Gay Wedding Cakes Not a Constitutional Right
One wonders if the case currently before the Supreme Court did not involve the owner of the Masterpiece Cakeshop refusing to be coerced to violate his religious conscience by providing a wedding cake for a gay wedding that celebrates gay marriage, but rather a Muslim bakery being forced to bake a cake decorated with a cartoon picture of the prophet Muhammed covered with bacon sprinkles.
Creative expression in any form is free speech which, along with freedom of religion, is supposedly protected in the First Amendment. People should not be compelled to write or say things they do not believe or agree with, whether it be in the form of ink on paper or frosting on wedding cakes.
In this case, as Jordan Lawrence writes in National Review, the line between providing a service and expressing a view are being deliberately blurred by liberals to destroy both free speech and religious liberty:
The government must not force creative businesses to create messages that they oppose. During the Masterpiece Cakeshop oral arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, the two attorneys opposing cake artist Jack Phillips argued that the justices should not protect Phillips’s freedom to abstain from creating expression he disagrees with. Their primary argument was that, in their opinion, it is too difficult to draw lines protecting people’s First Amendment right against compelled speech, so the high court should not protect Jack’s rights….
David Cole of the American Civil Liberties Union argued that the Supreme Court should conclude that anything Phillips would create under some circumstances, he must create in all contexts…
(But) a cake artist who agrees to design a rainbow cake for a Noah’s Ark–themed Sunday-school party should not be forced against his will to make the same cake for a same-sex wedding (like the one that the same-sex couple who visited Masterpiece Cakeshop eventually got for their wedding reception). Neither should a cake artist who would craft an elephant-shaped cake for a party at the zoo be forced to create the same cake for a Republican-party celebration. Nor should a cake artist who is willing to design a cake saying “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas” for a Christmas party be required to make that cake for a party hosted by Aryan Nations.
The Masterpiece Cakeshop case is different than saying a hotel or restaurant cannot refuse service to people based on their sexual
orientation. Baking is a wedding cake is a creative process and you cannot force a baker to create something that violates his religious beliefs anymore than you can force a writer to put on paper opinions he or she vehemently disagrees with,
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That gay marriage is a looming threat to religious liberty as observed here, and may lead to an era of religious persecution not seen in since the days of the Roman Empire, are seen in the chilling redefinition of the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty by Sen. Tammy Baldwin, Democrat of Wisconsin, and the Senate’s only lesbian.
Baldwin made her remarks on the June 27, 2015 broadcast of "Up With Steve Kornacki" on MSNBC. In a transcript posted on Newsbusters, Baldwin ignored the fact that it was religious persecution in Europe that led to people fleeing here seeking religious freedom on an individual as well as institutional level:
Certainly the first amendment says that in institutions of faith that there is absolute power to, you know, to observe deeply held religious beliefs. But I don’t think it extends far beyond that. We’ve seen the set of arguments play out in issues such as access to contraception. Should it be the individual pharmacist whose religious beliefs guides whether a prescription is filled, or in this context, they’re talking about expanding this far beyond our churches and synagogues to businesses and individuals across this country. I think there are clear limits that have been set in other contexts and we ought to abide by those in this new context across America.”
Baldwin, in arguing that there is no individual right to religious liberty and expression, misreads the Constitution with its mandate saying Congress shall pass no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion. It is a key phrase in the First Amendment, leading off the Bill of Rights. These are individual rights fought for in the American Revolution. These rights are not limited to institutions but apply to all individuals, just as the Supreme Court has decided the Second Amendment applies to individuals and not just to state-ordained militias.
Baldwin had been asked the question, “Should the bakery have to bake the cake for the gay couple getting married? Where do you come down on that?” She came down on the side of government coercion and the proposition that church is something you do on Sunday for an hour and otherwise shouldn’t act on your religious beliefs in your daily life.
The owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa tried to act on their faith but were ordered to pay $135,000 to a lesbian couple based on an order from the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries. As the Washington Times reported:
The order affirms an initial ruling in January that found Aaron and Melissa Klein had violated Oregon civil-rights law by refusing to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex ceremony in 2013 and ordered them to pay damages to Rachel Cryer and Laurel Bowman.
In Iran, gay wedding cake and pizza requests are handled a bit more harshly and with more finality than a simple statement from a business owner that his or her faith won’t allow them to cater the affair. If two gays contemplating marriage had walked into a Tehran pizza shop like Memories Pizza in Walkerton, Indiana, the pizza shop that refused to cater a gay wedding, hanging in the public square and not a simple refusal would have been a likely outcome.
Crystal O’Connor, member of the family that owns Memories Pizza, told local ABC news affiliate that she agreed with Indiana’s version of the federal RFRA signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1993. “If a gay couple came in and wanted us to provide pizzas for their wedding, we would have to say no,” she told local station ABC57. Her beliefs and rights and the beliefs and rights of the owners of Sweet Cakes and Masterpiece Cakeshop should be respected
The Hobby Lobby case revolved around the belief of the owners that people should be free to act on their faith in their daily lives which includes their business life. It is a belief shared by many including the Founding Fathers. As Investor’s Business Daily observed:
So do scores of Catholic and non-Catholic institutions and businesses who argue either that the way they run their private businesses is an extension of their faith or that a church, something the federal government seeks to redefine, is not something that happens one hour a week on a Sunday but 24/7 through the hospitals, schools, soup kitchens, and charities they may operate. They argue that acting out their faith through their works should not be illegal.
To gay advocates, acting on your sincerely held religious beliefs is bigotry. They ask that their lifestyles be respected as well as their newly discovered right to marriage, found in the “penumbras and emanations” of the Constitution that also gave us the right to abortion. Neither abortion nor marriage is mentioned specifically in the Constitution, but religious liberty and those who saying acting on your faith is bigotry are physicians sorely in need of healing themselves.
Sen. Baldwin’s definition of religious liberty is not that much different than Lenin’s and Stalin’s. Investor’s Business Daily once quoted Cardinal Francis George regarding ObamaCare and its imposition of the contraceptive mandate on religious institutions:
"Freedom of worship was guaranteed in the Constitution of the former Soviet Union," Chicago's Francis Cardinal George recently wrote.
"You could go to church, if you could find one. The church, however, could do nothing except conduct religious rites in places of worship -- no schools, religious publications, health care institutions, organized charity, ministry for justice and works of mercy that flow naturally from a living faith. We fought a long Cold War to defeat that vision of society."
One wonders what would happen, or should happen in Sen. Baldwin’s view, if a gay couple walked into a bakery owned by African-Americans and asked for a Confederate flag on their wedding cake. The irony here is that those who profess to be the most tolerance exhibit the most intolerance. If you demand tolerance of your lifestyle, you should exhibit tolerance of other people’s religious beliefs. Otherwise it is you who are the hypocrite and the bigot.
Justice Anthony Kennedy may have tipped his hand in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, noting in comments during oral arguments:
All eyes were fixed on the perennial swing Supreme Court jurist as attorneys argued in Masterpiece Cakeshop v Colorado Civil Rights Commission, and conservatives had to like Kennedy’s brushback to Colorado’s lawyers early in the hearing. According to the Wall Street Journal’s live blog, Kennedy wanted to know how the state tried to accommodate the baker’s rights to speech and religious expression, and he expressed his dissatisfaction with the response:
Justice Anthony Kennedy told a lawyer for the state that tolerance is essential in a free society, but it’s important for tolerance to work in both directions. “It seems to me the state has been neither tolerant or respectful” of the baker’s views, he said.
Well said. Indeed, the road to oppression and the end of liberty is paved with political correctness. http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/12/gay_wedding_cakes_not_a_constitutional_right.html
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And neither is abiding by the law just because you claim it's against your religion
False equivalence......
Then don't open a business that caters to the public
Some more false equivalencies......the baker makes and sells wedding cakes PERIOD, as a business that sells to the public you don't have the right to pick and choose which public you want to sell to.....if that was the case make your business private and for members only.
If you wish to read the oral arguments, they are here:
MASTERPIECE CAKESHOP, LTD., ET AL.,) Petitioners, ) v. ) No. 16-111 COLORADO CIVIL RIGHTS COMMISSION, ) ET AL., ) Respondents.
The argument seems to come down to this: if baking a cake is speech, what isn"t, and how do you quantify either position? If some act such as this is protected speech, then doesn't it proceed that all commerce is in fact protected speech and cannot be regulated? If it is not protected speech, then how do you determine what is protected speech?
The court will probably rule one way or the other on some narrow point and basically leave the whole thing open to more litigation, which of course will be a very merry christmas for lawyers, but not so much for anyone else.
I can't see how the court could rule for the bigoted baker given the precedents like Newman v Piggie Park. Plus a ruling in his favor would gut every public accommodations law in the country, and probably extend to employment and housing too.
This is an asinine legal argument because baking a cake in a public accommodation business isn't free speech on the part of the baker because he are being paid for it by the customer in question. Free speech only applies if it is what you are saying of your own free will. He is being paid to make that cake so it isn't the baker's free speech.
Then I suppose the Supremes are asisnine for entertaining the idea? But that was the argument of the defendant.
As I said, whichever way it goes, it will only lead to more litigation.
At some point in time, this country will have to face its own created divisions and decide if it can continue.
I'm not surprised that the defendant tried that argument, but Id be very surprised if the Justices are taken in by the nonsense of free speech rights. The fact that they cannot claim both free speech and religious freedom at the same time only proves that he is desperate for anything that will allow him to discriminate because of his bigotry. Phillips would have been much farther head if he just had his employee do the LGBT cakes if it is his own religious beliefs that are in conflict.
His lawyer had to know about the previous Piggie Park decision, so maybe that is why he is trying to illogical free speech angle. The ACLU will almost always support any claim of free speech because of their very broad reading of that idea, so the fact that they are supporting the LGBT couple illustrates that they see though his claim of his free speech rights being trampled on.
There hasn't been much dispute since 1964 about whether public accommodation laws like this one can be enforced. If SCOTUS rules against the dumb bigot it will maintain that status quo. If they rule for the dumb bigot it will open a huge can of worms and undermine all non-discrimination laws including those regarding housing and employment.
You're probably right.......What they just might do is just rule on if making a cake considered a form of expression, but as for him being able to discriminate they will probably let the lower courts decision stand.
The argument comes down to saying that the Constitution provides an automatic "right" to religious bigotry. I don't see the court agreeing to that. No one forced this man to become a baker, no one forced him to sell wedding cakes, no one forced him to use the open, public marketplace. All of America should not be expected to bow down to religious intolerance.
Did something happen with gay wedding cakes? When did that happen? This could potentially be a big topic on Newstalkers. I could see a possibility that 10 or 12 articles might be started about this one incident.
This is big. I predict a lot of people will want to talk about gay wedding cakes every single day.
It's about time that someone in this country and on this forum realized that gay wedding cakes could be an issue.
I think I'll start a new business, "Gay Wedding Cakes R Us." What ya think guys?
Well, you wouldn't have me as a customer, but you would damn sure have my support.
Why not, don't you think Gay Wedding Cakes are "fabulous"?
(Hand on hip, tapping foot)
Allow me to rephrase lol
I would buy your cakes, but not for a gay wedding, since I am not gay and my wife would take a dim view of me trying to marry a guy.. Just sayin man!
But, that would be the thing, I'd sell "Gay Wedding Cakes" to anyone who wanted one, everyone would be accepted, even you straight guys.
Well, then I would just have to buy one and eat it, I love cake...all fat kids love cake.
But I wouldn't buy from you because that would be supporting your lifestyle
I am heterosexual, Larry. Are you now saying you only support the "gay" lifestyle?
Do Gay and Straight wedding cakes taste differently? Would one be able to tell them apart with a blindfold taste test?
Not sure why this topic keeps coming up...over and over and over again. But, here it is.
Lets look at it another way. The baker uses public services and utilities, correct? EMS, fire, police, etc...? Those things are paid for by tax payers, yes? Yes. If a gay couple is paying taxes and wants a cake baked for their wedding, why should they be excluded if their tax dollars are used to help support the bigot baker? Oops.
Shut off his lights, water and, gas, let's see how many cakes he can bake then.
Fir what cause? Has he not paid his bill? Is he in arrears on his taxes?
This thumper bigot has his business in the same R county that tossed all the Koch funded thumpers off the school board in a recall election a couple years ago. He'll be lucky if some old school republican doesn't paint the door of his cake shop with his face if the SCOTUS ruling goes to the thumpers. The homophobe baker should consider a business move to the thumper mecca in Colorado Springs while he still has most of his teeth.
And guess what? He pays taxes also. Yes?
I would assume so. So you are going with the, "he pays taxes so he has the right to discriminate against other people that pay THEIR taxes"? Logic fail.
Yiur going with a "they pay their taxes so they can violare his religious rights and freedom" excuse. I guess yiu fail.
Religious freedoms and rights cannot violate someone else's civil rights. True story. Ask Kim Davis.
Nah, the logic fail is equating cake decorations with civil rights. They aren't and you shouldn't.
SCOTUS won't.
Comment removed for CoC violation [ph]
Comment removed for CoC violation [ph]
You're right, civil rights are far more important than a bigot cake maker and his disgusting cakes and religion.
Yeah, they should have just moved along and found a different cake maker that wanted their business. That's what i do when a business treats me in what i consider a poor manner.
Kim Davis did not own the busines and she violated the terms if her employment. The baker owns his business.
Why do you think that getting a cake from his business allows you to violate his religious rights and his right to associate with those he chooses? Why is the the gay couples rights mire important than his?
Or the baker could have just...made the cake, like he was expected to do. Still trying to find that quote in the bible that says making a cake for a gay wedding is a sin...or bad in any way at all.
Again flawed logic. There is no reasonable expectation for cake decoration in the Bill or Rights or constitution. It's not a civil right and they aren't Rosa Parks.
This is pretty simple, they had an axe to grind on someone of not like mind and they are grinding it. No worries though, SCOTUS will dull their axe soon enough.
Again, religious freedoms and rights cannot violate someone else's civil rights. End of story. Do you honestly think Jesus would refuse to make the cake? I REALLY doubt it. This idiot is nothing more than a bigot using his religion to justify it. That's all this really boils down to. Maybe he should hang a sign out front saying, "we do not serve gay people". But given that over 60% of the country supports SSM, he would be out of business in a matter of months because NO ONE wants to put money in the pocket of a bigot. Probably why he doesn't hang that sign out there....don't ya think? Likely not.
Such a libelous statement! Unless you can prove that's what he wants?
You do not have a civil right to what someone produces. That insane logic only applies in totalitarian governments where everyone and every business is controlled by the state. Oops, never mind, that's what we have
skirting the CoC [ph]
And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. Epheisans 5:11
fellowship- sygkoinōneō
"to share together with" ( sun "and" No. 1), is translated "communicated with" in Phl 4:14 ; "have fellowship with," Eph 5:11 ; "be... partakers of," Rev 18:4 (RV, "have fellowship"). The thought is that of sharing with others what one has, in order to meet their needs.
That is precisely what the Baker is refusing to do
Have you ever even TRIED gay wedding cake, Larry? It's deeeelicious, let me tell you. Don't knock it until you've tried it!
no thanks
No, but your religious views cannot VIOLATE my civil rights. You are trying to spin it and it's not going to work, sorry.
Why not? It's just a cake? You are aware that you can't catch "the gay", right?
What makes your "right" greater than the bakers religious rights?
It's about the law, the baker broke the law and, now he has to pay the piper.
how was the baker's religious rights violated exactly? Baking a cake is not a religious practice.
More libelous and personal attacks I see. Duly noted.
The baker violated the law.
If he owns and operates a business that serves the public, he does not have the right to associate with whom he chooses. He has to serve everyone equally.
The gay couple was discriminated against in violate of Colorado law. And how has the bakers right's been violated exactly?
Yes we will. Of course, they cannot rule in the baker's favor without trashing every anti-discrimination law out there, or even the Civil Rights Act itself.
sure they can...
Not really. If they rule in favor of the baker's "religious freedom," then that opens the door to violate the law or discriminate against anyone under the guise of "religious freedom."
Again, having a cake decorated is not a civil right. Thinking it that it is remains .... flawed logic.
/facepalm
I know this is hard to understand for you so let me make up an example. Lets say you are my neighbor and my religion says that I must poop on your lawn every day. Would you be ok with it? No. Because it's violating YOUR rights.. You cannot used religious rights and freedoms to violate someone ELSE'S rights. Now do you understand?
So in other words, there is nothing in the bible that says making a cake for a same sex wedding is a sin. Got it.
Violating the law is not a civil right either. Especially when you agreed to abide by it when obtaining a business license.
And an eye roll too. Some people just don't get it. Or refuse to.
Save the sanctimonious attitude for someone who sips on your brand of koolaide. I don't and never will. You can keep thinking you two "get it" but it still doesn't make so. SCOTUS will soon affirm that and then you can bitch about SCOTUS violating made up civil rights.
By the way, Spock would be appalled at your flawed logic as well.
Even more so, as a business owner the services I provide are not "owed" to anyone. I can chose who I serve as long as it doesn't violate anyone's civil right. And once again cake decorations are not a civil right.
Someone comes into my office and tells me I "have to" do business with them and I would just laugh them out of my office.
I don't want anything connected to sexual deviancy
skirting the CoC [ph]
I've had business licenses and not once did I ever have to agree to abide by civil rights laws, especially UnConstitutional ones to obtain that license
what a flawed analogy. NO one has a right to destroy or damage another person's property and you cannot name a single religion that calls for doing so.
Keep thinking that if it makes you feel better.
There are local and state laws associated with business licenses. So when you obtain a business license to operate a business open to the public, you are automatically bound to follow those laws. Don't like it? Then either get out of business or run a members only business.
BTW, how are antidiscrimination and public accommodation laws unconstitutional exactly? It's very telling how you fight antidiscrimination laws.
Thee concept of public accommodation protections of the Civil Rights Act says that you are wrong. The business owner must serve all customers equally when his business is open to the public.
The SCOTUS previously determined that an owners religious beliefs do not give him an exemption to that law in the Piggie Park case. A BBQ joint claimed that because of his religious beliefs he didn't have ti serve black and interracial customers. The court ruled 9-0 saying otherwise. Colorado has a state law that adds LGBT people to those public accommodation protections.
The the teachings of the Bible or any other religious book is not relevant in US secular law. Your religious beliefs do not give you a get out of jail free card, no matter how devout you belief.
I will and soon the truth will set you free as well.
The context of my response was not about making Christian laws. It was a challenge from Mr Frost to respond on where the Bible says not to associate with homosexuals.
That comment reveals that you don't understand what public accommodations laws are or how they work.
And yes, public accommodations laws are about civil rights. The federal one is actually called the Civil Rights Act and it does indeed pertain to things like public transportation.
I like women and always have. I am so glad that I am a normal person, and that I don't have to go out looking every day for ways to be offended.
Right???!!! Me too! So glad I am not left handed, blue eyed, blonde, farsighted, etc... Those people are weird!!!!!
Wedding cakes are over rated
Wedding cakes are yummy, gay OR straight!