LGBT News Everything You've Heard About the "Sweet Cakes" Wedding Cake Case is Probably Wrong

Re: Everything You've Heard About the "Sweet Cakes" Wedding Cake Case is Probably Wro

If I can be Literal Larry for just a second, here is an article about Mississippi businesses making a movement saying "If you're buying, we're selling."

But to the fundamental point you make, as a southeastern boy myself (NC, FL, and GA, from the smallest of towns to the city), I don't believe you would ever realistically come across a scenario where there is a product or service that is reasonably available to others, but not to you because the entire local market for said product is discriminating against you. If that ever did occur, my response would be to first try and solve my immediate dilemma of say not having a wedding cake. Maybe I'd ask for a wedding cake with no writing on it and then we'd put our names on it ourselves with our own cake topper decoration. Then we wouldn't even have to tell the baker who it's really for. Then, most importantly, I would try and appeal to a more accepting crowd with my story of just being massively discriminated against and continue to shed light on those who banish us from something for a stupid reason. I would use it as a stepping stool and an opportunity to speak out and do something useful towards ending discrimination, persuade the public.

I would NEVER tell someone that they have to sell me their product which uses resources that are theirs, which pays employees with money that is theirs to sign away, with their own talents that they have honed over their own time, against their will for ANY reason, because the law said so. I would never want to force you to sell something of your own to somebody that you don't want to sell it to, and I believe in that as a fundamental principle of business that is to be extended to any level.

Did the Chinese government send you?

A. I don't quite understand what you mean. They told them they're not going to bake the cake because they don't believe in doing so for a gay wedding. I don't know how more upfront you can be. I would be nervous to see what the next level of "upfront" would be in this scenario. And even if one is not upfront about it...so what?

B. The irony of the image you posted is that it was probably from a public park or school, where segregation was dictated by law. The institution that forcefully segregated the military and public schools, one of the worst types of discriminating bodies in history, you're now asking to be the discrimination referee. That probably wasn't a company that posted those signs in your picture, that was the referee you've chosen.

But to your point directly, I don't believe in the principle that prohibition of something eliminates what you have prohibited. We prohibit murder, it still happens. We prohibit drugs, they're used more now than ever. We prohibit many people from buying guns, they're the people that wind up with guns. On this basis and the basis of property that I mentioned earlier, I would take the position of saying yes I would allow a company to deny business to anyone it wanted to for any reason whatsoever. I would then take the personal and moral position of speaking out against those who do put "no gay wedding cakes" or "we don't serve women" or "black people need not apply" and try to persuade the public that this is not the type of behavior that creates a healthy society - maybe we could finally stamp it out once and for all. I see these religious laws not as a step back in our struggle, but as a huge opportunity for us to expose the bigots and let the public decide their fate. I would invite more states to pass these religious freedom laws.

Where on earth do you derive a right to purchase somebody else's stuff? No such right exists. I would use "right" in a much different manner and say that it would be the RIGHT thing to do for somebody not to discriminate. I would have moral reasons, I would have economic reasons, I would have social reasons...I can make a good case. But why somebody assumes they have a right to purchase something from me I just don't know. It's MINE! If I don't sell my product to people named Emily...tough titty for you Emily! Go find another store. You don't have a fundamental right to buy my product if I don't want to sell it to you.

Businesses can't have a belief system because they are not people? The exact opposite of that statement is true in my mind. Business can and do have belief systems because they ARE people. You can't charge money to a logo. You can't tax a building. Your desk can't make decisions based on its past experiences. A business is just people and they can, will, and do have belief sets and that's not wrong.

Businesses are not private entities? What are they then, government entities?

---------- Post added 7th Jul 2015 at 02:26 PM ----------

From a Humans of New York facebook post:

"I feel like a lot of people bring discrimination on themselves by getting in people's faces too much. They like to say: 'Accept me or else!' They go around demanding respect as a member of a group, instead of earning respect as an individual. And that sort of behavior invites discrimination. I've never demanded respect because I was gay, and I haven't experienced much discrimination when people find out that I am."

 

Re: Everything You've Heard About the "Sweet Cakes" Wedding Cake Case is Probably Wro

Yes, at the point they were already in the store trying to place an order.

Putting a sign outside your store stating who and under what conditions you don't provide services to people.

That your scenario of 'who wants to buy from homophobes' does not make sense if people don't know until the moment they actually try to make the purchase.

Completely missing the point.

Because they're the best fit for the job as they're supposed to be neutral and enforce the law, unlike buisiness owners who are anything but neutral.

Again, you're missing the point.
The point is that the argument of 'they can just go to another store' is a form of 'seperate but equal' discrimination.

First of all, what you believe is irrelevant.
The fact is that anti-discrimination laws do stop buisinesses from discriminating without consequence, whilst using public funds and services.

So you're in favor of legalising murder then?
Do you seriously not see how flawed and dichotomous this line of reasoning is?

So we would have decades of free discrimination by people until enough bigoted people had died off/changed their minds?
Just do the whole seggregation thing all over again? BTW companies and buisinesses freely participated in seggregation at the time, it wasn't just a government thing.

The fact that virtually all buisinesses use public funds, tax benefits and public services, thereby making them a public venue, legible to anti-discrimination laws and the like.
If they want to use my tax payer money, they have to provide (within reason) service to me.

Yes it does, see above.

They're not. They're social constructs that exist independent of the people who founded them and can be ended independent of the people that founded them.

Public entities, at least as long as they use public services, tax breaks and public funds.

---------- Post added 7th Jul 2015 at 08:48 PM ----------

This is stupid.
Asking a buisiness to provide you the same service they provide everybody else is not getting in their face or demanding some kind of special respect.
It's demanding the same respect given to all customers.

 

Re: Everything You've Heard About the "Sweet Cakes" Wedding Cake Case is Probably Wro

This line of thinking isn't all that different than the straight people who thought marriage laws Shouldn't change cus "hey we can't marry the same sex either...everybody can marry the opposite sex so it's equal".

I'm not saying that there aren't people that look to jump on the 'its discrimination" when it's not...even been accused of it myself when it had nothing to do with orientation it was the person was an ass that happened to be gay.

That being said issues such as the one discussed aren't demanding respect because they are gay it's demanding equality because they are human!

This is not a case of "militant gays" making an issue, they felt (rightfully so) they were discriminated against and under law of the state filed a complaint. It was the owners that turned it in a public issue looking to shame the couple.

I wonder if they had turned down the business in a gracious manner "we are so sorry but we can't do this because of our beliefs but we'd like to give you your money back for the previous cake and recommend an excellent baker we know that would surely help you" if a complaint would even have been filed.

As is they were not only turned away they were told they were abominations and even still they didn't look to create a media firestorm they simply filled out paper work to file a complaint.....

 

Re: Everything You've Heard About the "Sweet Cakes" Wedding Cake Case is Probably Wro

I am shocked, shocked I say, to see people from the South who have not yet come to grips with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the notion of public accommodations.

Sweet Jesus, it's been 50 years, same dumb ass arguments, even when they are used against lgbt people like the people posting here.

 

Re: Everything You've Heard About the "Sweet Cakes" Wedding Cake Case is Probably Wro

Once your beliefs infringe upon someone's rights then that's where your rights end. You don't have a right to dehumanize another human being.

---------- Post added 7th Jul 2015 at 04:19 PM ----------

Under the same definition you use to claim gay people "steal" from them.

---------- Post added 7th Jul 2015 at 04:20 PM ----------

 

Re: Everything You've Heard About the "Sweet Cakes" Wedding Cake Case is Probably Wro

Maybe the business should have put up a sign telling people what they believe in, that would save us from having to go through this.

 

Re: Everything You've Heard About the "Sweet Cakes" Wedding Cake Case is Probably Wro

It's too much to ask for them to follow the law, like lawful enterprises do?

 

Re: Everything You've Heard About the "Sweet Cakes" Wedding Cake Case is Probably Wro

If your business benefits or takes money from my taxes, you either allow me to do business with you or I get my tax money back.

If it's private, this becomes trickier. You have more of a "my business, my rules" justification here, if the private business sustains themselves on their own.

 

Re: Everything You've Heard About the "Sweet Cakes" Wedding Cake Case is Probably Wro

But that's very rarely the case.

 

Re: Everything You've Heard About the "Sweet Cakes" Wedding Cake Case is Probably Wro

Then it shall very rarely be the case they can deny service like that, LOL.

 

Re: Everything You've Heard About the "Sweet Cakes" Wedding Cake Case is Probably Wro

Yea, was just saying it's rare, since many people, including many Americans seem to think all buisinesses are private.

 

Re: Everything You've Heard About the "Sweet Cakes" Wedding Cake Case is Probably Wro

Never felt sorry for them to begin with. If the couple were causing trouble, such as damaging property or disturbing customers, then that would be understandable. However, denying someone for being a minority your religion views as "sinful" is not recognized as legal.

Religion has been used to deny service to interracial couples in the past, and now it's seen as wrong unanimously; so why is it different for gays and lesbians? Because it's over a wedding cake? The party who's trying to "defend their religion[-ious interpretation]" looks even more silly. The fact that they listed their names should slam them from somehow being "ambiguously bad" to being flat f-cking evil.

 

Re: Everything You've Heard About the "Sweet Cakes" Wedding Cake Case is Probably Wro

And all private businesses do business under laws that bind every member of the public and all organisations, groups and individuals who have public duties to uphold, one of them being that service must be provided without reasonable grounds not to do so. No organisation can claim to be truly private, as all legitimate transactions are a public matter.

 

Re: Everything You've Heard About the "Sweet Cakes" Wedding Cake Case is Probably Wro

Please listen to the sweetie...

It's flatly indefensible. These business owners behaved in a malicious way. They didn't simply refuse service. They served up the personal information of that couple and exposed them to danger.

Fortunately, the marketplace punished them like the vile, despicable vandals that they are.

~ Adrienne

 

Re: Everything You've Heard About the "Sweet Cakes" Wedding Cake Case is Probably Wro

I just want to say good article, thanks for sharing. All I've seen is horrible little clips from the bakery owners on my extremely conservative Facebook timeline, and they spoke ill of these folks' cause for discrimination all by themself without needing much more detail and attempted justification.
I didn't expect to see an argument in the comments here though, about whether this is wrong or not. :/