Bakery Lost Discrimination Case

[marymargaret]

No matter which side you're on in this debate, this is a troubling trend. The bakery refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple and were taken to court. They lost and will no longer offer wedding cakes for anyone. They will bake birthday cupcakes for gays, they just won't support gay marriage due to their religious beliefs. The court ruled they they can't refuse to serve gays and now orders the bakery to submit quarterly reports about the customers he refuses to serve and retrain employees to serve everyone. Isn't this a little extreme? I'm pretty sure businesses refuse to deal with people for all sorts of reasons. We, as consumers, can choose to support their policies or not.

This seems to be a trend of entitled attitudes and vengeance on both sides. It will further divide people and may even back fire on their causes. I don't want to see people treated badly, but I also don't want to see others bullied into compliance. Running a small business is tough enough without having to deal with social agendas.

I'm not religious but I'm uncomfortable with this because it always gets worse. Do you think this is fair?


http://denver.cbslocal.com/2014/05/30/bakery-will-stop-making-wedding-cakes-after-losing-discrimination-case/

[SGOS]

I got a kick out of this reader comment.  I don't know if the reader was serious or not, but I assume he poking fun at bigotry:

Gay people! Again. Ruining something for everyone else.

[PopeyesPappy]

Do you think this is fair?

I don't have a problem with requiring non discrimination of businesses that do business with the public. We don't let businesses refuse to serve blacks, and I don't see why we should let them discriminate against gays just because they are gay.

[the_antithesis]

They will bake birthday cupcakes for gays, they just won't support gay marriage due to their religious beliefs.

They're stupid, then.

That's not supporting gay marriage.

That's profiting from gay marriage.

If they can't tell the difference, they deserve to lose their business.

[Hydra009]

No matter which side you're on in this debate, this is a troubling trend.

Yeah.  What is our nation coming to?  Gays sex no longer criminalized, gay getting married, gays not being barred from businesses by God-fearing Christians understandably outraged by their gayness (the nerve of those gays!).  Hopefully, we can put all this behind us and return to our roots as a Christian nation.

[marymargaret]

Yeah.  What is our nation coming to?  Gays sex no longer criminalized, gay getting married, gays not being barred from businesses by God-fearing Christians understandably outraged by their gayness (the nerve of those gays!).  Hopefully, we can put all this behind us and return to our roots as a Christian nation.

I can understand why many of you are taking this stand- I don't disagree. It would be nice if we all just saw each other as human beings and treated each other decently, but some people have been conditioned to be biased.

I don't know if many of you run your own business - I did for a few years, and I would not have handled it this way. If you don't want to deal with someone, there are more diplomatic ways of saying no. They could have said that they were booked for that date and recommended a reputable bakery and wished them well. No one needed to be disrespected and the owner will be the one who losses a booking and possible future business from them and their friends.

The bakery business is surprisingly cut throat in some places. Not all sugar and sunshine!!! They could take a booking from a straight couple and end up with the booking from hell and get their reputation trashed and stiffed on payment. It happens quite a bit. This gay couple could have been a great customer and sent more business their way.  You just can't tell sometimes.

My concern is this tit for tat mentality. The baker took a religious stance  and then the gay couple took him to court. Now the baker won't offer wedding cakes and will be seen as a martyr of sorts to the religious folks. Some gay groups will see court as the only way to solve their grievances. This only divides people more. Maybe I'm too idealistic. 

[marymargaret]

Then there were more reasons for those people to be careful with their business instead of acting the way they did. But what did they do, they insisted on their "no gays" sign. Carrying it to court is a very civilised way to solve this and seems like the only way. You cannot sit down and chat with these people hoping to come to an agreement in the end, make up and kiss.

I respect your opinion and I am neutral- I try to keep to the center unless the issue is extreme. I don't think this is. I'm just curious- have you ever been mistreated by a rude store clerk or owner? If you were- did you take them to court or did you take your money elsewhere? I've met some pretty obnoxious shop keeps in my day and simply left without spending a dime and gave my money to people who wanted my business. I wouldn't bad mouth those businesses but I wouldn't recommend them either. Instead, I highly recommend the shops that operate with integrity. This may not be everyone's way of thinking, but word of mouth can make or break a business. I just think that the legal system is overused in some cases and desensitizes public opinion.
 

[pioteir]

I wonder how xtians would react if a gay-owner of a bakery told them to gtfo when they came for a hetero wedding cake :)) serves them right. I don't go to a bakery for a sermon on "morality", just sell me the fuckin cake.

[edit] Business-wise I can relate to a shopkeep to refuse servicing a troublesome, menacing client, but how is being gay troublesome?

[SGOS]

My concern is this tit for tat mentality. The baker took a religious stance  and then the gay couple took him to court. Now the baker won't offer wedding cakes and will be seen as a martyr of sorts to the religious folks. Some gay groups will see court as the only way to solve their grievances. This only divides people more. Maybe I'm too idealistic. 

Discrimination issues have been dealt with and corrected by the court system before.  Feathers get ruffled, but we have no other means to rectify the inequality than by courts.  Until these issues are addressed, there is no way to insure fairness in an imperfect world but through arbitration.  But eventually, people come to accept and embrace it.  Not everyone of course.  There are still whites that would enslave blacks, and men that would deny rights to women.

In an ideal world, everyone on the planet could sit down and come to agreement through dialog, but it will never happen.  So we have courts to decide these issues, sometimes fairly and sometimes not.

[SGOS]

Business-wise I can relate to a shopkeep to refuse servicing a troublesome, menacing client, but how is being gay troublesome?

My God, Man!  If you can't understand his, you should be barred from church, and required to attend a Neo Nazi re-education program, so you can identify nasty trouble makers who want to ruin your marriage.

[Jason Harvestdancer]

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
-   H. L. Mencken

Why is it that if you support gay marriage you are also supposed to support forcing bakers to bake cakes they do not want to bake?

Why is it that if you support the baker's decision you are also supposed to be against gay marriage?

Libertarians were in favor of gay marriage back when progressives were still fighting for inter-racial marriage and swearing that there was no slippery slope and that approving inter-racial marriage wouldn't lead to gay marriage.  Yet libertarians also don't approve of forcing that business owner to bake that cake.

[PopeyesPappy]

An emergency trauma surgeon asks a libertarian gunshot victim, "Political affiliation?"
Libertarian gunshot victim replies, "Libertarian."
The emergency trauma surgeon says, "Sorry, I don't treat libertarians." and walks away.
Thirty minutes later the libertarian gunshot victim bleeds out and dies while the hospital staff frantically tries to get another surgeon to come in to treat him.

I suppose you support the emergency trauma surgeon's right to choose who he treats too, right Jason?

[Jason Harvestdancer]

An emergency trauma surgeon asks a libertarian gunshot victim, "Political affiliation?"
Libertarian gunshot victim replies, "Libertarian."
The emergency trauma surgeon says, "Sorry, I don't treat libertarians." and walks away.
Thirty minutes later the libertarian gunshot victim bleeds out and dies while the hospital staff frantically tries to get another surgeon to come in to treat him.

I suppose you support the emergency trauma surgeon's right to choose who he treats too, right Jason?

Uh, sure, that's exactly what I'm saying, right.  Whatever.

[Shol'va]

For those that are struggling with the idea of government "intrusion", try the following exercise. Replace "gay" with "black", see if that makes a difference.

[PopeyesPappy]

Uh, sure, that's exactly what I'm saying, right.  Whatever.

The way I understood it your position is a service provider has a right to choose who they provide their services to. If that's the case then what is difference between a baker refusing to bake a cake for a gay couple and a surgeon refusing to operate on a libertarian or a gay person for that matter. Shouldn't the surgeon also have the same right as the baker to choose who they perform services for?