Lesbian couple refused wedding cake files state discrimination complaint

So wait a sec.

It would be wrong to force them them to perform the ceremony, but it's not wrong to force them to bake a cake? Does that mean a Christian pastor that said no to marrying them is different than a Christian baker who said no to baking for them?

 

I find it odd that while the LGBT group wants to be accepted and have their rights and beliefs. Yet, they're forcing everyone else to accept them and modify their own beliefs. Not everyone is going to accept you, not should they be forced to. If people want to be closed-minded, ignorant rednecks, they should be allowed to be. Is it a choice they're making to be this way, or were the born and/or molded with their attitude? Gee, does that question sound familiar?

We all need to accept we're all different and we all have different beliefs. We don't need to all be friends, but we so need to learn to coexist peacefully.

 

Wouldn't I, as a non Jewish person, be able to scream discrimination if a Jewish bakery refused to bake me a non kosher cake? I mean how dare they.

Or maybe have a bakery owned by a black family decorate a cake in black face.

Or have a GLBT bakery decorate a cake to read marriage is between a MAN and WOMAN ONLY.

if they refused I could sue them?

 

Knowingly providing a wedding cake to a gay couple is a form of condoning gay marriage. They bakery hadn't refused gay couples service in the past (at least from the bits and pieces I've seen in the news). They were simply refusing to make a wedding cake because they don't believe in gay marriage.

 

This case seems pretty easy to figure out to me. The bakery was a business open to the public and they refused service (making and selling a wedding cake) to a lesbian couple based on their sexual orientation.

Law in Oregon says you can't do that. The bakery owner wants to be able to make that decision so they shut down the public business and will now be making cakes privately out of their own home and can refuse to make a cake for anyone they want.

Kind of sucks for the bakery, but so do a lot of other things about running a business . . . so either play by the rules or don't open a business. Simple enough.

I understand people don't agree with the law, but the law itself seems pretty simple to understand.

 

Equal treatment comes from changing minds, not changing laws.

I believe in freedom. I believe you should be free to have a civil union with your partner. I believe if a church wishes to consecrate that union, you should be free to marry your partner. I also believe that if a church believes your union to be a sin, they should have the right to deny your marriage in that church.

Likewise, I believe businesses should be free to sell to whomever they please, and deny service to whomever they please. I also have a right to not purchase items from a business that discriminates. Over time, these things become self-selecting as people vote with their wallets every day. Those businesses that discriminate will likely find themselves soon out of business.

I don't think I'd shop at this bakery; in fact, if I knew what they had done, I know I wouldn't. However, I will defend their right to serve whomever they wish.

 

I know what the law says. As many others have said over and over in this thread, we understand what the law says. We've also said we feel it's partly bullshit. It's pretty easy to follow, and I get the overall intent and overall purpose. But its' all-encompassing reach is an over-reach.

 

I don't really care about whatever PC law is out there. I care about freedom. And sometimes freedom means that we defend things we find despicable.

As for your position that the law is infallible, remember that laws were used to support Jim Crow. Are you saying no law should ever be challenged?

 

Well said. It's essentially what I've said throughout this thread. Repped.

Are we gaining freedom or losing freedom? This couple is having something they don't agree with forced down their throats. So congrats to the LGBT community for their increased "rights" at the expense of others' individual rights.

 

I'm curious what people's take on "the law" and what's right and wrong. I hear several people saying "the law is the law".

Cool story. But when the law isn't in your favor, are you going to follow it and go along with it? Following the law doesn't make it right. That's a lame-ass excuse to fall in line.

There are (or at least were recently) multiple states that banned gay sex. That is/was the law. Does that make the ban right because it's the law? Eric, if that's a law in a state you're visiting, are you going to honor it?

 

So what I'm getting from you is that it's still okay to have whites only businesses. Every business has the right to not serve blacks. That is crazy.

 

I'm married. You believe that should be taken away from me. Yet you claim to believe in freedom.

 

It is hard for me to understand living in a society that allows businesses to refuse to serve you based on the color of your skin. I am glad there are laws in place to regulate this as not only do I believe many business would feel minimal financially impact by being racist (might even get business), I think it also would set this country back 100 plus years.

 

I think these issues are fascinating. Two very different views can be held and both can come from a moral and just person, but it's where they place the emphasis of freedom. Freedom to live in the public sector without being discriminated against, or freedom to live in the public sector as do as you wish according to ones own beliefs. I tend to side with laws that make things fair in society, so freedom to not face discrimination, but I understand both sides well.

A couple days ago I was talking with a gay friend about a bunch of us old high school buddies renting a house for a weeks vacation at some point. We were listing off areas, the coast, black butte, etc, when I brought up coeur d'alene. My friend quickly said no, saying that the couple times he went to Idaho he felt discriminated against and unsafe. I mentioned that coeur d'alene is not the same as some back country areas, but regardless he said no. I bring this up because I'm glad that in Oregon, and especially in Portland, people of most ethnicities, religions and sexual orientations feel comfortable and feel that there is not a large amount of discrimination. There is some, and we need to continue to work on lessening that, but there is no reason to regress and alter laws to make discrimination more acceptable. I like that the bakery had to either stop discriminating or close. But I do understand the alternate view.

 

You claim to believe in freedom. Yet you don't think the owners of a bakery should get to have their own beliefes and refuse to bake a wedding cake? They never refused to serve any gay couples, BTW. They never refused to bake a cake. They only refused to baker a WEDDING cake. Big distinction for those of you that continue to argue against the bakery.

 

You are right that different groups of rationale people, after analyzing a topic and both wanting the best for society come out with two very different solutions for topics like this.

I appreciate that aspect Portland, Oregon too. Portland isn't for everybody (see MM) and there are plenty of places to live where you can avoid what I view as ultra liberal society, but if you want a unique living environment, that is also generally accepting of alternative lifestyles, Portland has that. You take the good with the bad, and in my opinion Portland goes overboard sometimes (the way they handled the protest downtown), but overall I enjoy living somewhere that in my mind is more progressive.

 

We actually had a huge, drawn-out conversation with my wife's gay cousin over the weekend. I found it interesting that he felt that so long as the bakery doesn't refuse him service, he would understand if the bakery refused to provide him with a wedding cake. If the bakery had an issue with his gay wedding, he'd ask them to provide him a basic cake and he'd take it elsewhere or he'd go to a different bakery altogether. His biggest point was that he didn't believe that everyone should or will have the same viewpoints and that such things make the world boring and drone-like, and it's unreasonable to expect everyone to share the same view and then to force a view upon people that don't share it, especially when religion is genuinely involved. He was more tolerant of the bakery than I was (I'm not tolerant of the bakery - I think they're ignorant backwoods rednecks, but they shouldn't have the government coming in and encroaching on their religious beliefs).

Even further into the discussion, he mentions that he's heard in the gay community and in the news there's been talk of actively seeking businesses such as this bakery and "rooting" them out. Now, that seems crazy and excessive. Talk about a witch hunt.