How does it violate anyone's rights to simply go about whatever their work is? If the Jewish couple had ordered food from the Halal establishment, and not told them what it was for, would anyone's rights have been violated? If the employees of the food establishment later found out that their food was used at someone else's wedding, would this truly have violated their religion? They are not involved, they simply sell the food that people can use however they end up using it. Should I have to verify with everyone at local bakery that they are not Jehovah's Witnesses before I can purchase a cake intended for a birthday party? If so, then maybe this law makes sense. If, however, you believe, as I do, that what happens to the cake once it's purchased is neither the business nor the responsibility of the people at the bakery, then this idea seems ridiculous. Shop owners sell things, customers buy things, then customers decide how to use the things. I fail to see why it is the shop owner's right or moral responsibility to make sure items purchased from them are used only in ways they approve of. As another example, I used to work retail (think mall store). At times customers would come in who very obviously held beliefs I strongly disagreed with (racists, a guy with a T-shirt that had a slogan that seemed vaguely anti-Islam, a lady with a pamphlet from an extremely radical and hateful Christian church in the next town over from where I lived at the time). I happen to be a Christian from a very liberal faith tradition that holds as most important respecting the inherent dignity of everyone and upholding the love that I believe the God I believe in shows for humanity by not judging and by trying to treat everyone well and by working to achieve social justice in our society. The customers I just described were definitely not living up to the way my religious tradition would demand I uphold its standards, and yes, being around people with those views made me feel a bit personally uncomfortable. But I still didn't get to refuse them service, and I agree with that. My standards are not the standards that they have chosen to agree to uphold, and I have no right to hold others to my personal standards in order to conduct whatever unrelated service I am employed to provide. I was selling shirts, so I sold those people shirts. If they choose to wear their shirts while engaging in something I would personally find objectionable to participate in, like a racist protest or something, that is none of my business and has nothing to do with me. The only appropriate choice on my part as an employee was to sell them the shirt I was paid to sell them without regard to personal factors about the customer. In terms of my own personal morals, I also would not be alright with refusing to sell a product or most services to someone simply because their beliefs differ from mine. That feels judgmental, intolerant, disrespectful of others' autonomy to make their own choices, and just wrong. Someone can hold a belief that I am 100% convinced is wrong and still deserves to be able to get what they want or need from whatever business I am employed by. |
A cake -- yes. They're in the business of providing cakes, so they should provide cakes without regard to factors about a customer such as religion or sexual orientation or plans for the product. An "anti-gay" cake (what is that? presumably one that has slurs written on it somehow?) -- certainly not, if the bakery does not typically make such things. Especially when doing so could cause the bakery problems due to whatever the customer wants being considered discrimination or hate speech. Give every customer no more or less than you would make available to every other customer. |
What is an anti-gay cake? Does the icing clash? |
Ok. Well, let's play that out and put all the left/right/religon stuff to the side. As the GOVERNOR of the state, how do YOU account for the negative impact on your state? How do you deal with the big companes HQed there that will get pressure to move? How do you deal with the organizations that will no longer have conventions there - bearing in mind that you have a publicly funded convention center in Indy and 2 brand spanking new hotels nearby? As governor, how do you remedy the fact that the NFL will no longer hold a Super Bowl (a HUGE cash cow) in your state and it is likely that the NCAA will move and move its championships too - bearing in mind that public money was used to lure them? What about the universities that will have problems bringing the OOS kids - who are the big tuition payers. And will you be able to lure balaced professors to teach them? See, here is the thing. Your tax dollars are NOTHING compared to the revenue that the state gets from other sources. It takes money to run a state, not Conservative rhetoric. How does this play in with the Conservative lobby winning cuts to sex and reproductive health programs there and now there is an"outbreak of HIV in Indiana. Has Indiana relegated itself to a backwater state? See...these are things the Governor should be thinking about. I guarantee you that if the sate loses revenue over this and the budget tightens, the very same folks who are celebrating this law will be votig his ass out of office. |
Different poster. I think PP answered you correctly. A gay bakery (or any bakery) cannot simply refuse to sell cakes to Christians, because that would be a violation of the anti-discrimination laws that protect Christians. Surely you support such anti-discrimination laws that protect Christians against religious discrimination, don't you? If the bakery routinely puts any message on the cakes, without regard to content -- think sort of like Kinko's of bakeries -- then I suppose it could be forced to put a message its owners consider personally offensive on the cake, if the message is one of a protected class (race, religion, etc). That dispute probably gets a little murkier, because it's about the store's policy and practice, and the specific message requested. As a practical matter, I'd guess most businesses printing specific messages will reserve the right not to print certain offensive messages. If the business singles out Christian messages as ones it chooses not to print, I suspect that might be viewed as violating the anti-discrimination laws, but I suspect that's a tough case to prove. If instead it's some non-protected message the bakery finds offensive (e.g., refusing to print the words "fuck you"), that's probably not a violation of any laws. |
WTF is a gay bakery? LOL |
Arkansas gets it. The governor has asked that their bill be rewritten to parallel the 1993 law, unlike Indiana's.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/religious-freedom-law-arkansas-bill-awaits-governors-decision-after-indiana-n333876 |
All of them, kinda. |
Why not? The bakery refusing the customer wanting the cake with an anti-gay message is in the business of making cakes too. Who's determined it to be hate speech? If the customer wants "gay marriage is wrong in the eyes of God", why is that hate speech? Just because you don't like it? I'll ask again, because no one has answered my question. Why are the gay individual's rights more protected by law than the Christian's? Especially considering the first amendment. |
Your question is based on a false premise. Nobody here believes that a gay individual's rights are more protected by law than a Christian's. If anything, Christians have more legal protection because discrimination based on religion is more widely prohibited than discrimination based on sexual orientation. In a state like Oregon, Christians and gays have a right to expect the same service from companies. They have equal protection, so neither's rights are more protected. |
This is my issue with the law. Its puts the burden on the plaintiff/government. The burden should be on the person relying on the exemption, otherwise it just becomes a free pass to discriminate against anyone using religion as an excuse. In any case, I suspect that this law wont be on the books for very long - the state's economy will take a hit and then the backtracking will begin. |
Sure they do. Otherwise they would they would not be essentially crucifying Christians for exercising their religious rights. Again, the Oregon bakery did not turn down the business of the gay couple. They shopped there previously and were never turned down. They were only turned down when asked for a specialty item for their wedding. The gay bakery that turned down the Christian baker wanting an anti-gay cake did the exact same thing. You just feel that their message was more hateful. You know DAMN well that if a gay baker in Oregon turned down a cake for a patron that said "Gay Marriage Is Wrong", the lefties like you would be all over it as a hateful message. And the courts would likely agree with you. That's the double-standard today. The court in Oregon, in my opinion was wrong in their decision. Know why leftists are bullies? Fact is not on their side, so they have to resort to nasty tactics. Shame it works on so many people. |
Yeah, we are such bullies. Bullying our way into the courts and desegregating schools. Bullying our way into lunch counters and desegregating restaurants. Bully, bully, bully. How dare we stand up for people who you treat unfairly. |
A pizza business in Indiana is all over the news now for saying they would not cater a gay wedding if asked because it is against their religious belief to do so.
They did say they would serve gay people that come there to eat, just refuse to cater at a gay wedding. But people who don't like what they said are naturally going to twist it make it even worse in their minds and are outraged that they don't serve gays period. Listen up, that is not what they said libtards. Be mad at their unwillingness to cater if you must, but don't make out like they said more than that. I'm not religious but I can understand their not wanting to cater a gay wedding. I think it's a stupid part of the Bible (like many parts of the Bible obviously are) but they strongly believe the Bible is the word of God. But it's their belief and it's their right to believe in it. And get this, there are already threats of burning the place down appearing. Liberals love to march. Liberals holler for tolerance but it's a one way street with liberals. Tolerance should mean allowing them to follow their belief in this instance and not have to cater. Reminder, they are willing to serve to gay people. Thati s flying over the heads of some liberals. But that is not good enough for you, they've got to be willing to cater for a gay wedding also. You've got to have it all. If you don't get it all you'll protest and shut the business down. That's how you roll. That pizza business is within it's rights to refuse to cater for a gay wedding if it were asked to. So you have no right to shut their business down. Anyone who goes and blocks their doors needs to go jail. And those who threaten them by phone or internet or in any other way need to be tracked down by the police. |
The big difference is that the Oregon bakery was asked to provide the exact same cake -- a wedding cake -- but it refused only when the couple getting married was a lesbian couple. So it's clear there was a double standard at work. In your "gay baker" hypothetical, the situation is lots murkier because you're talking about an individualized message on the cake ("gay marriage is wrong"). I address this situation on the other thread at page 6 at 6:29 (http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/75/460001.page). If your "gay baker" hypothetical was a true apples-to-apples parallel -- where the gay baker simply refused to serve any cake at all to the Christian buyer -- I'd totally agree with you that the gay baker would be violating the anti-discrimination law. |