General News Baker who wouldn't bake a cake for a gay couple is in court again for not making a transgender cake

Surely they would just move on to another baker and find someone who is willing to make a cake for the occasion?

If a professional baker refused to bake a cake for my gay wedding, I wouldn't bother pressing charges, I would just put it down to them losing a customer, and other customers including all the people at my wedding. I don't see the sense in suing.

 

I don't get why anyone in the community would want to willingly give money and support a business knowing the owner is very much against LGBTQ+ people, it makes absolutely no sense to me.

Yes, the guy should not let his religious belief dictate who he serves or doesn't serve, but why decide to try and hire him knowing he is very much against who you are.

 

Really, how irresistible are his cakes? We can all agree that the Baker's a bigot but this is also one of those instances where straight people accuse us of pushing the gay agenda. They think we're forcibly trying to make everyone accept us and confuse that with our alleged ultimate motive to turn everyone gay. And this isn't even the right way to fight for acceptance. Will we seriously now have gay couples suing churches, mosques, temples and gurdwaras for not marrying them?

 

It seems fairly obvious they are targeting him because they know he will refuse their request. It seems to be a fairly obvious set up to a lawsuit

 

It would be illegal for any baker to refuse to make a religious themed cake because religion is a protected class. It is ironic because religious belief is a choice. If one leaves discrimination up to individuals who knows where it will stop so a decision has to be made once and for all to clear up the confusion. Is sexual orientation a protected class or not?

 

There seems to be some confusion about why people do this, and like someone mentioned before, is because they want a case to take to court. You cannot fight a discriminatory practice unless you can prove that you are being discriminated to begin with. They wanted the proof.

Not sure if this is being orchestrated by a national org or not, so not sure how strategic they are being about it, but this is why they went to the baker most likely.

I think people forget that they shouldn't rely on capitalism to "take care of this problem" because it hasn't worked in the past and its starting to not work anymore in Trump's america.

The premise that has been made is that anyone giving out a service cannot discriminate. This is why black people can eat at every restaurant even if the owners hate black people. Back then racism was also defended with the bible and the government simply had to say "get over it".

We will see if the government agrees that LGBT should not be discriminated against. This is a huge case for LGBT people who live in rural places where options are far more limited compared to big cities.

This isn't how it works.

Religious institutions have been allowed to discriminate based on religion if they can make a case. For example, a Catholic church can refuse to do your wedding unless you are Catholic, etc. So no, LGBT cannot sue churches or religions to be accepted into their spaces so the comparison doesn't hold.

The case is being disputed because the baker is arguing that his religion beliefs are more important than LGBT place in society. That is the main problem right now.

In the US, minorities have been able to gain access to public spaces mainly through lawsuits so this strategy has actually been working for man, many years now with great success

 

Technically he won, but not in the way that anti-lgbt people wanted to win. The Supreme Court ruled that the baker was discriminated against by the local government since the committee or whatever didn't follow the right procedures in order to handle the complain. So the ruling was super narrow and it only affected that one case for him.

LGBT activist were hoping for a ruling that would say that no business can discriminate people and anti-lgbt activists were hoping that the ruling would give any private business the right to discriminate LGBT people. So in essence no one won other than the baker, which is unusual for a Supreme Court decision.

 

Apparently he is the only baker in Michigan. If I was him I would just shut down and go away

 

I have been really struggling to get people to understand just how dangerous this can get. This are starting to slowly turn and changes are already happening:

Trump Is Creating A Loophole For Contractors That Discriminate Against LGBT People
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/dominicholden/trump-loophole-lgbt-discrimination

This is a huge deal. This means that LGBT business are up for losing millions of dollars based on their sexuality because someone can now argue that they will not hire a company due to the owners sexual orientation. This will force some people to go back in the closet if they want their companies to stay afloat.

If the religious liberty defense holds up for non-religious companies, we are up for a whole new disaster in our hands for many LGBT people.

 

Agreed but this has got to be either for publicity or for activism. If they're singling out the same Baker they know is homophobic and now transphobic, then the lawsuit is for getting public attention either for publicity or for furthering the cause. Which is perfectly fine but it's pretty obvious that it's not really about the cake. They're trying to make a statement. And denying marriage makes a lot more sense than denying cakes since marriage is a religious ceremony and one the Church's duties. Secular countries allow people to practice any faith but baking cakes isn't the same as reading the Bible or Quran.

Denying a service out of religious beliefs doesn't necessarily threaten LGBT's place in society. I mean is this really about challenging his transphobic faith itself or about how he can't use it as an excuse to discriminate? If it's the former then it's a pointless battle because we can't actually coexist with religions like Christianity and Islam in principle. What we can do is curtail any and all anti-LGBT religious expression and hopefully religious expression in general, which by the way I'm totally in favour of. We've pulled too much bullshit in the name of such an artificial construct.

It'll also be difficult to draw the line between which services can be influenced by personal faith and which can't. I personally hope the court rules against the Baker just to send a message and to prevent religion from interfering with more important services like medicine and law.

 

Seems like this is more of a personal agenda. They could've went to any bakery even a stores bakery and got the cake. They could've also just requested a blue cake with pink frosting and would've got it. What was the point of saying what it was for? I would've ordered the cake then afterwards let him know what it was for and publicly state he made the cake.

 

I agree with ya in this.. well said!

 

It’s very obvious.

 

I agree. He has said that he has no issues serving LGBT individuals, just not make wedding cakes for things that violate his religious freedoms. I.mean, if I am.a Baker I wouldn't have issues making such cakes, but I am sorry.. if someomenxomes in wanting a satanic cake.. not going to get one and I shouldn't be forced to make one.

 

This kind of thing only serves to make the LGBT community look like intolerant bullies.

It is not as if LGBT individuals are being barred from patronizing his shop; he is simply not providing a specific service. Why any self-respecting gay person would want a cake made under duress or force is beyond me as well.

 

I think it's really stupid they chose this guy to make their cake. I don't think it's ok to refuse service for his reason, but picking this guy gives the impression he was targeted which isn't wise. I think it would be much better if the next case came about by chance that the customer didn't know the shop owner had certain beliefs. Maybe that's true here, but I'm skeptical of that. She wouldn't need to explain what the cake meant so that seems suspicious, but maybe she was just excited about it.

Ok, so he won't make wedding cakes for gay couples and gender transition anniversary cakes. He should post a sign of all the celebrations he won't make baked goods for. I hope this time the state didn't do whatever they did wrong last time that got the supreme court to side with the baker. It was something about not respecting his beliefs appropriately, but still not clear on what exactly the state did wrong. This case started in summer '17 so the ruling hadn't occurred yet for the state to know what it did wrong so they may have done the same thing again which will suck.

I think it's ridiculous that he thinks he's promoting some message by making what the customer wants. This argument of compelled speech came up in the wedding cake case, but I really think the speech/message is that of the customer, not the baker. He's just making something a customer specified so if that would change his beliefs, he must have pretty weak beliefs. I really find his argument so weak and hope this gets resolved in a broad ruling against hiding behind religious beliefs, although if Kavanaugh gets confirmed then forget about us having protections in jobs, housing and public accommodations for several decades.

 

I agree, he needs to post a sign in his store stating all the celebrations that he won't take part in. Furthermore, if this is allowed then landlords will be able to refuse to rent to gay persons because of their religious beliefs or doctors will be able to refuse to treat the child of gay parents etc. In essence, gay people will be relegated to that of a second class citizen.

 

Where I live (Bible belt, Georgia) this is already kind of legal anyways. We just don't have signs outside the businesses so we wait and get our hopes up, then get denied because we weren't fortunate enough to be born clones. I'm honestly kind of fearing for my life with the way my health is, they could just decide it's against their "beliefs" to let me continue breathing.

They should just advertise their bigotry and save us both some time. It's clear the US hasn't changed.