Religious beliefs, gay rights clash in court case over cake
Source: AP
By IVAN MORENO
DENVER (AP) A case that tests the boundaries of religious freedom and gay rights came to the Colorado Court of Appeals on Tuesday, with a suburban Denver baker urging judges not to force him to make cakes for same-sex couples because it would violate his beliefs.
But attorneys representing a gay couple who were denied a wedding cake in 2012 countered that allowing businesses to turn away customers through religious exemptions will facilitate future discrimination.
"Religious beliefs do not put the cake shop above the law," argued Ria Mar, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney representing the couple. The court will issue a ruling later.
The case underscores how the already simmering tension between religious-freedom advocates and gay-rights supporters is likely to become more heated in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark ruling last month legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide.
FULL story at link.
File - In this March 10, 2014 file photo, Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips decorates a cake inside his store, in Lakewood, Colo. Phillips, who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple, is to argue Tuesday, July 7, 2015 before the Colorado Court of Appeals that his religious beliefs should protect him from sanctions against his business. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, file)
Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/c185529d814046498c552ea4310f2a0e/gay-wedding-cake-center-colorado-appeals-court-case
bucolic_frolic
(43,420 posts)When did business become a religious enterprise?
He bakes his religious beliefs into the cake? How does he do that?
Once again, this is about boundaries, property rights.
You bake a cake. You sell the cake. You don't own it anymore.
DallasNE
(7,404 posts)Established a business as a religious enterprise with deeply held religious beliefs. Citizens United established businesses as people. The same principle as with the Dred-Scott decision all of those decades ago.
bucolic_frolic
(43,420 posts)One reads about the cases, and it's a case, but painted with a broad brush
that shows the principles established, it's a beachhead.
So if someone formed a religion that believed all customers must show
political affiliation and one party or the other is charged double, that would
be ok, if it were a religious belief? Morally some people can afford more.
Traffic tickets are you know, $300. It's two weeks pay to small fry, it's
an hours work for a doctor/lawyer/shrink/hedge fund trader. Why not a
% of income when tickets are paid. Then it would mean something.
24601
(3,963 posts)going up progressively to mandatory death if they make more than $250,000 per year?
Because while you can discriminate as a private citizen, the state doesn't have that luxury.
bucolic_frolic
(43,420 posts)Fines that are a heavy burden on the poor and half an hour's work for the
rich might be viewed as discriminatory - depends on who you ask.
Should fines be absolute, or an equal burden based on pay?
bucolic_frolic
(43,420 posts)when viewed from that standpoint.
All taxes should be equal in that view, say the first $5,000.00
of income and we'll call it square?
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)If he's being asked to create a cake with a customized message celebrating something his religion opposes, it's not the most trivial argument in the world.
On the other hand, if he's refusing to sell any kind of cake with a wedding theme to a same-sex couple, he's hosed.
yardwork
(61,736 posts)The Sweet Cakes case involved the owner turning away one of the brides and her mother when they showed up for their cake tasting appointment. The customers never even had a chance to request a cake. They were turned away solely because they were a same-sex couple, and the owner told them that. He lost in court.
I think that some people equate being gay with requesting obscene messages on cakes. This is insulting.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)but also freedom of expression.
Hard to imagine Jewish screenwriters being forced to work on a remake of Triumph of the Will?
Status-based discrimination--as you pointed out--is a much different situation.
yardwork
(61,736 posts)Each of these cases involve gay people being turned away solely because of who they are. If business owners are allowed to do so, then it is also suddenly legal again to post signs saying "whites only" or "no Irish need apply."
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)case.
catrose
(5,075 posts)Aren't screenwriters contractors, who can decide what they want to work on (within the limits of what they're offered)?
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)gets tricky . . .
catrose
(5,075 posts)But, no, I'd still have to type them. I shall refrain and leave it to more qualified humorists.
DallasNE
(7,404 posts)Because that would apply to Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, etc. themed cakes and his objection is only to sexual orientation.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Someone upthread posted that he's refusing to do anything for a same-sex wedding, not just refusing to provide a customized message. In that case, I don't see much of a defense at all.
yardwork
(61,736 posts)In this case, as with the others, the owner simply refused to bake a cake for the wedding, solely because the couple is gay.
No offensive message on the cake was requested. The comparisons to Jewish bakers being forced to write anti-Semitic messages or Muslims being forced to serve pork are not relevant. These cases are exactly comparable to a baker turning away a black couple because "I don't do weddings for black people because of my religion." That argument was used in the 1960s.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)my initial "depends on" turns out to have been moot
Response to yardwork (Reply #26)
Name removed Message auto-removed
yardwork
(61,736 posts)christx30
(6,241 posts)you don't sell the cake, you still own it.
Dark n Stormy Knight
(9,771 posts)Or does he just not like homosexuals? I can't say I know for sure, but I've got a pretty strong hunch about this.
brooklynite
(94,851 posts)restorefreedom
(12,655 posts)apparently that is not an issue for them, even though divorce is mentioned a lot more than same sex relationships in the bible.
Dark n Stormy Knight
(9,771 posts)Thieving, lying, and adulterating are. Which is why I used those who commit those "sins".
brooklynite
(94,851 posts)But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Dark n Stormy Knight
(9,771 posts)divroce is ridiculous.
But, I wasn't focusing on that aspect of their hypocrisy. I was referring to the hypocrisy of claiming they can't bake a cake for a gay couple because that couple is violating a religious tenet that's important to them, yet, they don't refuse to serve those who violate other tenets they claim to care about.
Again, I see the point about the hypocrisy of objecting to only select things the bible proscribes, that just wasn't my point.
Yo_Mama
(8,303 posts)or couple. (If I have this right.)
It is that they won't bake a customized cake designed to celebrate a same-sex marriage because their religious beliefs prohibit them from endorsing or supporting such an occasion.
That precise argument has been rejected in wedding-cake cases before.
yardwork
(61,736 posts)In fact, they are refusing to bake any wedding cake at all for a same-sex couple. Customization didn't have time to come into it in this case, or the case in Oregon. The customers were turned away simply for being gay.
Merchants have the right to refuse to customize something they are opposed to expressing. A baker has the right to refuse to put an obscene message on a cake, but they don't have the right to turn a customer away simply for being gay.
In fact, it is insulting to suppose that gay people are any more likely to request an obscene message than anybody else. We just want a wedding cake. Like everybody else gets to buy.
randys1
(16,286 posts)Dark n Stormy Knight
(9,771 posts)I know how important they are to him. No selling to sinners!
DallasNE
(7,404 posts)Between making a cake for a gay couple and a black or mixed couple? How can the courts split this hair? It looks illogical. And what happened to "one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all". I don't see where the word "except" is written in there anywhere. Can "whites only" be a deeply held religious belief once again? How can the courts even consider going down this slippery slope.
restorefreedom
(12,655 posts)thats why this battle has been won over and over again.
these people want to return to some time long past, when they felt freer to hate and discriminate.
Response to DallasNE (Reply #3)
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Elmer S. E. Dump
(5,751 posts)This ass just doesn't want to be around gay people. Probably confused by his own precarious sexuality.
House of Roberts
(5,191 posts)and the business license says the business must obey all the laws, he either makes the cake, or surrenders the license.
DavidDvorkin
(19,500 posts)I seem to remember that he was in trouble before for something similar.
bullsnarfle
(254 posts)is discrimination, and this sure fits the bill, no question.
On the other hand, I sure as hell would not want some right-wing xtian nut-bar to bake a cake for my wedding, especially if they felt they were being "forced" to. I'd be too afraid that they would spit in it (or worse... shudder).
christx30
(6,241 posts)to said that he complied with the order, but could be very bland, in both taste and looks. If he's being forced into it, he's not going to put his full concentration or effort into it. Kind of a "I'm just here so I don't get fined"
"A cake is flour, sugar, egg, and butter. You have all of that there. Since I didn't really give a crap, it'll be $12, for the ingredients."
ProudToBeBlueInRhody
(16,399 posts)HFRN
(1,469 posts)i sure as heck wouldn't want anyone to be part of my wedding, if they didn't respect the union, publicly or privately
yardwork
(61,736 posts)No, I don't want to spend money in a business that hates me. But even less do I want to have to cringe every time I enter a business, wondering if they are going to humiliate me and my family by refusing to serve me.
Nobody should have to put up with that.