Anti-gay baker now takes stand against birthdays for trans people

[sealchan]

You know there should be a bakery that has a little ball machine like they got in the power ball lottery and there are say 2000 numbered balls in there. And you got a list of what kinds of people those numbers represent. And they just draw a ball at random every month and that's the kind of people they refuse service to for that month.

Cause that's about how important this story is. It's not. It's called freedom people, and people are making it more complicated than it is.

OR

they don't understand how this concept works at all.

Ball 1745: 12th Birthdays, yeah I don't 12 year olds so that's why I'm refusing service to you. Come back next month and we will be not liking someone else enough to not make a cake for em.

It is important in that for a market economy to operate fairly (and not generate wasteful inefficiencies) it should not be weighted by organized bias. And in this Information Age one example can get broadcast and ignite a firestorm of bias.

Now if the customer-service provider interaction goes sour due to a lack of tact or misunderstanding or what not, then that particular interaction should be allowed to form a basis for refusal of service.

Perhaps an individual bakers scruples might be overcome if there is a referral by any service provider to another equivalent one within a reasonable distance. That way the service provider ensures that the customer isn't unreasonably excluded from the marketplace.

 

[sojourner]

The cake. I am going to stop this discussion if you decide to put words in my mouth. Subversion leads you nowhere closer to truth.

You can’t stop me responding to anything you post, so long as it’s an appropriate response.

If you meant the cake, you should have been clearer. The ideology that’s damaging is the ideology that gay isn’t normal.

 

[sojourner]

This we agree upon.
The USA is not what it was in 1968. As long as merchants selling such inconsequential items as cakes are clear about their bigotry, I am OK with it sort of.
That doesn't apply to stuff like housing, medicine, or emergency services.
By "clear" I mean that if a merchant won't sell to blacks or gays or whatever they should say so in their promotions, signage, website, everything. Frankly, if anybody has made that more clear than Phillips, I am not sure who it might be.
Tom

This is privilege talking.

 

[Frog]

Okay you liberal kiddies, I am much too burnt out for a continued back and fourth, peace.

 

[Subduction Zone]

For @Frog:

Is homophobia associated with homosexual arousal? - PubMed - NCBI

That was perhaps the first scientific study into the connection between homophobia and latent homosexuality. The connection was suspected a long time before that. It has since been followed up with other studies. Here is a more recent one:

Homophobes Might Be Hidden Homosexuals

Now it does not indicate it 100% but it should give you some food for thought. One of the reasons that you may be so homophobic is the attraction to men that you feel yourself. Thus the claim arises about homosexuality being a "choice". That indicates that it was a choice for you and you seem to assume that it was a choice for everyone else.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Okay you liberal kiddies, I am much too burnt out for a continued back and fourth, peace.

Oh, so now we're all liberals if we are supportive of LBGT? What about Conservatives who are supportive?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Okay you liberal kiddies, I am much too burnt out for a continued back and fourth, peace.

By the way, just because someone is willing to point out your obvious errors does not make them liberal.

And once again, stay away from guns. Your toes do not stand a chance.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

And once again, stay away from guns. Your toes do not stand a chance.

I think it's safe to say he's shot more than his toes off at this point.

 

[dianaiad]

Then why would you want to have it inflicted upon others?

Because I do not wish to do to others what I have experienced.

I will bake the cake.
I'll 'shoot' the wedding, and rejoice with those whose beliefs support their wedding. I won't impose my beliefs upon them, and I will not allow them to impose theirs upon me.

And that is precisely what is happening when a baker is forced, by law or lawsuit, to abrogate HIS beliefs to the beliefs of others.

you know the old saying (well, not that old...I think Heinlein came up with it) 'your freedom to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose?"

Well, that's what I see happening here. the freedom of consenting adults to marry one another ENDS precisely at the point where they think that their right to marry means that they have the right and power to force others, who disagree with them, to act as if they do; to force them into actions that violate their beliefs.

I honestly believe that small business owners (not necessarily monopolies owned by corporations) have the absolute right to be as bigoted as they want, and act accordingly as long as no physical harm results.

We also, those around them, have the right to make up our own minds whether to support such bigotry. I wouldn't....

But I also want that bigotry out in the open so that I know who I'm dealing with.

 

[dianaiad]

1) The baker bakes cakes all the time. He bakes wedding cakes all the time. This is no different. If baking cakes hadn’t named him before, it shouldn’t magically begin to do so now.

I just happened onto this one...and while I disagree with the person to whose post this is a reply, I have to ask you:

Michelangelo painted and did sculptures 'all the time,' too. If someone required him to sculpt something that fundamentally broke his personal beliefs or aesthetics, would you say the same to him...that since he did a great many sculptures, doing one more wouldn't 'harm' him?

True, most bakers are no Michelangelos, but their ideas and efforts ARE creative and from their own thoughts and feelings. It is THEIR work being displayed, THEIR opinions and support being 'advertised.' It's not as if they were providing the tablecloths.

Just sayin'....from the POV of someone who has designed and decorated cakes. I don't even reach the level of really good cake decorators, but I don't want something that is known to be MY work seeming to support something I find unacceptable or abominable.

 

[columbus]

This is privilege talking.

Yeah.
The privilege of living in a country with freedoms. Imperfect as hell, I will totally agree. But, no, I don't think that freedom is reserved for the politically correct.
Tom

 

[Subduction Zone]

Because I do not wish to do to others what I have experienced.

I will bake the cake.
I'll 'shoot' the wedding, and rejoice with those whose beliefs support their wedding. I won't impose my beliefs upon them, and I will not allow them to impose theirs upon me.

And that is precisely what is happening when a baker is forced, by law or lawsuit, to abrogate HIS beliefs to the beliefs of others.

you know the old saying (well, not that old...I think Heinlein came up with it) 'your freedom to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose?"

Well, that's what I see happening here. the freedom of consenting adults to marry one another ENDS precisely at the point where they think that their right to marry means that they have the right and power to force others, who disagree with them, to act as if they do; to force them into actions that violate their beliefs.

I honestly believe that small business owners (not necessarily monopolies owned by corporations) have the absolute right to be as bigoted as they want, and act accordingly as long as no physical harm results.

We also, those around them, have the right to make up our own minds whether to support such bigotry. I wouldn't....

But I also want that bigotry out in the open so that I know who I'm dealing with.

You simply cannot see that no one is "forcing" the baker to do anything that he did not agree to do, whether he realized it or not. He is the one that is trying to enforce his beliefs upon others in this case.

Once again, when one opens a public business one limits who he can say "no" to and why. Being a liberatarian is not an excuse. We tried that approach and it did not work because of deeply ingrained prejudices in areas. It would be nice if there always was a welcome alternative for minorities, but that is rarely the case. That is why there are laws that protect minorities and why one tacitly agrees to these laws when one opens a public business.

It would help if you could separate the business from the individual. If a business owner cannot do so in the running of his business then he is clearly not cut out for owning a public business.

 

[sojourner]

I honestly believe that small business owners (not necessarily monopolies owned by corporations) have the absolute right to be as bigoted as they want, and act accordingly as long as no physical harm results

What about emotional and psychological harm caused by the systemic violence of dehumanization, marginalization and ostracization of rampant bigotry? How does tacit approval of privilege advance the cause of an egalitarian society?

 

[Subduction Zone]

I just happened onto this one...and while I disagree with the person to whose post this is a reply, I have to ask you:

Michelangelo painted and did sculptures 'all the time,' too. If someone required him to sculpt something that fundamentally broke his personal beliefs or aesthetics, would you say the same to him...that since he did a great many sculptures, doing one more wouldn't 'harm' him?

True, most bakers are no Michelangelos, but their ideas and efforts ARE creative and from their own thoughts and feelings. It is THEIR work being displayed, THEIR opinions and support being 'advertised.' It's not as if they were providing the tablecloths.

Just sayin'....from the POV of someone who has designed and decorated cakes. I don't even reach the level of really good cake decorators, but I don't want something that is known to be MY work seeming to support something I find unacceptable or abominable.

He might have. I am sure he took on works that he did not want to do because he worked on a commission basis. He did not make sculptures and then try to sell them. He was paid by various individuals, government offices, and the church to make sculptures. When one does that there will almost always be some work done that one regrets.

 

[sojourner]

Yeah.
The privilege of living in a country with freedoms. Imperfect as hell, I will totally agree. But, no, I don't think that freedom is reserved for the politically correct.
Tom

No one has the freedom to harm another. That’s why we have laws and remedies against theft, assault, murder. It’s slso why we have patent and copyright laws. Bigotry causes harm. Privilege causes harm in the way of systemic violence (such as Jim Crow). Theborivilege im talking s out is the privilege of being in a majority that makes rules, sets morals, and controls the flow of means and goodwill. Part of the responsibility of the privileged is to protect those at risk.

 

[columbus]

No one has the freedom to harm another.

Yes they do, here in the USA it's Christians who do. Especially white ones.
But black ones also. ~70% of black Californians voted to put marriage inequality in the California Constitution. Most white people voted against that, but there's a lot of black people in California. Prop 8 passed.
Tom

 

[sojourner]

Yes they do, here in the USA it's Christians who do. Especially white ones.
But black ones also. ~70% of black Californians voted to put marriage inequality in the California Constitution. Most white people voted against that, but there's a lot of black people in California. Prop 8 passed.
Tom

I don’t think you’re right about that. That’s why we have laws and remedies.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Well, that's what I see happening here. the freedom of consenting adults to marry one another ENDS precisely at the point where they think that their right to marry means that they have the right and power to force others, who disagree with them, to act as if they do; to force them into actions that violate their beliefs.

No one--absolutely no one--is saying the baker has to condone, support, and bless the wedding. What is being expected is that he do his chosen job of serving the public. He chose to make cakes for the public, and now he has to make them for the public. It's no different than a Hindu choosing to accept a job at McDonald's and then refusing to serve hamburgers because it violates their religious beliefs. They chose the job, and not only that they themselves are not personally consuming beef. The baker chose to bake cakes, chose to open a bakery that is open to the public, and the baker has a set of rules and laws to abide by due to his choice of opening a business that serves the public. Believing that assisting those with physical handicaps will have a detrimental effect on the person "serving out" their Karma will not allow a business to bypass the legal requirements to make some accommodations for those with physical handicaps.

 

[columbus]

I don’t think you’re right about that.

Well I am.
Prop 8 passed, California's voters agreed to put marriage inequality in the California State Constitution.

Black people voted overwhelmingly to enshrine civil inequality in the Constitution of California. 70-30, approximately.
Prop 8 passed. Don't tell me I am not right about that because the exit poll data is easy to find.
Look it up.
Tom

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I don’t think you’re right about that. That’s why we have laws and remedies.

Generally speaking, black people aren't quite as accepting of LBGT as whites. Black transgender people especially get the **** end of the stick.