-discrimination and free speech (and free exercise) values. Despite my support for gay rights and same-sex marriage, I have previously written that anti-discrimination laws are threatening the free exercise of religion. Some of these cases involve bakeries that insist that making wedding cakes for same-sex couples violates their religious principles. Now we have a twist on this trending litigation. The Azucar Bakey has been found to have broken discrimination laws by refusing to make an anti-same-sex cake. The bakery was asked to make a Bible-shaped cake with an anti-gay slur and owner Marjorie Silva refused. The customer brought a complaint to the Colorado Civil Rights Commission and won.
The customer wanted the bakery to draw two males holding hands with “a big ‘X’ on them.”
Silva identifies herself as a practicing Christian and makes Christian cakes, but balked at making an anti-gay cake at her Lakewood bakery in December 2013. Previously in Colorado, Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips broke discrimination laws when he refused to make a cake for the same-sex wedding of Dave Mullins and Charlie Craig in July of 2012. That decision was upheld by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission.
Now we have the flip side. Silva offered to leave the bible page blank to allow the customer (who she describes as disruptive) to write whatever he wanted but she declined to write it herself. Ironically, she could have simply refused to serve him on the basis for any disruption in the store. She was later sent a notice by the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA) that a religious discrimination complaint has been filed against Azucar Bakery. She has since received a notice from DORA requesting a final letter describing her account of events.
The question raised by these cases is whether anti-discrimination laws are driving too deeply into free speech rights. Bakers and photographers view themselves as engaged in a form of speech generally. The loss of a bright-line defining free speech has meant that we are finding ourselves increasingly on a slippery slope of speech regulation. On the other hand, we fought hard to guarantee accommodation for all races in places of public accommodation. Stores are not allowed to ban black customers under the same rationale. The question is whether there is a difference between refusing to serve customers on the basis for sexual orientation generally as opposed to taking an active or direct role in a same-sex wedding.
Where do you think we should draw the line?
Source: KDVR
So, if I own a bakery I have to serve anyone who comes in and do anything they ask? Does the business owner have no rights? I realize that is a massive generalization. I agree with Justice Holmes, this was a set up. Some deeper research will likely reveal that this customer is affiliated closely with an organization who is trying to make a point.
Maybe there needs to be a sign which is standard and can be put up in any retail store.
“We refuse to do the following______________ or will not cater to Gays
or Anti Gays in the course of doing business. If you wanna bitch then go
outside. Bitch, bitch, bitch.”
Jeff, defend or don’t.
If you don’t like being called ‘tyrannical’ for demanding that businesses “should be legally required to post a notice on the front of [their] business location and in [their] advertising stating that [they] do not do gay events“,
…well, then don’t be a tyrant.
Heck, you even made a new rule, that people are no longer “entitled to keep [their] conscience a secret in the exercise of [their] business.”
Or instead you could simply defend your tyranny.
But don’t blame your inability to do so on me.
Believe me, I got my answer, loud and clear.
As far as business goes if I was the cake shop owner I would have just made the cake as requested. Another sale is how I look at the matter.
Some folks look for answers, others look for fights. I will gladly debate someone who engages in a respectful discourse.
You promote tyranny and the loss of freedoms.
Defend it, or don’t. Up to you.
“Lefty paradise” and “morally preening socialists”
You finish with the name-calling? You are a waste of my time.
Yet another example of how quickly leftists become tyrants, initially arguing for freedom, then, once gained, coercing others to comply.
“In a state that permits gay marriage, gays have a reasonable expectation that wedding photographer’s do not discriminate against them.”
Ha ha. Bet people did not know that when they agreed to allow gays to marry (or, more often, judges negated citizen votes to do so).
So in your view, bakeries and photographers should close if they are unwilling to comply.
“Why would the photographer be ashamed of proclaiming his moral and/or religious belief ”
What difference does it make to you why they don’t proclaim it?
It could be the same reason that Jews no longer wear a kippah outdoors in France.
Because people will harm them, and the State doesn’t care.
In your lefty paradise, people must be coerced to comply with the fashionable beliefs, otherwise they will destroy you one way or another.
More, your viewpoint that he must be “ashamed” of his belief suggests it is shameful, and that you will act on that.
“I have a right to know whether I am soliciting a business whose business practices are an affront to my conscience.”
Really?
Is that in the Constitution, or just another “right” created by morally preening socialists?
In a state that permits gay marriage, gays have a reasonable expectation that wedding photographer’s do not discriminate against them. Why would the photographer be ashamed of proclaiming his moral and/or religious belief which prevents him from participating in gay rituals? I have a right to know whether I am soliciting a business whose business practices are an affront to my conscience.
Jeff, why couldn’t he simply remain discreet, and simply say No, offering no reason at all?
Why force people to post their beliefs?
Are people engaged in commerce not allowed any privacy?
And where would it end? If he did not explicitly post that he would not make a Nazi cake, does he then have to make one?
If a photographer’s conscience does not permit him to memorialize a gay wedding then he should be legally required to post a notice on the front of his business location and in his advertising stating that he does not do gay events. In this way, gays do not suffer the humiliation of being refused his service unbeknownst to them. In addition, this notice will allow potential customers to avoid giving their “straight” business to a businessman whose discrimination offends their conscience. I see no reason why a person is entitled to keep his conscience a secret in the exercise of his business.
Whatever happened to he concept of free association? No one should be forced to do business with someone else. Period.
I am wondering if I am going to be forced to prescribe estrogen to men who want to take it, against my medical judgement.
Answer: Yes, lest I face anti-discrimination lawsuits.
The future sure sounds fun.
What else will the State force me to do against my will?
If a bakery posts a sign that states it does not make pornographic or polemical pastries, then it can discriminate on that basis, but not on the basis of what kind of pornography is offensive, e.g., gay, to the baker and what kind of pornography is not.
a few observations:
I believe she could prevail in the sense that the act of drawing an X through two individuals has historical context in promoting hatred toward them and she could argue that she does not engage in a business that promotes hatred toward other individuals.
Secondly, who at this government agency had the gall to not summarily dismiss this complaint as being vexing and retaliatory in nature.
See, this is one of my great complaints about having bureaucrats as enforcement officers. They typically have no clue about what it means to use discretion. They sit in some cubicle all day and never have the opportunity to deal with real world situations and understand the human condition that can be found in working the road like real deputies or police do. So, they clamp down on ordinary people by using their default automaton behavior that requires absolute compliance when the opportunity arrives to finally strike someone down.
Most true cops would look at the entire picture here and recognize this guy is just being an ass and drop the case before it even began; knowing it is just a waste of everyone’s time.
In my opinion, creative endeavors that are performed on a contract basis should be free to refuse a mandate to create on demand things that violate their conscience.
A request for a generic box of cookies should be made in accordance with discrimination laws but to require a baker to creatively put messages on the cookies that violate their conscience would be improper.
“This was a set up pure and simple.”
So was the initial case demanding a baker make a gay marriage cake against his will.
So what?
Supporting gay marriage necessarily entails limited free speech.
Making LGBTQs part of discrimination law requires it.
Better get used to the fact that the State now owns you, so practicing religion will be soon forbidden.
Except for Islam, of course. Beheadings make that less likely. That’ll be solved with no-go zones. Until they run a city.
See how all this multi-culti diversity po-mo PC socialist stuff has been corrosive?
The liberal demands of You can’t say that and its twin You can’t do that now affect everything we do, from morning to night, from food to religion. We are enslaved.
Thanks, Rousseau, Marx, and Foucault!
There is a big difference between being asked to make a cake and being asked to include a anti gay slur. This was a set up pure and simple.