Religious beliefs, gay rights clash in court case over cake

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By IVAN MORENO

DENVER (AP) — A case that tests the boundaries of religious freedom and gay rights came to the Colorado Court of Appeals on Tuesday, with a suburban Denver baker urging judges not to force him to make cakes for same-sex couples because it would violate his beliefs.

But attorneys representing a gay couple who were denied a wedding cake in 2012 countered that allowing businesses to turn away customers through religious exemptions will facilitate future discrimination.

"Religious beliefs do not put the cake shop above the law," argued Ria Mar, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney representing the couple. The court will issue a ruling later.

The case underscores how the already simmering tension between religious-freedom advocates and gay-rights supporters is likely to become more heated in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark ruling last month legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide.

FULL story at link.



File - In this March 10, 2014 file photo, Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips decorates a cake inside his store, in Lakewood, Colo. Phillips, who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple, is to argue Tuesday, July 7, 2015 before the Colorado Court of Appeals that his religious beliefs should protect him from sanctions against his business. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, file)

Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/c185529d814046498c552ea4310f2a0e/gay-wedding-cake-center-colorado-appeals-court-case

[bucolic_frolic]

1. We're back to cake baking?

When did business become a religious enterprise?

He bakes his religious beliefs into the cake? How does he do that?

Once again, this is about boundaries, property rights.

You bake a cake. You sell the cake. You don't own it anymore.

[DallasNE]

4. Hobby-Lobby

Established a business as a religious enterprise with deeply held religious beliefs. Citizens United established businesses as people. The same principle as with the Dred-Scott decision all of those decades ago.

[bucolic_frolic]

21. Yes, you make sense

One reads about the cases, and it's a case, but painted with a broad brush
that shows the principles established, it's a beachhead.

So if someone formed a religion that believed all customers must show
political affiliation and one party or the other is charged double, that would
be ok, if it were a religious belief? Morally some people can afford more.

Traffic tickets are you know, $300. It's two weeks pay to small fry, it's
an hours work for a doctor/lawyer/shrink/hedge fund trader. Why not a
% of income when tickets are paid. Then it would mean something.

[24601]

29. Why stop with fines - how about 30 days in jail for unemployed murderers, with the penalty

going up progressively to mandatory death if they make more than $250,000 per year?

Because while you can discriminate as a private citizen, the state doesn't have that luxury.

[bucolic_frolic]

32. It depends on what you consider discriminatory

Fines that are a heavy burden on the poor and half an hour's work for the
rich might be viewed as discriminatory - depends on who you ask.

Should fines be absolute, or an equal burden based on pay?

[bucolic_frolic]

33. A progressive income tax would be discriminatory

when viewed from that standpoint.

All taxes should be equal in that view, say the first $5,000.00
of income and we'll call it square?

[geek tragedy]

5. it depends on how much creative input the baker has.

If he's being asked to create a cake with a customized message celebrating something his religion opposes, it's not the most trivial argument in the world.

On the other hand, if he's refusing to sell any kind of cake with a wedding theme to a same-sex couple, he's hosed.

[yardwork]

9. Exactly.

The Sweet Cakes case involved the owner turning away one of the brides and her mother when they showed up for their cake tasting appointment. The customers never even had a chance to request a cake. They were turned away solely because they were a same-sex couple, and the owner told them that. He lost in court.

I think that some people equate being gay with requesting obscene messages on cakes. This is insulting.

[geek tragedy]

10. there's a first amendment issue not just in terms of religion

but also freedom of expression.

Hard to imagine Jewish screenwriters being forced to work on a remake of Triumph of the Will?

Status-based discrimination--as you pointed out--is a much different situation.

[yardwork]

11. So far, none of these cases involve offensive messages.

Each of these cases involve gay people being turned away solely because of who they are. If business owners are allowed to do so, then it is also suddenly legal again to post signs saying "whites only" or "no Irish need apply."

[geek tragedy]

16. then that's illegal in all likelihood. I'm not aware of the facts in the instant

case.

[catrose]

23. I don't know how Jewish screenwriters could be forced that way

Aren't screenwriters contractors, who can decide what they want to work on (within the limits of what they're offered)?

[geek tragedy]

24. drawing a distinction between a cake decorator and a screenwriter

gets tricky . . .

[catrose]

25. The jokes would write themselves...

But, no, I'd still have to type them. I shall refrain and leave it to more qualified humorists.

[DallasNE]

13. I Dpn't Buy The First Point

Because that would apply to Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, etc. themed cakes and his objection is only to sexual orientation.

[geek tragedy]

17. a person's religious beliefs are what they say they are, in most court cases.

Someone upthread posted that he's refusing to do anything for a same-sex wedding, not just refusing to provide a customized message. In that case, I don't see much of a defense at all.

[yardwork]

26. That is correct.

In this case, as with the others, the owner simply refused to bake a cake for the wedding, solely because the couple is gay.

No offensive message on the cake was requested. The comparisons to Jewish bakers being forced to write anti-Semitic messages or Muslims being forced to serve pork are not relevant. These cases are exactly comparable to a baker turning away a black couple because "I don't do weddings for black people because of my religion." That argument was used in the 1960s.

[geek tragedy]

28. we agree. they are not relevant in this case.

my initial "depends on" turns out to have been moot

[yardwork]

39. Are you on drugs? /nt

[christx30]

42. But if you don't bake the cake,

you don't sell the cake, you still own it.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

2. So, does he also refuse to sell to liars, theives, adulterers, etc.?

Or does he just not like homosexuals? I can't say I know for sure, but I've got a pretty strong hunch about this.

[brooklynite]

8. More appropriately, would he bake a wedding cake for divorcees?

[restorefreedom]

12. they always conveniently ignore divorce

apparently that is not an issue for them, even though divorce is mentioned a lot more than same sex relationships in the bible.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

18. I don't agree that that's more "appropriate". I don't think divorce is proscribed by Christianity.

Thieving, lying, and adulterating are. Which is why I used those who commit those "sins".

[brooklynite]

19. Matthew 5:32

But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

22. I do think the fact that they see gay marriage as more of a threat to "traditional marriage" than

divroce is ridiculous.

But, I wasn't focusing on that aspect of their hypocrisy. I was referring to the hypocrisy of claiming they can't bake a cake for a gay couple because that couple is violating a religious tenet that's important to them, yet, they don't refuse to serve those who violate other tenets they claim to care about.

Again, I see the point about the hypocrisy of objecting to only select things the bible proscribes, that just wasn't my point.

[Yo_Mama]

35. The argument is not that they won't bake a cake - any cake - for a gay person

or couple. (If I have this right.)

It is that they won't bake a customized cake designed to celebrate a same-sex marriage because their religious beliefs prohibit them from endorsing or supporting such an occasion.

That precise argument has been rejected in wedding-cake cases before.

[yardwork]

36. That's not correct, based on my understanding of the cases.

In fact, they are refusing to bake any wedding cake at all for a same-sex couple. Customization didn't have time to come into it in this case, or the case in Oregon. The customers were turned away simply for being gay.

Merchants have the right to refuse to customize something they are opposed to expressing. A baker has the right to refuse to put an obscene message on a cake, but they don't have the right to turn a customer away simply for being gay.

In fact, it is insulting to suppose that gay people are any more likely to request an obscene message than anybody else. We just want a wedding cake. Like everybody else gets to buy.

[randys1]

27. Would go out of business overnight

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

30. I think he ought to go out of business so as not to compromise his religious convictions.

I know how important they are to him. No selling to sinners!

[DallasNE]

3. What Is The Difference

Between making a cake for a gay couple and a black or mixed couple? How can the courts split this hair? It looks illogical. And what happened to "one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all". I don't see where the word "except" is written in there anywhere. Can "whites only" be a deeply held religious belief once again? How can the courts even consider going down this slippery slope.

[restorefreedom]

15. they can't split this hair

thats why this battle has been won over and over again.

these people want to return to some time long past, when they felt freer to hate and discriminate.

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

6. His made up beliefs? Jesus never said anything about gay love.

This ass just doesn't want to be around gay people. Probably confused by his own precarious sexuality.

[House of Roberts]

7. If the law says no discrimination,

and the business license says the business must obey all the laws, he either makes the cake, or surrenders the license.

[DavidDvorkin]

14. This place is near my house

I seem to remember that he was in trouble before for something similar.

[bullsnarfle]

20. Discrimination

is discrimination, and this sure fits the bill, no question.

On the other hand, I sure as hell would not want some right-wing xtian nut-bar to bake a cake for my wedding, especially if they felt they were being "forced" to. I'd be too afraid that they would spit in it (or worse... shudder).

[christx30]

43. Or worse, do just enough

to said that he complied with the order, but could be very bland, in both taste and looks. If he's being forced into it, he's not going to put his full concentration or effort into it. Kind of a "I'm just here so I don't get fined"
"A cake is flour, sugar, egg, and butter. You have all of that there. Since I didn't really give a crap, it'll be $12, for the ingredients."

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

31. This shit again??????

[HFRN]

34. while wrong, i would think that some people appreciate the warning

i sure as heck wouldn't want anyone to be part of my wedding, if they didn't respect the union, publicly or privately

[yardwork]

37. Allow me to speak to that, as a gay person.

No, I don't want to spend money in a business that hates me. But even less do I want to have to cringe every time I enter a business, wondering if they are going to humiliate me and my family by refusing to serve me.

Nobody should have to put up with that.

[HFRN]

41. point well taken nt