quote:

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Originally posted by stonespring:
Has anyone discussed this court case?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/19/us/weighing-free-speech-in-refusal-to-photograph-ceremony.html?_r=0

What is interesting is that the photographers' justification of refusing to photograph a same-sex wedding is not based on free expression of religion, but instead on their right to control the editorial content of the works of art they produce (of the "stories they tell"). Could the same argument be used in court to justify refusal to photograph an interracial marriage, an interfaith or avowedly atheist marriage, a marriage of first cousins where that is legal, or a marriage of two divorced persons?

On the other hand, should the law call it discrimination if a wedding singer refuses to perform at a wedding ceremony with white supremacist elements? No, you might say, because the photographer's refusal is clearly based on an ideology that s/he does not portrayed in his/her work, and not on the gender or another immutable aspect of the clients.

Can the gender and sexual orientation of a same-sex couple getting married - which is part of their unchangeable identity and harmful to no one and hence something that should not be discriminated against - be separated from the "narrative" that same-sex marriage is religiously possible and acceptable that the photographers do not want to portray?

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The problem for the wedding photographer here is that she is not "telling a story" in the manner a documentary, press or art photographer might. She is documenting a ceremony. If a story is told, it will be the couple telling the story.
Her rights end at the point she created a business in a state which does not allow her to discriminate. If her " principles" are that strong, she should have started a different business.
In the wedding singer example, distasteful as it is, the singer could also not discriminate. She could certainly refuse certain songs, but as long as the ceremony contained no illegal elements, I am not sure she would have any grounds for refusal either.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
To take a more serious example, there are restaurants and even banks in this town that won't serve my mixed race family. I may point and laugh, or write nasty reviews on the internet, but in the end it is their freedom--freedom even to make asses of themselves. For me to try to force such people would be as small-minded and inexcusable as they are.

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Originally posted by Josephine:


What kind of work should a photographer, baker, printer, tattoo artist, musician be free to reject?

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Clearly i.m not ideologically correct. But you are referencing a world where huge swathes of vital human services were being denied across the board to black people, causing a significant harmful impact on their lives thereby.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
But a wedding photographer or a baker, seriously?

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Originally posted by mdijon:
Aren't musicians artists?

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All sorts of responses fly through my mind.
Seriously, yes of course. But at a wedding this is not the primary purpose. And I think this is the primary consideration. Regardless of the intent to create art, when a service is the primary negotiation, discrimination laws have primacy.
 

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Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
I think the point is that although the product may be art and there may be legitimate freedom of speech (i.e. you can't force a musician to play music they don't want to play - unless they are an organist in the C of E perhaps), on the other hand if they are a band-for-hire they can't choose which weddings to play at based on skin colour or sexual orientation.

I take Snags point that businesses can't be forced to do business, but as Snags says they can be forced not to engage in racial or other forms of discrimination.
 

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
Starlight, thank you. I had never heard the term "minority stress" before. It will be helpful for discussion in my multicultural education class.
 

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Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
ISTM, the court opinion got it right.

quote:

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The court agreed, to a point. “If Elane Photography took photographs on its own time and sold them at a gallery,” it said, then it could say what it liked, but a business open to the public must take all comers.

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Justice Richard C. Bosson concurred with the majority opinion, but uneasily.

“The Huguenins are not trying to prohibit anyone from marrying,” he wrote. “They only want to be left alone to conduct their photography business in a manner consistent with their moral convictions.” Instead, they “are compelled by law to compromise the very religious beliefs that inspire their lives.”

“Though the rule of law requires it,” Justice Bosson wrote, “the result is sobering.”

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quote:

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
However, I do not agree with this judge's qualified endorsement.

quote:

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Justice Richard C. Bosson concurred with the majority opinion, but uneasily.

“The Huguenins are not trying to prohibit anyone from marrying,” he wrote. “They only want to be left alone to conduct their photography business in a manner consistent with their moral convictions.” Instead, they “are compelled by law to compromise the very religious beliefs that inspire their lives.”

“Though the rule of law requires it,” Justice Bosson wrote, “the result is sobering.”

---

If the Huguenins gave a moral questionnaire to every potential client, they would at least be consistent. But, as mentioned above and demonstrated on the cake thread, this is not the case. So, this photographer has very likely "promoted" morals she did not approve, but never bothered to ascertain.

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• A sincere belief that blacks are soulless animals and Jews are the literal descendants of Satan, thus refusing to either hire or do business with either
• A belief that God is opposed to the minimum wage and business taxes
• Man has dominion over the world and can do what he likes with it, therefore pollution standards are against God's will.

quote:

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posted by mdijon
...you can't force a musician to play music they don't want to play - unless they are an organist in the C of E perhaps...

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Originally posted by Starlight:
Lamb Chopped,

I see the law as basically saying "professionals much act in a professional manner", and I see that as being a very reasonable requirement. So your complaints about it "forcing" them to act professionally make me roll my eyes - yes it does, and of course it should, force them to act professionally.

While the laws vary between countries, commonly there are a list of criteria on which discrimination is forbidden - eg gender, race, nationality, religion, sexuality etc, and beyond that businesses are encouraged to discriminate as to what business transactions they choose to engage in. So your examples of being forced to take on other types of business you disagree with seem irrelevant, because the law is not at all forcing you to do so. Indeed, in the examples you give, producing hate-speech materials or paedophilia-related ones is likely illegal in many Western countries anyway.

More interesting is the question of what things merit entry into the list of things protected from discrimination (and whether sexuality should be in it). From what you have said, you seem to object to anti-discrimination laws in general, and thus I assume you believe that there should be no entries in the list of prohibited discrimination criteria, and thus that everyone should be free to discriminate as much as they like against women, against black people etc.

The reason that items on that list have made it there historically, is that some group has suffered ongoing and extensive discrimination which has been clearly harmful to them which has led to such discrimination being banned in order to protect them, and ensure they are properly treated as people. Typically the discrimination towards these groups was not based on any legitimate reasons but rather the product of irrational prejudice and ignorance. It is clear, for example, that black people in the US were suffering discrimination in all aspects of their daily lives, and legislation was a necessary part of ensuring they could live their lives normally. Likewise it seems pretty clear gay people have been suffering extensive discrimination from the ignorant and bigoted and that this has been extremely harmful to them.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Croesos, I am suggesting that as long as reasonable alternatives exist, using the force of law to compel private business owners to serve everyone regardless of their own beliefs is a bad idea.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
If the discrimination is of such a widespread, continuing, and serious nature that it is causing damage to people, by all means regulate. But if we're talking about the occasional asshole, let assholes be assholes and allow public opinion to take care of them.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Ah, the curse of forgetting things. Since when were wedding photographers, bakers, etc. professionals? To the best of my knowledge they are neither licensed nor regulated by any professional society as doctors and lawyers are. And for good reason, as their activities are much less likely to lead to serious harm if carried out poorly.

The professions carry a greater weight of responsibility because of the consequences to their clients/patients/parishioners if they screw up. The general run-of-the-mill business owner? not so much.

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"Professional" is one of those words that has changed meaning a great deal over time. You're using it here in its older meaning. But these days it basically means doing something for a living.

cf 'professional athlete'.

[ 24. November 2013, 01:14: Message edited by: orfeo ]
 

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
What the hell is a nonprofessional business?
 

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Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
 
[tangent] Lambchopped, I wish you would drop a quiet line to Denny's corporate office. Give names and dates. The Denny's chain went through a BIG workover on racial issues a number of years ago, and I doubt that you would even have to breathe the word lawsuit to get them to drop like a ton of bricks on your local freak show. Think of the children. [/tangent]
 

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Posted by Antisocial Alto (# 13810) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I have made no such judgements. I have simply commented on what seems to me the folly of attempting to use the law to force private, non-professional businesses to keep to the same "take all comers" approach that is appropriate for government and vital health and wellness services.

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quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
"Professional" is one of those words that has changed meaning a great deal over time. You're using it here in its older meaning. But these days it basically means doing something for a living.

cf 'professional athlete'.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Ah, the curse of forgetting things. Since when were wedding photographers, bakers, etc. professionals? To the best of my knowledge they are neither licensed nor regulated by any professional society as doctors and lawyers are. And for good reason, as their activities are much less likely to lead to serious harm if carried out poorly.

The professions carry a greater weight of responsibility because of the consequences to their clients/patients/parishioners if they screw up. The general run-of-the-mill business owner? not so much.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
And if you think being part of an interracial marriage involves a small amount of discrimination, particularly when one is the female partner, think again.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Remember, too, that these are not people who see ethics as a choice that can be changed.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Ah well, i suppose this dinosaur ought to bow out. But you do realize that if you can create a world where nobody is permitted to follow personal ethics in business, however wrongheaded those might be, under threat of law, you will have also prevented those people from most forms of making a living? Remember, too, that these are not people who see ethics as a choice that can be changed.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
But you do realize that if you can create a world where nobody is permitted to follow personal ethics in business, however wrongheaded those might be, under threat of law, you will have also prevented those people from most forms of making a living?

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quote:

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Remember, too, that these are not people who see ethics as a choice that can be changed.

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Originally posted by Porridge:
I work for a not-for-profit which serves people with disabilities. My clients deal with discrimination constantly and know more about this than I ever will.

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Originally posted by mousethief:
What the hell is a nonprofessional business?

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
A rule that says that some are allowed to discriminate, because some don't, sounds truly bizarre. And also, actually truly horrible. I mean it would produce a really ghastly culture, and place to live. Imagine that some businesses didn't serve gays/blacks, and some did? Good grief, it sounds like hell to me, or rather like 1950s England.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:

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Originally posted by Porridge:
I work for a not-for-profit which serves people with disabilities. My clients deal with discrimination constantly and know more about this than I ever will.

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Porridge: There have been a couple of recent cases involving racist patients in hospitals attempting to refuse service from black medical staff. Have you had any of your clients attempt to refuse help from a particular member of your staff because of his/her race, sexuality or whatever? How do you deal with it?

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
But you do realize that if you can create a world where nobody is permitted to follow personal ethics in business, however wrongheaded those might be, under threat of law, you will have also prevented those people from most forms of making a living?

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Originally posted by Porridge:

That said, I have had an occasional client (or on occasion, one of their family members) complain about the "chinks" (my Nepali staff) or "the fatso" (a plump staffer) I assign to assist them.
[..snip a long and sensible response..]

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
But what's the difference? If the singer has religious objections to gay marriage, how is playing such a leading role at a gay wedding better than singing a hymn with bad theology?

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
Let's consider a different example - imagine a singer who advertises herself as available to sing solos at weddings.

Can the singer refuse a hire from a gay couple because she's opposed to same-sex marriage on religious grounds? Most would say no.

Can the singer refuse to sing particular songs on religious grounds (if they express a theology she doesn't hold, say)? At least some people have suggested "yes".

But what's the difference? If the singer has religious objections to gay marriage, how is playing such a leading role at a gay wedding better than singing a hymn with bad theology?

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Originally posted by Taliesin:
As a photographer, I'd be refusing boudoir shoots, go to someone who's ok with it, cos there are lots who are very happy, believe me.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Taliesin:
if I pierced ears for a living, I think I'd be refusing children under 5.

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Originally posted by Taliesin:
As a photographer, I'd be refusing boudoir shoots, go to someone who's ok with it, cos there are lots who are very happy, believe me.

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Originally posted by Taliesin:
...if I pierced ears for a living, I think I'd be refusing children under 5. As a photographer, I'd be refusing boudoir shoots, go to someone who's ok with it, cos there are lots who are very happy, believe me.

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quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
because 'attending a State dinner' is not any kind of service or business.

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Originally posted by Starlight:

I guess I don't see why alleged followers of Christianity so often seem to end up with the attitude that it's their personal duty to be nasty toward anyone whose conduct they feel God disapproves of... what exactly do they feel their nastiness achieves except for hurting people?

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
Isn't there a case that by helping to celebrate a gay wedding, you create an ambiguous impression that homosexuality might be OK after all, and so will help to tempt some of your fellows towards the belief that gay is OK? There probably isn't this danger in the case of a Muslim couple, say, as nobody would think that a Christian helping to celebrate a Muslim wedding was endorsing Islam.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

Isn't there a case that by helping to celebrate a gay wedding, you create an ambiguous impression that homosexuality might be OK after all, and so will help to tempt some of your fellows towards the belief that gay is OK?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
There probably isn't this danger in the case of a Muslim couple, say, as nobody would think that a Christian helping to celebrate a Muslim wedding was endorsing Islam.

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Originally posted by mousethief:
I'm not going to tempt people to become gay by arranging flowers for a gay wedding, because that's not how gay works.

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I have a great image of Prince Charles sticking his chin out and asking "Who's going to make one?".

And of the Chinese premier provocatively pointing to his face and eyes saying "'s cos a this init? you gotta problem with this?"

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(I hadn't really noticed Prince Charles has a chin...)

But seriously... isn't that what civilization is all about? Treating other people with respect, whether you think they deserve it or not?
 

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Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
Isn't there a case that by helping to celebrate a gay wedding, you create an ambiguous impression that homosexuality might be OK after all ...

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quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
There probably isn't this danger in the case of a Muslim couple, say, as nobody would think that a Christian helping to celebrate a Muslim wedding was endorsing Islam.

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Why not? Or, more to the point, what's the reasoning there and why doesn't the same thinking apply to same-sex weddings?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
Isn't there a case that by helping to celebrate a gay wedding, you create an ambiguous impression that homosexuality might be OK after all, and so will help to tempt some of your fellows towards the belief that gay is OK? There probably isn't this danger in the case of a Muslim couple, say, as nobody would think that a Christian helping to celebrate a Muslim wedding was endorsing Islam.

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quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
But the very root cause of this problem is that many people still believe that is how gay works. The notion that giving 'approval' to homosexuality will have consequences is part and parcel of the idea that people choose to become homosexual. Make homosexuality more attractive in some way, any way, and there'll be more homosexuals.

That you and I find this reasoning process bonkers is not in dispute, but that's the reasoning process. The fundamental premise that all of this 'we must indicate our disapproval' thinking is built on is that gay is a choice. Hence, the theory goes, we must indicate our disapproval in order to discourage people from choosing to be gay.

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quote:

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isn't that what civilization is all about? Treating other people with respect, whether you think they deserve it or not?

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Originally posted by Jane R:
Like Josephine, I take the view that if you're the hired help you should do your utmost to make the wedding a happy experience for everyone. Whatever your private opinion of the happy couple.

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Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jane R:
Like Josephine, I take the view that if you're the hired help you should do your utmost to make the wedding a happy experience for everyone. Whatever your private opinion of the happy couple.

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That's fine in itself. I do have qualms, though, about being forced to be a happy, smiley hired help on pain of losing your business.

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Originally posted by mousethief:
Is believing that Gay is OK the sin, or being gay? I'm getting confused.

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By publicly refusing to, I tempt people to be judgmental and spiteful against gays.

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Originally posted by Jane R:
If you find it impossible to be a happy smiley hired help except at weddings you approve of, you're in the wrong business.

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
When an Orthodox or Catholic Christian "publicly refuses" to receive communion in a protestant church, does that tempt people to be judgmental and spiteful against protestants? At some level, yes.

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Originally posted by Anglican't:
... I do have qualms, though, about being forced to be a happy, smiley hired help on pain of losing your business.

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You do realize that this is what every employee in the service industry does every day for each and every customer, right? It's not a great moral crisis, it's just part of a day's work.
 

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Soror Magna:

quote:

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Originally posted by Anglican't:
... I do have qualms, though, about being forced to be a happy, smiley hired help on pain of losing your business.

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You do realize that this is what every employee in the service industry does every day for each and every customer, right? It's not a great moral crisis, it's just part of a day's work.

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Nailed it.
 

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Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on :
 
Thank you, Mousethief. In answer to your question:

quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
I'm not even sure what behavior would constitute publicly refusing to receive communion in a protestant church? Does everybody who is there receive communion every single time? How would anybody know, if I were at a Protestant church, that I was not receiving the eucharist? How would any of my fellow Orthodoxen or Catholickers know?

I don't get this at all.

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The only time I've seen any kind of to-do about who takes Communion was at a church where members were required to attend a certain number of services in the year and they had to fill out little cards and put them in the collection plate each time they took Communion. Which is obviously just too weird for me, since it always made me wonder what the door prize was.

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quote:

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"At first blush, it may seem reasonable that a private business should be able to refuse service to anyone it chooses," Spencer [the judge] wrote in his 13-page ruling.

"This view, however, fails to take into account the cost to society and the hurt caused to persons who are denied service simply because of who they are."

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Originally posted by Anglican't:
If a couple in matching Che Guevara t-shirts entered a bakery, should an anti-communist baker have the right to ask them to leave if he wants? If they ask for a Lenin birthday cake, should he have the right to refuse them?

If a dedicated climate change activist entered the same shop, should the baker have the right to refuse to make a cake on the theme of anthropogenic global warming?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Soror Magna:
The only time I've seen any kind of to-do about who takes Communion was at a church where members were required to attend a certain number of services in the year and they had to fill out little cards and put them in the collection plate each time they took Communion. Which is obviously just too weird for me, since it always made me wonder what the door prize was.

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quote:

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Originally posted by stonespring:

quote:

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Originally posted by Anglican't:
If a couple in matching Che Guevara t-shirts entered a bakery, should an anti-communist baker have the right to ask them to leave if he wants? If they ask for a Lenin birthday cake, should he have the right to refuse them?

If a dedicated climate change activist entered the same shop, should the baker have the right to refuse to make a cake on the theme of anthropogenic global warming?

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Being a Che Guevara fan or a believer in anthropogenic climate change is not an inherent immutable quality of who someone is. Sexual orientation is, though, and being able to marry is a fundamental right. That is why it is different.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:

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Originally posted by stonespring:
[QUOTE]Being a Che Guevara fan or a believer in anthropogenic climate change is not an inherent immutable quality of who someone is. Sexual orientation is, though, and being able to marry is a fundamental right. That is why it is different.

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Anti-discrimination laws don't depend on the characteristics in question being "immutable". If that were the case, religious discrimination would be legal. After all, people do change religions.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:

---

Originally posted by stonespring:

quote:

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Originally posted by Anglican't:
If a couple in matching Che Guevara t-shirts entered a bakery, should an anti-communist baker have the right to ask them to leave if he wants? If they ask for a Lenin birthday cake, should he have the right to refuse them?

If a dedicated climate change activist entered the same shop, should the baker have the right to refuse to make a cake on the theme of anthropogenic global warming?

---

Being a Che Guevara fan or a believer in anthropogenic climate change is not an inherent immutable quality of who someone is. Sexual orientation is, though, and being able to marry is a fundamental right. That is why it is different.

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Anti-discrimination laws don't depend on the characteristics in question being "immutable". If that were the case, religious discrimination would be legal. After all, people do change religions.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Anglican't:
If a couple in matching Che Guevara t-shirts entered a bakery, should an anti-communist baker have the right to ask them to leave if he wants? If they ask for a Lenin birthday cake, should he have the right to refuse them?

If a dedicated climate change activist entered the same shop, should the baker have the right to refuse to make a cake on the theme of anthropogenic global warming?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Soror Magna:

quote:

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Originally posted by Anglican't:
... I do have qualms, though, about being forced to be a happy, smiley hired help on pain of losing your business.

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You do realize that this is what every employee in the service industry does every day for each and every customer, right? It's not a great moral crisis, it's just part of a day's work.

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Apparently not for some...


 

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Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Anglican't:
If a couple in matching Che Guevara t-shirts entered a bakery, should an anti-communist baker have the right to ask them to leave if he wants? If they ask for a Lenin birthday cake, should he have the right to refuse them?

If a dedicated climate change activist entered the same shop, should the baker have the right to refuse to make a cake on the theme of anthropogenic global warming?

---

The reason these refusals wouldn't be discrimination is nothing to do with immutability. As noted above a customer doesn't have the right to demand particular versions of the goods a business might provide, but they do have the right not to be discriminated against as a person.

So the Che Guevara fans can't demand a Lenin cake, but they can expect not to be ejected simply because they are Che Guevara fans.

Likewise the baker can refuse to do a global warming cake, but can't refuse to do a cake full stop on the basis of the customer's belief in global warming.

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quote:

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(Then again there was the Judge (I think it was a state judge, not federal, but I may be wrong who said that no child could be named Messiah because only Jesus is the messiah - but that ruling was condemned by almost all her fellow judges (think of all the people named Jesus in this country) and is sure to be overtuned on appeal.)

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quote:

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Originally posted by stonespring:
Could a Jewish baker refuse to make a cake saying, "Jesus is Lord" for the wedding of Christian couple who wanted to emphasize their mutual faith as part of their wedding?

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quote:

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The ALJ*, however, rejects Respondents’ argument that preparing a wedding cake is necessarily a medium of expression amounting to protected “speech,” or that compelling Respondents to treat same-sex and heterosexual couples equally is the equivalent of forcing Respondents to adhere to “an ideological point of view.” There is no doubt that decorating a wedding cake involves considerable skill and artistry. However, the finished product does not necessarily qualify as “speech,” as would saluting a flag, marching in a parade, or displaying a motto.

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They did so and made them all sit down. And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd.

“Hold on a minute, there, Jesus,” the twelve said. “Some of these people might be sinners and people we disapprove of. Feeding them all would be like opening a store and having to sell your wares to everyone who came in, without discriminating between the worthy and unworthy customers. That violates our religious liberty.”

And they became angry and refused to go in.

And Jesus said “Is it right for you to be angry about these loaves and cakes?”

And they said, “Yes, angry enough to die. Religious liberty, dammit, religious liberty.”

And Jesus said, “I do not think those words mean what you think they mean.”

And he set the loaves and fishes before the crowd by himself. And all ate and were filled.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:

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Originally posted by stonespring:
Could a Jewish baker refuse to make a cake saying, "Jesus is Lord" for the wedding of Christian couple who wanted to emphasize their mutual faith as part of their wedding?

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Assuming that making cakes with messages is part of the hypothetical Jewish baker's usual range of services, refusing all non-Jewish religious messages probably constitutes religious discrimination. Interestingly enough, just such a cake case was decided last Friday by Colorado's Administrative Law Court [PDF]. Colorado does not recognize the legality of same-sex marriage, but does have a statute forbidding discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. A relevant section:

quote:

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The ALJ*, however, rejects Respondents’ argument that preparing a wedding cake is necessarily a medium of expression amounting to protected “speech,” or that compelling Respondents to treat same-sex and heterosexual couples equally is the equivalent of forcing Respondents to adhere to “an ideological point of view.” There is no doubt that decorating a wedding cake involves considerable skill and artistry. However, the finished product does not necessarily qualify as “speech,” as would saluting a flag, marching in a parade, or displaying a motto.

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I'm pretty sure no one takes the message on the cake to be an assertion of either fact or opinion being expressed by the baker. No one thinks the baker is checking to make sure that Sylvia is really twenty-nine like it says on the cake rather than thirty-one like it says on her birth certificate, or that he truly believes a cake's intended recipient really is "The World's Best Grandpa".


--------------------
*"ALJ" stands for Administrative Law Judge, the official title of the adjudicating official in this case.

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quote:

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Originally posted by stonespring:
But a baker could surely refuse to decorate a wedding cake with genitalita-shaped frosting all over for a couple who requested it. So cake-baking is speech of a sort.

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quote:

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Respondents refused to bake any cake for Complainants regardless of what was written on it or what it looked like. Respondents have no free speech right to refuse because they were only asked to bake a cake, not make a speech.

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quote:

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That, however, is not the case here. In this case, Respondents' objection to same-sex marriage is inextricably tied to the sexual orientation of the parties involved, and therefore disfavor of the parties' sexual orientation may be presumed. Justice Scalia, the author of the majority opinion in Bray, recognized that "some activities may be such an irrational object of disfavor that, if they are targeted, and if they also happen to be engaged in exclusively or predominantly by a particular class of people, an intent to disfavor that class can readily be presumed. A tax on wearing yarmulkes is a tax on Jews." Id. at 270. Similarly, the ALJ concludes that discrimination against same-sex weddings is the equivalent of discrimination due to sexual orientation.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
I'm pretty sure no one takes the message on the cake to be an assertion of either fact or opinion being expressed by the baker. No one thinks the baker is checking to make sure that Sylvia is really twenty-nine like it says on the cake rather than thirty-one like it says on her birth certificate, or that he truly believes a cake's intended recipient really is "The World's Best Grandpa".

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
You could, and the Respondents did, argue that discriminating against same-sex weddings is not the same as discriminating against homosexuals, but the ALJ deals with that argument as well.

quote:

---

That, however, is not the case here. In this case, Respondents' objection to same-sex marriage is inextricably tied to the sexual orientation of the parties involved, and therefore disfavor of the parties' sexual orientation may be presumed. Justice Scalia, the author of the majority opinion in Bray, recognized that "some activities may be such an irrational object of disfavor that, if they are targeted, and if they also happen to be engaged in exclusively or predominantly by a particular class of people, an intent to disfavor that class can readily be presumed. A tax on wearing yarmulkes is a tax on Jews." Id. at 270. Similarly, the ALJ concludes that discrimination against same-sex weddings is the equivalent of discrimination due to sexual orientation.

---

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quote:

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I'm also surprised that many people think it's totally irrelevant that the photographer's refusal probably wouldn't have been particularly burdensome the couple's wedding plans.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Planeta Plicata:
Surely it's not the case that the government can compel expression in cases where there's no chance that people will believe that the compelled expression is actually endorsed by the person being compelled.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Planeta Plicata:
I'm also surprised that many people think it's totally irrelevant that the photographer's refusal probably wouldn't have been particularly burdensome the couple's wedding plans. (One of the amicus briefs asking the US Supreme Court to grant cert noted that there were over 100 wedding photographers near Albuquerque, many of whom would probably have been willing to photograph the wedding.) Again, the Supreme Court hasn't historically found the burdensomenes of the discrimination irrelevant in determining whether the government can prohibit it: the cases that held that banning discrimination in public accommodations was constitutional (Katzenbach, Heart of Atlanta Motel, etc.) relied heavily on the evidence compiled by the government detailing the difficulties African Americans faced due to widespread discrimination in public accommodations.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Jane R:
Planeta Pilatica:

quote:

---

I'm also surprised that many people think it's totally irrelevant that the photographer's refusal probably wouldn't have been particularly burdensome the couple's wedding plans.

---

I'm surprised that so many people think the photographer is entitled to be an arsehole when turning down business.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Planeta Plicata:
Surely it's not the case that the government can compel expression in cases where there's no chance that people will believe that the compelled expression is actually endorsed by the person being compelled.

---

Surely it is. Tobacco warning labels come to mind as an obvious example.

---

quote:

---

And yet the "discrimination is okay provided there is some kind of separate, but no doubt totally equal, accommodation available" is widely regarded as one of the most morally and legally bankrupt concepts in U.S. law. I can't think of a U.S. case more reviled and rejected than Plessy v. Fergusson (though there are a few that are equally reviled), yet here you are endorsing its underlying tenets.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Planeta Plicata:
[Yeah, so I'm actually not for reasons so numerous and obvious that I suspect this is just a rhetorical flourish, but the most obvious is that Plessy and Brown (and Bolling—everyone forgets about that one) involved state action. The equal protection clause only applies to actions by the government: a schoolteacher can't be nasty to the black students in his class but people (horrible people) are free not to make friends with black people. People have an expectation of equal treatment from their government—which, after all, they vote for and pay taxes to—that they don't necessarily have from other people. That's why public universities can only use affirmative action subject to certain strict constraints while private universities have a freer hand.

Cases like this involve a different question: whether the government can pass laws compelling people not to discriminate.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Planeta Plicata:
Cases like this involve a different question: whether the government can pass laws compelling people not to discriminate.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Planeta Plicata:
Obviously in some cases they can (employers, university admissions, etc.), but whether they can when the requirement not to discriminate conflicts with other constitutional rights—even granting that we're talking about the constitutional rights of bad people—is an open question, at least outside of New Mexico.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The government regulates business. Until such time as they do not, they can compell business owners to comply with law.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crœsos:
I'm not sure "running a business without being answerable to the law" is really a constitutional right.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Planeta Plicata:
Cases like this involve a different question: whether the government can pass laws compelling people not to discriminate.

---

Actually it's a question of whether government can pass laws compelling businesses not to discriminate, in this case ones that fall under the general rubric of "public accommodations".

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Planeta Plicata:
The fact that a business is a "public accommodation" is irrelevant to the constitutional analysis here: this case doesn't involve the federal government trying to regulate businesses through the Commerce Clause. State governments like New Mexico's are entitled to regulate people and businesses (whether they're public accommodations or not) under their general police powers except where the regulation is inconsistent with the constitutional right of the business or person being regulated—here, the photographer's First Amendment rights.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crœsos:
Except there's no clause in the First Amendment protecting the right to engage in discriminatory business practices.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Planeta Plicata:
The New Mexico Supreme Court decision attempts to distinguish Hurley and similar cases on the dubious ground that for profit public accommodations have more limited First Amendment rights than other public accommodations. I'm not sure why that matters; it's certainly not the case in other areas of First Amendment law, for good reason.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
This is usually a recognition of the fact that not-for-profit organizations often exist to promote a specific agenda and are often granted exemptions to discrimination laws germane to that purpose. (E.g. churches are exempt from religious anti-discrimination laws when selecting clergy, to cite an obvious situation where a not-for-profit organization has broader First Amendment latitude than a for-profit corporation would.) For-profit organizations theoretically exist for the purpose of generating profits and are not given the same exemptions. There's a related discussion on this thread.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Planeta Plicata:
I agree that that's one reason why legislatures often choose to write such exemptions into statutes (as they did with the PPACA) but I don't see why the constitutional analysis would distinguish between for-profit and non-profit public accommodations.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Planeta Plicata:
In fact, in cases like this, the fact that the defendant is a for-profit company arguably strengthens the case that the defendant is engaged in protected viewpoint advocacy: it's actually turning down money from a paying customer in order to express its views, or to avoid expressing views it disagrees with (or, if you like, to discriminate against a gay couple).

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Planeta Plicata:
I agree that that's one reason why legislatures often choose to write such exemptions into statutes (as they did with the PPACA) but I don't see why the constitutional analysis would distinguish between for-profit and non-profit public accommodations.

---

I could be argued (and, in fact, I do argue) that such exemptions are written into discrimination statutes not as nice freebie handouts legislatures give to favored viewpoints and religions, but as stipulations required to pass constitutional muster. In fact, casting them as "nice freebie handouts legislatures give to favored viewpoints and religions" illustrates exactly the constitutional problem with this view.

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quote:

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As far as I know, no one has ever questioned the sincerity of Ms. Huguenin dislike of homosexuals, or at least her dislike of homosexuals who marry. In fact it seems to be one of the generally agreed upon facts of the case. Just because someone sincerely wants to discriminate doesn't give them a legal exemption from anti-discrimination laws. If that were the case such laws would be impossible to enforce.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Planeta Plicata:
Why would crafting an exemption for non-profits be necessary to pass constitutional muster? (Serious question.)

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quote:

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Originally posted by Planeta Plicata:

quote:

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As far as I know, no one has ever questioned the sincerity of Ms. Huguenin dislike of homosexuals, or at least her dislike of homosexuals who marry. In fact it seems to be one of the generally agreed upon facts of the case. Just because someone sincerely wants to discriminate doesn't give them a legal exemption from anti-discrimination laws. If that were the case such laws would be impossible to enforce.

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Actually, the sincerity of a person's religious view is a necessary precondition to their invoking both the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act and New Mexico's state-law equivalent.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Planeta Plicata:
As you say, that's not sufficient to grant them an exemption from a generally-applicable law—that would be totally unworkable. (They're only entitled to an exemption if "the application of the restriction to the person is essential to further a compelling governmental interest and is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.") But any sincere religious belief is sufficient to trigger the scrutiny required by the RFRA and is therefore relevant to Ms. Huguenin's RFRA claim.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
The New Mexico Supreme Court opinion lays out a plausible line of reasoning that New Mexico's RFRA (the federal RFRA was held to be inapplicable to the states) was only meant to be applicable to government action, not suits between two private parties such as in this case.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:

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Originally posted by Planeta Plicata:
Why would crafting an exemption for non-profits be necessary to pass constitutional muster? (Serious question.)

---

Not non-profits per se, but the kind of organizations whose purpose is some forms of issue advocacy or religious proselytization/education. In other words, certain types of non-profits require an exemption, but not all. To go back to an example I cited earlier, not exempting churches (a sub-set of non-profit organizations) from religious non-discrimination laws in their hiring practices would be a violation of the First Amendment's free exercise clause.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Planeta Plicata:

quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
The New Mexico Supreme Court opinion lays out a plausible line of reasoning that New Mexico's RFRA (the federal RFRA was held to be inapplicable to the states) was only meant to be applicable to government action, not suits between two private parties such as in this case.

---

That's the same argument the Court of Appeals endorsed, but as Eugene Volokh explained, it's a pretty implausible reading of the text of the statute (which applies broadly to government "institutions," which would seem to include the New Mexico Human Rights Commission and the state courts) and inconsistent with the history of the statute. But it is, admittedly, the last word on the issue, unless the statute is amended or the court later overturns its own ruling.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Planeta Plicata:
But the types of non-profit public accommodations that the Supreme Court has found can't be compelled not to discriminate aren't the type of non-profits you're talking about. Excluding gays isn't central to the mission of the South Boston Allied War Veterans Council or the Boy Scouts, so it seems to me like the distinction the New Mexico Supreme Court is drawing is unsupported in—and probably even inconsistent with—binding precedent.

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quote:

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"Even if you believe that gay people are going to Hell, that they have chosen evil, or are somehow trying to subvert society by seeking to commit to one another for life, it does not follow that you should ostracize them. The entire message of the Gospels is about embracing those minorities despised by popular opinion. Jesus made a point to associate with the worst sinners – collaborating tax-collectors, prostitutes or lepers whose disease was often perceived as a sign of moral failing. The idea that Christianity approves of segregating any group is anathema to what Jesus actually preached and the way he actually lived. The current Pope has explicitly opposed such ostracism. Christians, far from seeking distance from “sinners”, should be engaging them, listening to them, ministering to them – not telling them to leave the store or denying them a hotel room or firing them from their job. But then, as I’ve tried to argue for some time now, Christianism is not Christianity. In some practical ways, it is Christianity’s most tenacious foe."

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quote:

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Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
The House of Reps in the State of Kansas passed a law by a 72-49 margin that would allow anyone to discriminate against any partnership if it collided with their religious beliefs in the provision of both private and state services.

It was clearly aimed by protecting "Christian" photographers who objected to working at same sex weddings, but was so broadly written (so as to not appear homophobic) that it could give cover to doctors who refuse to treat a pregnant woman who is living with her unmarried male partner, or firefighters who refuse to save the burning home of a divorced and remarried couple. The State could deny a gay couple a business license or refuse to register their title to a newly purchased home.

---

As I once noted elsewhere, anti-gay activists really seem to be copying wholesale from the Segregationist playbook. I know a lot of anti-gay folks object to that comparison being made, but you can't propose Jim Crow laws for gays and not expect people to make the connection!
 

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Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :
 
I'm waiting for "I don't mind Lesbians but would you want your sister to marry one?"

 

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Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :
 
I love when people say things that even hint that since my sister is married to a completely excellent woman.

I used to feel that comparing the fight for LGBT rights to the fight against Jim Crow was an exaggeration that made my side look over the top, but more and more I think it's simply true. In some places there are no troubles, and in other places the law is working on becoming separate and not equal.
 

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Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gwai:

I used to feel that comparing the fight for LGBT rights to the fight against Jim Crow was an exaggeration that made my side look over the top, but more and more I think it's simply true. In some places there are no troubles, and in other places the law is working on becoming separate and not equal.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gwai:
And for anyone who's been under a firehose or had to fight that level of oppression I imagine the comparison feels very off.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gwai:
And for anyone who's been under a firehose or had to fight that level of oppression I imagine the comparison feels very off.

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Then why do the oppressors keep trying to run plays from the same playbook?
 

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Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 

 

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Posted by Anglican_Brat (# 12349) on :
 
I was thinking about this as I walked to my local Timmie's this morning.

Religious freedom is one thing and it's something I value too, as a gay Christian, the right to worship how I choose.

But is it really "religious freedom" if the local Timmie's clerk tells me "Sorry, I can't serve you coffee, I object to your homosexuality."

I don't go to stores expecting the sales people to "validate" anything about me. I expect them to help and serve me that is consistent with their roles as sales persons, no different than anyone else.
 

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Posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom (# 3434) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
I don't go to stores expecting the sales people to "validate" anything about me. I expect them to help and serve me that is consistent with their roles as sales persons, no different than anyone else.

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quote:

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Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
These bills now seem to be falling under public pressure.

South Dakota lawmakers toss out 'mean, nasty, hateful, vindictive' bill

Idaho rep withdraws religious freedom bill

Tennesee - Controversial Senate Bill 2566 effectively killed in committee


So justice wins... for now.

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quote:

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The Arizona Senate on Wednesday passed a bill backed by Republicans that would expand the rights of people to assert their religious beliefs in refusing service to gays and others...

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Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
But here in Arizona, nothing changes...

quote:

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The Arizona Senate on Wednesday passed a bill backed by Republicans that would expand the rights of people to assert their religious beliefs in refusing service to gays and others...

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quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:

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Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
But here in Arizona, nothing changes...

quote:

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The Arizona Senate on Wednesday passed a bill backed by Republicans that would expand the rights of people to assert their religious beliefs in refusing service to gays and others...

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---

Having read the bill in question, it seems to be written so broadly that it allows "exercise of religion" to be a legal justification for any form of discrimination (race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, etc.). Indeed, it seems to be written in such a way as to allow religious pleading to be an exemption to just about any law, except for zoning ordinances and the tax code.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gwai:
If it passes, I hope liberal religious people use that to the max.

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quote:

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Foes, however, sought to concentrate on what they said would be more concrete effects of such a law. Sen. Robert Meza, D-Phoenix, said the measure would allow a hotel operator who believes Mormonism is a cult to refuse to provide rooms to a family who walked in wearing Brigham Young T-shirts indicating their religion.

[Bill sponsor Steve] Yarbrough did not specifically dispute that. But he said the question of whether such an action would be allowed would be based on whether the government has a “compelling interest” in forbidding such discrimination and whether any laws were the least restrictive necessary.

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quote:

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Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
Which will put it in violation of federal law, so will quickly be invalidated.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gwai:
Fair enough, Croesus. I guess we'll just have to hope for the sanity of the Arizona reps or of the judges.

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The word "sanity" and the words "Arizona reps" should never be used in the same sentence. We can only pray that our idiot Governor doesn't sign it. She's surprised us a few times recently by acting like a decent human being. If she does sign it, it will be tossed by the Feds, but I'm getting really tired of our Legislature passing laws which are tossed after we, the taxpayers, have been stuck paying for the legal shenanigans.
 

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Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :
 
Yup, they passed it.

 

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Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
Colour me shocked.
Fucking bastards. Lets fill the Grand Canyon and dry up their tourist revenues. I am grabbing a shovel and booking a flight, who is with me?
 

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Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :
 
Our Bishop and Cathedral Dean have responded.
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
A friend posted a link on Facebook to a cafe in Tucson that has responded by putting up a sign saying "we reserve the right to refuse to serve Arizona legislators".
 

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Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
A friend posted a link on Facebook to a cafe in Tucson that has responded by putting up a sign saying "we reserve the right to refuse to serve Arizona legislators".

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quote:

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Originally posted by L'organist:
And the so-called Chr****an right galvanised their swivel-eyed troops to harangue and pester their representatives and the result is this mess.

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quote:

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Originally posted by L'organist:
the legalisation of SSM would be on a par with legislating to allow incest - no, I'm not joking, one of our bishops in the House of Lords, in front of TV cameras, no less.

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quote:

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Originally posted by leo:
Ye gods. There was a time when our bishops were temperate and scholarly. Now, they seem like a bunch of buffoons.

Or is it me just getting old and remembering 'good old days' that were never that good?

---

I think the latter. Just consider the bishops in times past who opposed ending slavery and the slave trade. Or those who opposed strictly civil marriage or allowing non-CoE to be married under forms other than the BCP. For instance when Unitarians sought the ability not to have to go through a Trinitarian ceremony. Or to allow non Christians or even non-COE into Parliament


The member of the Jewish faith must, if he acted up to his principles, be as diametrically hostile to the Christian Church as their Lordships would be to the promotion of Mahometanism. The noble Marquess said that they would form but a small voice in the Legislature; but if some measure of vital importance to the religious interests of the country should be defeated by a small majority, of which these Jewish representatives were a part, how could he complain, if he had himself contributed to give them a place in the Legislation? ... The proposed measure (whatever may be supposed by the noble Lord who has just sat down) is contemplated with conscientious dislike and anxious dread by a large class of persons whom I cannot but regard as the most valuable members of the community, and who consider it as a sort of insult to the religion which they reverence and honour. ... My Lords, it is very undesirable to give any grounds, whether just or no, for such an opinion; very undesirable to disgust the best members of society with the institutions of the country, or to encourage an opposite class in their indifference to all religion.
ABC
25 May 1848 (Lionel de Rothschild had been elected MP for London but was not permitted to take his seat in 1848, a bill eventually passed in 1858)

Browsing through Hansard's online records can be very interesting.
 

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Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 
OK - so I am glad to be old!

It reminds me of those bishops whop got priests sent to jail for wearing vestments.

They became a laughing stock and vestments are now pretty much ubiquitous.
 

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Posted by LutheranChik (# 9826) on :
 
Because of who we are and where we live, we are surrounded by people with whom we disagree on any number of issues -- sometimes profoundly disagree. I disapprove of the Amish attitude toward education, which I feel cripples their children's ability to truly make an infomred "choice" to join their church. (It's really not much of a choice -- kind of like being a Southern Baptist teen in a small Southern town getting pressure from parents and peers to "get saved.") But we have Amish friends. We do business with the Amish.

One of the families who provide us with bee supplies belong to a Duggar-like fundamentalist sect that believes in female subordination, arranged marriages, the whole shebang. I find their beliefs and practices bizarre and objectionable. I'm sure they find my partner and I evil incarnate And yet...we buy bee supplies from them. And they take our money.

During one of our volunteer stints at our antique mall a biker couple came in to the store asking us if we had any "vintage bondage-type stuff." They were all covered in upside-down pentagrams and neo-Nazi tats; they wound up purchasing a metal skull from another vendor's booth that just exuded weird, scary vibes. What did we do? We rang up the purchase and were glad to see their backsides headed out the door.

We are Democrats in a sea of not only Republicans but Tea Partiers...people who, despite making great show of their "Christian values," treat Faux News with greater respect than Jesus Christ. Our butcher is one of these guys. Our dogsitters are like this. We still have civil relations with them.

I have to confess feeling a bit offended that apparently I am not as morally upright a person as the people the other LC is defending here because I practice ethical Realpolitik when it comes to coexisting on a day-to-day basis with my fellow human beings, instead of sequestering myself in some righteous ghetto where my like-minded friends and I can all congratulate ourselves on our purity. (That's what the Internet is for.)

 

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Posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom (# 3434) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by LutheranChik:
...coexisting on a day-to-day basis with my fellow human beings, instead of sequestering myself in some righteous ghetto where my like-minded friends and I can all congratulate ourselves on our purity. (That's what the Internet is for.)

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quote:

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Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
I can't find a link on-line, but I heard on the radio this morning that some of the idiot Republican legislators who voted for the Arizona bill are having second thoughts. Some even want to re-vote before sending the bill to the Governor. I guess the reaction hasn't been what they expected.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
I read this story yesterday.

I can sort of understand why the business owners would feel uncomfortable with the "hypocrisy" of profiting from an event that they have actively campaigned to ban.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gwai:

quote:

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Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
I read this story yesterday.

I can sort of understand why the business owners would feel uncomfortable with the "hypocrisy" of profiting from an event that they have actively campaigned to ban.

---

And if that were really the biggest issue, they could solve it by having a statement on their website or wherever admitting that they had campaigned to ban such marriages, but were of course happy to help bake for/photograph/etc people celebrating said marriages.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
I read this story yesterday.

I can sort of understand why the business owners would feel uncomfortable with the "hypocrisy" of profiting from an event that they have actively campaigned to ban.

Of course, my answer to that would be that they should stop their discriminatory campaigning, rather than refuse service to people on the grounds of their sexuality.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by LutheranChik:
Arizona Gov. Brewer just vetoed the "religious freedom" legislation. But similar bills are still on the table in Missouri and Georgia.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I was a bit surprised. A mix of "Oh, this makes more sense" when finding out it was likely in response to economic pressure and a bit more shock when finding out who applied the pressure.

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quote:

---

But the movement [to observe Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in Arizona] got serious traction when the National Football League threatened in 1990 to move the Super Bowl that was scheduled to be played in Tempe’s Sun Devil Stadium in 1993.

Stewart said that local leaders who were not interested in his campaign before the NFL threat had a sudden change of heart.

“They returned my calls when the NFL said they wouldn’t come for the Super Bowl,” he said.

Eppinger said corporate leaders in Arizona began to realize, “You can kiss the Super Bowl goodbye, you can kiss some of the conventions and business goodbye, because no one wants to come to a state without the holiday.”

But somebody forgot to tell Arizona voters.

The Legislature in 1989 adopted a King holiday, replacing Columbus Day. That angered Italian-American groups, who petitioned the new holiday to a vote. The Legislature passed another measure in 1990, keeping both King and Columbus holidays, but it was too late. The issue went to voters, 76 percent of whom rejected the King holiday.

The NFL moved the 1993 Super Bowl to Pasadena, Calif.

“Half a billion dollars including the Super Bowl would be lost because of the way they mishandled the holiday,” Stewart said.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by stonespring:
I think the Supreme Court is going to have to address this issue eventually, because these laws will be challenged.

---

quote:

---

"We don't serve fags here."

That's what a Pittsburg [Texas] couple said they were told while leaving a local restaurant. The men went to eat at Big Earl’s Restaurant in Pittsburg [Texas] for breakfast Tuesday morning. They said they enjoyed their food, paid for their meals, but it’s what the waitress said on their way out that ruined the whole experience.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jane R:

In other news, someone is objecting to being asked to bake a 'gay cake' on the grounds that doing so will violate their Christian business ethic.

---

Actually, that one's a bit interesting. We've had a couple of cases in the US recently (cake for gay wedding, photographer for gay wedding) where the businessfolk have claimed that their rights are being violated by forcing them to "endorse" gay marriage, and the courts held that photographing a gay wedding did not imply making a statement in favour of the existence of gay marriage.

In this case, however, the cake is explicitly political speech - it's a cake saying "support gay rights" for a gay rights organization.

This isn't asking whether your Christian business can refuse to serve Muslims, it's asking whether your Christian business can refuse to print pamphlets denying the divinity of Christ.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
This isn't asking whether your Christian business can refuse to serve Muslims, it's asking whether your Christian business can refuse to print pamphlets denying the divinity of Christ.

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quote:

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The law is really clear. You cannot pick and choose which sides of the law apply to you.

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quote:

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
LC,

From the article:

quote:

---

The law is really clear. You cannot pick and choose which sides of the law apply to you.

---

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
This isn't asking whether your Christian business can refuse to serve Muslims, it's asking whether your Christian business can refuse to print pamphlets denying the divinity of Christ.

---

These may not be separate things. Say your local Mosque or Synagogue wants you to print programs for their services, or pamphlets detailing their beliefs. Is there a meaningful distinction here between refusing to serve Muslims and refusing to serve someone because they don't believe in your God?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crœsos:
Is there a meaningful distinction here between refusing to serve Muslims and refusing to serve someone because they don't believe in your God?

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quote:

---

If you are a printer, your job is to pring.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by lilBuddha:
But printing a cake which advocates SSM in no way denies Christ's divinity.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Ricardus:
There was a case round here recently where postal workers from West Lancashire refused to distribute promotional copies of The Sun because of its coverage of the Hillsborough disaster. I don't think anyone would claim Rupert Murdoch's rights were infringed.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
You could equally ask whether a printer in the US should be legally obliged to print material advocating affirmative action in the hiring of state employees. If the printer is opposed to affirmative action, should he be able to refuse to work for its advocacy?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
I'm not sure if you could "equally ask", given that virtually no generally-applicable anti-discrimination laws cover "political position" as a protected category.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
The level of hair-splitting involved is like arguing that a a business's "No Jews" policy is discriminatory but its "No Yarmulkes" policy is just fine.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
The status of the Royal Mail as a common carrier calls that one in to question, though. When you have a state-granted monopoly on the delivery of letters, you must be obliged to deliver everyone's letters.

The wriggle-room here, no doubt, is that this is unaddressed advertising, which whilst being a nice little earner for the Post Office isn't actually "mail".

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quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:


I'm generally suspicious of religion being used as a justification for otherwise prohibited actions.

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quote:

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The level of hair-splitting involved is like arguing that a a business's "No Jews" policy is discriminatory but its "No Yarmulkes" policy is just fine.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
To take a more serious example, there are restaurants and even banks in this town that won't serve my mixed race family. I may point and laugh, or write nasty reviews on the internet, but in the end it is their freedom--freedom even to make asses of themselves. For me to try to force such people would be as small-minded and inexcusable as they are.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
The Denny's down the street won't serve me and my family.

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This is, and rightly so, illegal. This is not something they have a right to do.

This is wrong, and I hope they have had their asses sued off, or that the manager behind such crap has been fired by Denny's corporate. They've specifically, as a company, gone to great lengths to leave this kind of thing far behind them

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denny%27s#Racial_discrimination_lawsuits

(and good for them!)--so, yes, I would try to go there again and report them if it happens. Ditto the banks--that's just immoral and illegal.

PS: I can't fix my URL coding above

[ 11. July 2014, 10:53: Message edited by: Louise ]
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Yes, it's illegal. But the root question of this thread is whether certain things SHOULD BE illegal, not whether they are or not.

Obviously these people are wrongheaded asses. But in the circumstances in which my family lives, their discrimination against us does not create sufficient harm or even discomfort to us that I feel moved to sue their asses. (I content myself with telling everybody I know what they've done, which, coming from a strategically placed leader in a large, growing, wants-to-go-out-to-eat and has-money-to-bank-now ethnic community, is almost virally bad publicity. )

IMHO there is a huge difference between the assholes who won't serve us at Denny's (fine; we'll go down the street and spend lots more money at the other restaurants) and the situation where, say, a hospital or firefighter refuses to serve someone. The one is a minor nuisance (as is the photo thing); the other is potentially life-threatening. Similarly, there is a difference between the Denny's place doing this to us in a time and place (Lousiana, ca. 1960?) where we have few or no alternatives, and doing it to us in Never-Mind-City in 2014, where the whole culture is on our side now.

I don't like criminalizing rudeness simply because one feels that rudeness ought to be punished or "taught a lesson." That's killing a spider with a cannon. One can punish or teach lessons far more easily (and effectively) using social and economic tools.

The proper response to rude but essentially toothless behavior is bad publicity and a boycott. No need to force a person, or a group of people, out of their livelihood via the law. If the behavior is sufficiently shameful, the bad publicity/boycott thing will handle that matter all by itself.

And if the behavior is truly religiously motivated, the person will not be able to complain of being victimized by the state for his/her faith, which leads to feelings of martyrdom. He/she will instead have to suck it up and deal when ordinary people make known their disapproval in clear but non-coercive ways. Which is ne of the ordinary troubles of life every Christian faces, though hopefully for good reasons and not for bad. Still, social disapproval is far less likely to be taken for a form of martyrdom.

[ 11. July 2014, 01:31: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]
 

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Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Yes, it's illegal. But the root question of this thread is whether certain things SHOULD BE illegal, not whether they are or not.

Obviously these people are wrongheaded asses. But in the circumstances in which my family lives, their discrimination against us does not create sufficient harm or even discomfort to us that I feel moved to sue their asses. (I content myself with telling everybody I know what they've done, which, coming from a strategically placed leader in a large, growing, wants-to-go-out-to-eat and has-money-to-bank-now ethnic community, is almost virally bad publicity. )

IMHO there is a huge difference between the assholes who won't serve us at Denny's (fine; we'll go down the street and spend lots more money at the other restaurants) and the situation where, say, a hospital or firefighter refuses to serve someone. The one is a minor nuisance (as is the photo thing); the other is potentially life-threatening. Similarly, there is a difference between the Denny's place doing this to us in a time and place (Lousiana, ca. 1960?) where we have few or no alternatives, and doing it to us in Never-Mind-City in 2014, where the whole culture is on our side now.

I don't like criminalizing rudeness simply because one feels that rudeness ought to be punished or "taught a lesson." That's killing a spider with a cannon. One can punish or teach lessons far more easily (and effectively) using social and economic tools.

The proper response to rude but essentially toothless behavior is bad publicity and a boycott. No need to force a person, or a group of people, out of their livelihood via the law. If the behavior is sufficiently shameful, the bad publicity/boycott thing will handle that matter all by itself.

And if the behavior is truly religiously motivated, the person will not be able to complain of being victimized by the state for his/her faith, which leads to feelings of martyrdom. He/she will instead have to suck it up and deal when ordinary people make known their disapproval in clear but non-coercive ways. Which is ne of the ordinary troubles of life every Christian faces, though hopefully for good reasons and not for bad. Still, social disapproval is far less likely to be taken for a form of martyrdom.

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quote:

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I'm not sure if you think that passing laws desegregating public accommodation were wrong, or it's only wrong if the discrimination is toothless. The latter would lead to an odd cycle; laws are ok when there's a lot of segregation and wrong when there's a little segregation.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

IMHO there is a huge difference between the assholes who won't serve us at Denny's (fine; we'll go down the street and spend lots more money at the other restaurants) and the situation where, say, a hospital or firefighter refuses to serve someone. The one is a minor nuisance (as is the photo thing); the other is potentially life-threatening.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

quote:

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I'm not sure if you think that passing laws desegregating public accommodation were wrong, or it's only wrong if the discrimination is toothless. The latter would lead to an odd cycle; laws are ok when there's a lot of segregation and wrong when there's a little segregation.

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The latter. If there is a lot of segregation/discrimination, the situation is pretty much bound to be life-threatening fairly often, or at least harmful to basic human needs such as food, healthcare, jobs, shelter, etc. Thus the use of law is appropriate. If there are only minor instances (such as the Denny's case that happens to my family), none of those things are at risk. The most that will happen is a spoiled meal with a temporary rise in blood pressure. And I can use social pressure to arrange negative karma for that, if I want. No need to drag in the blunt instrument of the law. In the meantime we go to one of a hundred other welcoming restaurants, mentally marking down the Denny's as a bad egg.

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In your comment , do you do think such discrimination should be illegal, but invoking the law should be done infrequently. Or are you suggesting such a law should not exist and recourse requires a new law when the harm grows to a certain point?

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Originally posted by Matt Black:
In the bakery case, it's not even a case of 'refusing to serve the gays' IMO, but more a refusal to be co-opted into supporting a cause with which you fundamentally disagree.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
For instance, if Dave is truly the "World's Best Dad", does that mean a baker should refuse to make a cake for John with the same inscription? After all, only one of them can truly be the best.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I suppose what I am recommending is that we refrain from passing new, sweeping laws in a fit of pique, simply because we can (see: current political climate) and because we are failing to distinguish between real harm and simple insult. And perhaps because we are unwilling to tackle the hard work of deciding where the line between the two lies.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
For instance, if Dave is truly the "World's Best Dad", does that mean a baker should refuse to make a cake for John with the same inscription? After all, only one of them can truly be the best.

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This isn't a serious comment. Find me someone who seriously believes that "World's Best Dad" is an objective statement of Dad-ranking, and I'll point at him and laugh.

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Originally posted by Crœsos:
So yes, it's as serious a comment as the pretense that we typically expect bakers to exercise editorial and censorial control over the messages on cakes.

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[Mostly irrelevant aside]
Most of the time, one would not expect a baker to have a particular animus about declaring John to be "The World's Best Dad" - everyone understands that this is not a literal statement, and doesn't imply, for example, that John is better than the baker's own dad.

If, hypothetically, the baker was John's ex-wife, and John had done a runner leaving her and his children unsupported, and had chosen to have no further contact with his children, she might object to making a "World's Best Dad" cake for John and his new family. Or not - I'm not interested in how she should think, but I claim that she has the right to refuse to make a cake for John if she thinks he sucks. I don't think anyone disputes that - but of course, Dads called John aren't a protected class.
[end of irrelevant aside]

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quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But the Tories, (I think) are not part of a group with protected characteristics. Gay people are.

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quote:

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"Let's take the protected class out of the equation for the moment"

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quote:

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

Obviously at some level it is,

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quote:

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

Obviously at some level it is,

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And this is fundamentally the problem. It is discrimination, full stop.

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quote:

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And baking a cake for a gay rights event in no way harms the baker.

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Originally posted by Penny S:
I actually have developed some sympathy for the bakers, having read about the situation more fully. Given the number of cake decorating paraphernalia shops, I would have thought the customers could easily have ordered a plain iced cake and tarted it up themselves. I'm wondering if they deliberately set the bakers up. Usually I'm on the other side of these arguments. I would be in the case of a wedding cake.

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quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But the Tories, (I think) are not part of a group with protected characteristics. Gay people are.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:

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And baking a cake for a gay rights event in no way harms the baker.

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I would have described being forced to act in opposition to one's deeply-held beliefs as intrinsically harmful.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ricardus:
The issue isn't the asking. The issue is not being allowed to refuse.

If your publisher asks you to write your next novel in the style of Stephanie Meyer, are you morally obliged to accept?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ricardus:
The issue isn't the asking. The issue is not being allowed to refuse.

If your publisher asks you to write your next novel in the style of Stephanie Meyer, are you morally obliged to accept?

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quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

The complication in this case is to do with the writing on the cake, as no doubt the bakers' barrister will argue that they don't mind serving gays, but object to gay marriage. We shall see.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
No, but legally writers don't possess protected characteristics, as far as I can make out. Gay people do. They are one of a number of groups of people whom businesses cannot legally refuse service to, if the reason is to do with their protected characteristics. Thus, a baker cannot refuse service to black people, because they are black.

The complication in this case is to do with the writing on the cake, as no doubt the bakers' barrister will argue that they don't mind serving gays, but object to gay marriage. We shall see.

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quote:

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ricardus:
The issue isn't the asking. The issue is not being allowed to refuse.

If your publisher asks you to write your next novel in the style of Stephanie Meyer, are you morally obliged to accept?

---

Apples and spanners.

Or, what quetzalcoatl said.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Palimpsest:
It may be different where you are, but most of the United States the doctrine of Public Accomodation applies to business that serve the public. Public Accomodations may not discriminate

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quote:

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Originally posted by Palimpsest:
You think a grocery store with sincere Christian beliefs can discriminate by not selling food to gay people because they might be going to a picnic at a pride festival? What possible service or product couldn't be used by someone to make political speech?

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Originally posted by Ricardus:
Yes, you can use random groceries in a politicised way, e.g. by buying tomatoes and throwing them at Peter Robinson. But the tomato only becomes political at the moment of being thrown. There is nothing inherently political about a tomato.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ricardus:

But that is not even remotely comparable to the situation under discussion. There was no 'might' about the purpose of the cake. The baker was asked to bake a bespoke cake with a slogan supporting gay marriage. Supporting gay marriage was the whole raison d'être of the cake. The cake was politicised from the moment of inception.

Yes, you can use random groceries in a politicised way, e.g. by buying tomatoes and throwing them at Peter Robinson. But the tomato only becomes political at the moment of being thrown. There is nothing inherently political about a tomato.

Or maybe you lot are right and I am just hair-splitting. Every object is political regardless of its generally accepted usage. Every tomato is a potential statement in the war against homophobia. But then we're back to the position I thought I was advancing as a reductio ad absurdum, that a tradesman must accept each and every commission that is sent their way - because who knows? Doc Tor's publisher may want him to write like Stephanie Meyer to show solidarity with the Mormons - so how dare Doc Tor deny the rights of a protected religious group by a refusal?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Palimpsest:
You think a grocery store with sincere Christian beliefs can discriminate by not selling food to gay people because they might be going to a picnic at a pride festival? What possible service or product couldn't be used by someone to make political speech?

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
I'm not clear how refusing to serve gays, and refusing to serve gays who want a cake saying "Yay for Gay," are all that different.

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I wonder if perhaps you could worm out of the problem by having a short list, completely non-partisan, of slogans you're willing to put on cakes.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Palimpsest:
The cake in the Oregon Bakery was ordered to celebrate a wedding.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ricardus:

quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
I'm not clear how refusing to serve gays, and refusing to serve gays who want a cake saying "Yay for Gay," are all that different.

---

But straight people are in favour of gay marriage too, and could want to order such a cake. (It's not even clear from the article that the bloke who ordered the cake was gay.) In fact I'm sure, even in Northern Ireland, numerically more straight people than gay people are in favour of gay marriage, simply because there are more straight people in the world. Conversely, there is no evidence that the bakery would have refused, say, a World's Best Dad or a Lisburn Distillery FC cake for a gay man.

The bakery is not (on the evidence so far) discriminating against gays. It is discriminating against people who support gay marriage, and it is by no means clear that such people are a protected category.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Antisocial Alto:
It's not about the actions of one business. It's about allowing the idea to flourish that it's OK to tell certain people that they're second-class citizens. And groups of people repeatedly being told they're worthless *does* cause harm to society- look at the despair in our inner cities and the suicide rate among our gay teens.

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Originally posted by ChastMastr:
I mean, getting away from ideological things altogether, what about cakes (for any gender or combination thereof) of a specifically sexual nature (decorations or shape, I mean)? Those do exist, after all, mainly for bachelor/bachelorette parties, I think, but what if someone didn't want to bake a cake like that? Don't people have to go to specialty shops to have ones like that made?

Thoughts?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ricardus:
What 'service' are you referring to, though?

The provision of cakes with pro-SSM slogans? But that is a service the bakery refuses to all customers.

Or a hypothesised agreement to provide whatever decoration the customer wishes? But do we have any evidence that such an agreement exists? What if some customer wants a penis cake? Do you think in that circumstance the baker would have the right to refuse the customer?

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

As for slogans, saying "this kind of slogan is okay but that kind is not", when the two kinds roughly correspond to two different people groups, is de facto discrimination.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

I don't see a problem with a baker deciding not to do cakes with political messages, to avoid having to do political messages they find abhorrent.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

I don't see a problem with a baker deciding not to do cakes with political messages, to avoid having to do political messages they find abhorrent.

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So your position is that, if a baker makes someone a cake that says "Conserve Energy - Save the Planet", or "No War for Oil", he should be obliged to make a "Free Ratko Mladic" cake should a customer so desire?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Palimpsest:

I am curious about the Northern Ireland law. Is it viewed as the bakers right to not inscribe cakes for Catholic centric Holidays or Protestant Holidays?

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

I don't see a problem with a baker deciding not to do cakes with political messages, to avoid having to do political messages they find abhorrent.

---

So your position is that, if a baker makes someone a cake that says "Conserve Energy - Save the Planet", or "No War for Oil", he should be obliged to make a "Free Ratko Mladic" cake should a customer so desire?

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Pretty much.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
By analogy to the Mladic example above, it sounds like Mousethief would say no, and it sounds like Mousethief would also force a Californian gay baker to bake "support Prop 8" cakes.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
At least you've let go of the fatuous penis cake example. I'll take what small victories I can.

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Originally posted by ChastMastr:
But -- the law has to apply equally to everyone,

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

I don't see a problem with a baker deciding not to do cakes with political messages, to avoid having to do political messages they find abhorrent.

---

So your position is that, if a baker makes someone a cake that says "Conserve Energy - Save the Planet", or "No War for Oil", he should be obliged to make a "Free Ratko Mladic" cake should a customer so desire?

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Pretty much.

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quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But the Tories, (I think) are not part of a group with protected characteristics. Gay people are.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ricardus:
OK, I find that position as bizarre as you evidently find mine, but I don't think we are going to convince each other here.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ricardus:
OK, I find that position as bizarre as you evidently find mine, but I don't think we are going to convince each other here.

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On the contrary. I don't find yours bizarre, I find it dangerous. It's the first step to apartheid.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ricardus:
Oi, you can't complain about me using 'slippery slope' arguments against you and then use one yourself.

The 'brakes' on my position are perfectly clear. You can refuse specific ideas but not people. You can refuse a pro-SSM order or a pro-Serb nationalism order but you cannot refuse a gay man or a Serb. This is because people have rights but ideas don't.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ricardus:
If the baker regularly serves Serbs but refuses when a Serb asks for a Ratko Mladić cake, then it's pretty obvious the discrimination is against the idea, not the Serbian people.

I agree there is a problem if the Serb who places the order is the only Serb who has ever come into the bakery, but then the test is the willingness of the baker to say something like 'No, but I will do you a lovely Bakewell Tart in the shape of St Sava's Cathedral if you like'.

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quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
That's going to create even more evidentiary problems than the alternative...

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quote:

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The response is going to be "if I wanted a tart in the shape of St Sava's Cathedral I would have asked for a bloody tart in the shape of St Sava's Cathedral". There can be few things more annoying, in that kind of commercial context, than being offered things that aren't what you wanted.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ricardus:
Only in the sense that not serving chicken in a restaurant is discriminatory against patrons who like chicken. All customers of the bakery get exactly the same options.

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quote:

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Originally posted by LeRoc:
Maybe we should grant bakeries the right to put small disclaimers on their cakes? Something like "The confection of this cake by Blessed Bakery doesn't imply that forementioned Bakery endorses the message and/or image displayed thereupon. No juridical liability of the Bakery should be implied by the confection of this message or and/image." I bet it would taste good in mocca!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Lucia:
On reading a little more about this case here I see that the bakers are claiming that they have previously refused orders

"He added that it was not the first time his company had refused cake orders: "In the past, we've declined several orders which have contained pornographic images and offensive, foul language."

If this is the case does it support their assertion that their refusal was to do with the message on the cake rather than the protected characteristic of the person ordering it? That is that LGBT people are not the only ones who have had orders refused.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mdijon:
Aren't musicians artists?

I think they can legitimately arbitrarily determine their subject matter - for instance a musician can decline to play certain pieces,

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quote:

---

or a tattooist can decline to do a swastika - but they can't legitimately arbitrarily refuse customers based on their race, sexuality or religion.

I would not accept that a wedding photographer refusing particular customers is like an artist choosing subject matter though. Like you say it is a service provision, and the customer it the customer, not the subject matter of an artistic endeavour.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ricardus:
Only in the sense that not serving chicken in a restaurant is discriminatory against patrons who like chicken. All customers of the bakery get exactly the same options.

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quote:

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Originally posted by LeRoc:
Maybe we should grant bakeries the right to put small disclaimers on their cakes? Something like "The confection of this cake by Blessed Bakery doesn't imply that forementioned Bakery endorses the message and/or image displayed thereupon. No juridical liability of the Bakery should be implied by the confection of this message or and/image." I bet it would taste good in mocca!

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They've been doing it for years. It's usually on the bottom of the cake or the filling of the top layer.
 

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Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ricardus:
Only in the sense that not serving chicken in a restaurant is discriminatory against patrons who like chicken. All customers of the bakery get exactly the same options.

---

Isn't this getting a little close to the argument "Of course gay men have the same rights as straight ones - all men, of whatever sexuality, are able to marry a single consenting woman of their choice?"

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quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ricardus:
Only in the sense that not serving chicken in a restaurant is discriminatory against patrons who like chicken. All customers of the bakery get exactly the same options.

---

Not really. If you offer a service roughly along the lines of "we will put your message on a cake", it gets pretty dicey to start picking and choosing. That's more like the actions of a private club or similar organization, not a business open to the general public. If you offer a service more along the lines of "we will put any of this list of pre-defined messages on a cake", then everyone is getting exactly the same options.

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quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
It is almost always possible to frame something in a different way to make it look a little less discriminatory. Most discrimination, these days at least, is not direct and explicit. But that is why courts/laws developed notions of indirect discrimination, to try to look at the context and the practical impact and to avoid technical arguments like "but gay men are free to marry the woman of their choice".

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ricardus:
That said, SSM is currently unrecognised in Northern Ireland. We are in very strange legal territory if refusing to help campaign for gay marriage is illegal discrimination, but refusing to allow gay people actually to get married is not.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Ricardus:

quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
It is almost always possible to frame something in a different way to make it look a little less discriminatory. Most discrimination, these days at least, is not direct and explicit. But that is why courts/laws developed notions of indirect discrimination, to try to look at the context and the practical impact and to avoid technical arguments like "but gay men are free to marry the woman of their choice".

---

It's to avoid accusations of indirect discrimination that I and others have pointed out that straight people support SSM too.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ricardus:
If you say you will print anything the customer asks for, and then don't, that's probably a breach of the Trades Description Act regardless of the discrimination issue. If you specify there is an editorial policy, and that applies to everyone, I am not sure there is a problem except that I shouldn't have used the word 'options'. Maybe 'house rules' would have been better.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ricardus:
If you say you will print anything the customer asks for, and then don't, that's probably a breach of the Trades Description Act regardless of the discrimination issue. If you specify there is an editorial policy, and that applies to everyone, I am not sure there is a problem except that I shouldn't have used the word 'options'. Maybe 'house rules' would have been better.

---

But then you get into the definition problem of what the policy is that applies to everyone. Neither the rich nor the poor may sleep on park benches. That applies to everyone, but it still discriminates. You can say "neither racists nor non-racists can have a cake with a racist slogan" but you're still discriminating against one group and not the other, even though ostensibly you are applying your rule to everyone.

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quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ricardus:

quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
It is almost always possible to frame something in a different way to make it look a little less discriminatory. Most discrimination, these days at least, is not direct and explicit. But that is why courts/laws developed notions of indirect discrimination, to try to look at the context and the practical impact and to avoid technical arguments like "but gay men are free to marry the woman of their choice".

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It's to avoid accusations of indirect discrimination that I and others have pointed out that straight people support SSM too.

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You're actually walking straight into accusations of indirection discrimination. The definition of indirect discrimination is generally wider than you appear to think. It covers requirements or conditions that are likely to have the effect of disadvantaging the protected group, or with which a substantially higher proportion of other people can comply with compared to the protected group.

One of the most notable sex discrimination cases in Australian legal history involved the firing of workers from a steelworks. The basic principle was last hired, first fired. Only thing was, it had only been in fairly recent times that women had succeeded in getting hired in most jobs.

The company tried to say "but we'll be firing men too". The company lost. It was indirect discrimination.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Now this i don't get. Any work, of course. Photography, cake decorating, singing--none of these are vital emergency services that will cause somebody death or bodily harm if denied. Go find another freaking singer or whatever. They .ay be srongheaded stupid asses, but it' s not my prerogative to force them. To take a more serious example, there are restaurants and even banks in this town that won't serve my mixed race family. I may point and laugh, or write nasty reviews on the internet, but in the end it is their freedom--freedom even to make asses of themselves. For me to try to force such people would be as small-minded and inexcusable as they are.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Antisocial Alto:

quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I suppose what I am recommending is that we refrain from passing new, sweeping laws in a fit of pique, simply because we can (see: current political climate) and because we are failing to distinguish between real harm and simple insult. And perhaps because we are unwilling to tackle the hard work of deciding where the line between the two lies.

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How many times, in your view, does a person have to be "simply insulted" before it becomes real harm? If a group of kids shouts "fag" at your son on the bus every day, does that not eventually cause him real harm?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Mark Betts:
[[ LIKED ]] by Mark Betts.

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. . . isn't racial discrimination just as illegal in the UK if not more so??
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
How about we let businesses discriminate so long as they have the guts to put signs on the door? You know "WHITES ONLY", or "NO QUEERS". Be public about it. Let all their other customers know how they treat people.

One of the reasons businesses think they can still get away with this kind of behaviour is because they count on no-one hearing about besides the person who is discriminated against. They want you to go away quietly, not make too much of a fuss, and find another business. You've stopped being their problem then. All the cost is on you, not on them.

It'd be very interesting to see how the discriminators would behave if it was made more of their problem.
 

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Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
It'd be very interesting to see how the discriminators would behave if it was made more of their problem.

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(Rod Serling voice)

Submitted for your approval...


 

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Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
(Rod Serling voice again)

And the next stop...


 

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Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
How about we let businesses discriminate so long as they have the guts to put signs on the door? You know "WHITES ONLY", or "NO QUEERS". Be public about it. Let all their other customers know how they treat people.

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quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
It'd be very interesting to see how the discriminators would behave if it was made more of their problem.

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Originally posted by Anglican't:

Given that we've spent several pages discussing the activities of a small bakery in Northern Ireland, can we not say that we've reached the point where it can very much be the discriminator's problem? If people feel that they’ve been wronged they’re often not afraid to hit Twitter, etc. to complain about it.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Palimpsest:

quote:

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Originally posted by Anglican't:

Given that we've spent several pages discussing the activities of a small bakery in Northern Ireland, can we not say that we've reached the point where it can very much be the discriminator's problem? If people feel that they’ve been wronged they’re often not afraid to hit Twitter, etc. to complain about it.

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Sure, and you can eliminate the laws against armed robbery because the robbed can write about it on twitter. That will be the robber's problem. What an odd idea of justice.

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quote:

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One of the reasons businesses think they can still get away with this kind of behaviour is because they count on no-one hearing about besides the person who is discriminated against.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Jim Crow laws had a major impact on human lives, a major, repeated, health- job- family- and life-threatening impact. They are no in no way comparable to the situation when some random asshole in my hometown decides on a single occasion that he doesn't want to serve me and my family (unlike the other 999,999 restaurants in lo, this city alone). <snip>

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

come on. A dust mote on one side of the scale, a damned boulder on the other.

We need laws to protect people against falling boulders. Against the dust motes? Twitter, picketing, letters to the editor, and general social badmouthing will do just fine.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Antisocial Alto:

quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

come on. A dust mote on one side of the scale, a damned boulder on the other.

We need laws to protect people against falling boulders. Against the dust motes? Twitter, picketing, letters to the editor, and general social badmouthing will do just fine.

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Dust motes add up. Again- and I will type slowly too- it's not about one incident. It't about preventing a buildup of small incidents which gradually become a boulder of unconscious ill-feeling.

To me it's similar to women getting catcalled on the street- each individual instance is only minorly unpleasant, but it's the cumulative effect over time that messes with your mindset.

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Once more, and I'm giving up. I am not arguing that dust motes don't add up, or that insults are somehow good, or any of that nonsense. I am arguing that attempting to change every rudeness or insult in society by means of passing new laws is a bad idea. Find another way to enforce good manners. There are plenty of them, most much more effective and much less prone to abuse than passing a new law. Which will inevitably wind up being misapplied in ways the original framers never dreamed of, because it is fucking impossible to frame a law for human beings in a way that said human beings won't find eighty-five ways to wiggle out of. Or use against the very people it was intended to protect. Do you, for example, really want to see a creative Fred-Phelps-like individual deciding to order a weekly "God hates fags" cake from a baker who is known to be gay, on the grounds that a law forces him to accept all business?

That in itself would be a form of very nasty harassment, and the baker would have no legal recourse.

Not a good thing.

You want to think through all the possibilities before legalizing a blanket principle.
 

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
All Christian businesses refusing to serve gay clients goes a bit beyond "bad manners."
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
it is fucking impossible to frame a law for human beings in a way that said human beings won't find eighty-five ways to wiggle out of.

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If you'll excuse me, I'll be over in that corner, reflecting on the meaningless of my professional life.
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Surely you've noticed the difficulty. that's why they pay you the big bucks (or not)
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
There's a difference between difficult and impossible.

Much of the 'impossibility' actually lies in enforcement, not in the text of the law (although the clarity/effectiveness of the law itself might vary considerably from jurisdiction to jurisdiction - especially in the USA where my profession barely exists). It doesn't matter how clearly the law on the books says that something is unlawful, it will still happen if people don't think they'll be punished for it. And when it comes to something like discrimination law, that requires the victims making a noise. And it probably also requires them to pick their battles, dealing in cases where the discrimination is particularly blatant, and high-profile, and provable.
 

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Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on :
 
The idea of what spurred the rise of the "Religious Right" in American politics and American Christianity has changed over time. It used to be assumed that it was spurred by the sexual revolution, secularism, and the rising economic and social malaise of the 1970's associated with the shortcomings of American New Liberalism. Now it seems that the academic left and right are divided, with the right claiming that the rise of the Religious Right was a movement against a perceived Communist threat that was linked to federal court rulings that banned prayer in public schools, and the left claiming that the Religious Right mobilized in response to a sense of government overreach due to civil rights legislation and other attempts (not all successful, especially when you include de facto segregation) to desegregate not only public schools and facilities, but also private businesses and housing. Does this mean that all people who are both politically and theologically conservative are racists? Of course not.
 

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Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
There was also this horrible thing called the Southern Strategy.
 

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Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
... I am arguing that attempting to change every rudeness or insult in society by means of passing new laws is a bad idea. ...

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Jim Crow laws had a major impact on human lives, a major, repeated, health- job- family- and life-threatening impact. They are no in no way comparable to the situation when some random asshole in my hometown decides on a single occasion that he doesn't want to serve me and my family (unlike the other 999,999 restaurants in lo, this city alone). <snip>

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I'm seeing a trend, however. Businesses are asking the courts to allow them to not serve gays. The Christian Right in this country is attempting to usurp the rule of law and make it legal for them to discriminate en masse. In some parts of the south, this could end up in something very much like apartheid or Jim Crow. I find the answer "well they can just bitch about it on Twitter" to be insufficient.

And cool it with the type slowly shit.

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Originally posted by Soror Magna:
Treating everyone equally isn't passing a new law. It's giving everyone the benefit of existing law. It's also why it's not ok for me to discriminate against Christians, much as I would love to some times.

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Originally posted by orfeo:
Of course, there are places where laws still need to be passed. A considerable number of US states continue to have no protection at all against being fired for being homosexual, which to my mind is one of the most basic protections that should be in place.

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quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
^ I forget these things, living in a country where workers have rights.

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quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
^ I forget these things, living in a country where workers have rights.

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Someday we will have this here in the US. Someday.
 

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Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :
 

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Originally posted by mousethief:
Of course the vast vast majority of work in the US is at-will, and you can be fired for any or no reason with no notice.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
Of course the vast vast majority of work in the US is at-will, and you can be fired for any or no reason with no notice.

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At-will employment is still limited by anti-discrimination law. You can be fired at any time, but not because you're black, pregnant, or old. I will grant that isolated cases are hard to prove, though.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
Of course the vast vast majority of work in the US is at-will, and you can be fired for any or no reason with no notice.

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At-will employment is still limited by anti-discrimination law. You can be fired at any time, but not because you're black, pregnant, or old. I will grant that isolated cases are hard to prove, though.

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Originally posted by Palimpsest:
It remains to be seen if Anti-discrimination law trumps the case where your employer is a corporation whose religious belief tells it to persecute blacks, unmarried pregnant women or gays.

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
Following the logic in the Hobby Lobby case, an RFRA challenge asking not to be forced to extend insurance benefits etc. to same-sex partners of employees would be closer, but I think would still fail.

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quote:

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Equality is not an “opinion”, it’s a right.

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
Don't you just bet the shop fails to check whether its heterosexual customers are virgins. God's law is bound to be highly selective.

[ 10. August 2014, 09:25: Message edited by: orfeo ]
 

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Posted by Starlight (# 12651) on :
 
OMG apparently it gets worse...
Florida church cancels funeral after learning man was gay

How fucked up is that?!


The mind boggles at the theological gymnastics that it would take to justify that particular piece of discrimination.
 

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Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
Well, if a gay man gets a church funeral, the misdirected sanctity might stick on him long enough to slip past St. Peter. Then you'd have a Gay man in Heaven. Next thing you know, he'll be redecorating the place, remodeling the clouds, giving style makeovers....
"Look honey! I know you are an angel and everything! but how can you call yourself Gaybriel and still wear that tired white robe? And those wings can we get some colour on those? At least tint the tips"?
 

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Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
I'm guessing the new arrival in question is David Turturro.
 

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Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
The discrimination laws have explicit exemptions for some cases. It is not discrimination to insist that a minister of religion that you employ actually follows your religion, it is not discrimination to only consider women for an acting role to portray a female part, or to only consider female nurses if you want to hire nursing help for your elderly mother.

The discrimination laws do not have an exemption for "I don't like gays", and I am as certain as I can be given some of the oddities that come out of the Supreme Court that, let's say, a craft store making an RFRA challenge to ask to not be forced to employ gay people at its tills would fail.

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