Guest shiloh357 Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 noun 1. the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, esp. on the grounds of race, age, or sex. Selling something to a straight couple and refusing to sell something to a gay couple is indeed discrimination. Refusing to provide services to people because they are different from myself is not part of my religion. The exercise of my religion does not include refusing service to others. This is where you are wrong. They are not denying the service, ulimately. They are not denying them service on the grounds that they are gay. If they were, they would ban them from the store across the board and not sell them any goods or services, whatsoever. That is not what is happening, here, and I think you know it. <snip> They are not claiming that the gay couple cannot come into their store and buy other things like cookies and donuts and bagels. They are not banning gays from their store. They are simply refusing ONE category of service on the grounds that it promotes a lifestyle that violates their Christian faith, based on what God says in the Scriptures. Your argument is generally more solid when you don't contradict it in a later paragraph. You might actually have something meaningful to contribute to this conversation if you didn't ignore the context of both of those statements. In the first comment I said they are not denying service "ultimately." Meaning that they were not denying them any service at all. They are simply not going to make a cake for a samesex couple on the grounds that it violates their religious convictions. So my statements don't contraict. There is only thing they refuse to do. The over arching point that you overlook is that it was not because they were gay. It was because they didn't want to aid in a same sex union. The point stands that if it was a straight couple that went in to buy a wedding cake, it would have been made. Because they were a gay couple, they were refused service. Same goes for the case of the wedding photographer who refused service to a gay couple, but provided service to straight couples. No, you the one missing the point. The point is that they did not deny service to them simply on the grounds that they were gay. Were that the case, they would deny any and all service. But that was not the case. And since gay people are not minority like a African-American couple is, this is not a violation of civil laws. No one deserves minority status simply because of the way they have sex. Referring to this case, they were sued because they violated state law. In the words of the judge, they were asked to bake a cake, not make a speech. Doesn't matter. The fact is that they have religious freedoms and are free to practice those freedoms, including refusing to do something that violates their faith. Religious freedom is not trumped by homosexuality. The gay couple could go down the street and find another bakery to make their cake. Had they been intelligent, decent people, they would have done so. In this wedding photographer case, it also violated anti-discrimination statutes. It was found to be no different than if someone were to discriminate based on race. We as Christians answer to the Lord who is a higher authority than any government and sometimes, when God's laws conflict with the laws of the land, we have to make a choice. Will be obey God or man? Will submit to His laws or will we bow to social and legal pressure the world puts on us to conform to their demands. In the end every Christian may end up having to make that choice. If you were a Christian, you would understand. You call me "dishonest" because this wasn't "ultimately denying service" based on them being gay? It doesn't matter what portion of the service, or which product in the store it is. The instant the gay couple gets denied a product in a store that a straight couple would be allowed to be, that is denying service based on sexual orientation. They have been treated unequally. In both cases service was denied in the context of a same sex union, not merely on the basis of sexual orientation. If the gay person came in and asked the photographer to do his/her son's senior pictures for the Highschool yearbook, service would not have been denied. It would be different if gays were banned entirely from certain stores. That is something I would not support. That isn't the case here. Not only that ,but religious freedom is in play and that simply cannot be factored out of the equation. This is not a discrimination issue. It is a religious freedom issue, ultimately. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ayin jade Posted February 23, 2014 Group: Worthy Ministers Followers: 44 Topic Count: 6,178 Topics Per Day: 0.87 Content Count: 43,799 Content Per Day: 6.19 Reputation: 11,244 Days Won: 58 Joined: 01/03/2005 Status: Offline Author Share Posted February 23, 2014 noun 1. the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, esp. on the grounds of race, age, or sex. Selling something to a straight couple and refusing to sell something to a gay couple is indeed discrimination. Refusing to provide services to people because they are different from myself is not part of my religion. The exercise of my religion does not include refusing service to others. This is where you are wrong. They are not denying the service, ulimately. They are not denying them service on the grounds that they are gay. If they were, they would ban them from the store across the board and not sell them any goods or services, whatsoever. That is not what is happening, here, and I think you know it. You being very dishonset about what is play. The business owners are simply refusing to participate either directly or indirectly in an activity that violates their convictions based on what Scripture says about how God hates the homosexual lifestyle. God hates that lifestyle and says so in the strongest terms possible. The company that was approached to make a wedding cake for a same sex couple refused on the grounds of their faith and their religious freedom is guaranteed by the Constitution to do so. There is no consitutional "right" for marriage, so no rights of the same sex couple are being violated. There is no constitutional right to be "gay." There IS a consitutional right to be a Christian and to follow the dictates of one's heart. They are not claiming that the gay couple cannot come into their store and buy other things like cookies and donuts and bagels. They are not banning gays from their store. They are simply refusing ONE category of service on the grounds that it promotes a lifestyle that violates their Christian faith, based on what God says in the Scriptures. Shiloh responded better than I could have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ayin jade Posted February 23, 2014 Group: Worthy Ministers Followers: 44 Topic Count: 6,178 Topics Per Day: 0.87 Content Count: 43,799 Content Per Day: 6.19 Reputation: 11,244 Days Won: 58 Joined: 01/03/2005 Status: Offline Author Share Posted February 23, 2014 It is not denying them service based on their sexual orientation. It is denying them service for something that violates the constitutionally guaranteed religious rights of the business owner. The baker will still make cakes for a birthday etc. Just not for a wedding that violates his religious beliefs. maybe you can explain how making a wedding cake in exchange for payment violates Christian beliefs. A wedding cake that celebrates a gay marriage does violate Christian beliefs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ayin jade Posted February 23, 2014 Group: Worthy Ministers Followers: 44 Topic Count: 6,178 Topics Per Day: 0.87 Content Count: 43,799 Content Per Day: 6.19 Reputation: 11,244 Days Won: 58 Joined: 01/03/2005 Status: Offline Author Share Posted February 23, 2014 What people are missing here is that in many cases across the country, Christian businesses have been specifically targeted by the gay community and forced to close. How is this right? That is what this law is attempting to prevent. In the news: The backlash against Aaron and Melissa Klein, owners of the bakery, was severe. Gay rights groups launched protests and pickets outside the family’s store. They threatened wedding vendors who did business with the bakery. And, Klein told me, the family’s children were the targets of death threats. (snip) Perkins told me that in many cases gay couples are targeting businesses owned by Christians. “Individuals are being persecuted and prosecuted using the leverage of the government through these homosexual activists,” he said. “Government has become a weapon that homosexual activists are using against Christian business owners.” http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/01/21/christian-bakery-guilty-violating-civil-rights-lesbian-couple/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LookingForAnswers Posted February 23, 2014 Group: Seeker Followers: 0 Topic Count: 10 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 1,033 Content Per Day: 0.27 Reputation: 67 Days Won: 2 Joined: 12/26/2013 Status: Offline Share Posted February 23, 2014 It is not denying them service based on their sexual orientation. It is denying them service for something that violates the constitutionally guaranteed religious rights of the business owner. The baker will still make cakes for a birthday etc. Just not for a wedding that violates his religious beliefs. maybe you can explain how making a wedding cake in exchange for payment violates Christian beliefs. A wedding cake that celebrates a gay marriage does violate Christian beliefs. It celebrates a gay marriage if you are part of the wedding. If you are making the cake it is no different than any other cake you have made, you are not celebrating anything you are providing a product in exchange for momentary compensation. The one making the cake is celebrating nothing (besides a nice check) unless they are part of the wedding. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest shiloh357 Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 It is not denying them service based on their sexual orientation. It is denying them service for something that violates the constitutionally guaranteed religious rights of the business owner. The baker will still make cakes for a birthday etc. Just not for a wedding that violates his religious beliefs. maybe you can explain how making a wedding cake in exchange for payment violates Christian beliefs. A wedding cake that celebrates a gay marriage does violate Christian beliefs. It celebrates a gay marriage if you are part of the wedding. If you are making the cake it is no different than any other cake you have made, you are not celebrating anything you are providing a product in exchange for momentary compensation. The one making the cake is celebrating nothing (besides a nice check) unless they are part of the wedding. For a Christian, that is not how it works. The wedding cake is central to any wedding and can be one of the more expensive aspects of a wedding. For a Christian, marriage is God's domain, He created it. It belongs to Him, not to man. For a Christian, there is a theology in play and to make a cake that aids in celebrating a lifestyle that God says is abominable is simply a nonstarter. Some things are more important than a check/money. For a Christian standing for one's faith overrides the temporal profits gained by supporting sin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest shiloh357 Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 What people are missing here is that in many cases across the country, Christian businesses have been specifically targeted by the gay community and forced to close. How is this right? That is what this law is attempting to prevent. In the news: The backlash against Aaron and Melissa Klein, owners of the bakery, was severe. Gay rights groups launched protests and pickets outside the family’s store. They threatened wedding vendors who did business with the bakery. And, Klein told me, the family’s children were the targets of death threats. (snip) Perkins told me that in many cases gay couples are targeting businesses owned by Christians. “Individuals are being persecuted and prosecuted using the leverage of the government through these homosexual activists,” he said. “Government has become a weapon that homosexual activists are using against Christian business owners.” http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/01/21/christian-bakery-guilty-violating-civil-rights-lesbian-couple/ Yes, that is exactly what's happening. They are imposing their immorality on to Christians. Yet there are those in this thread who hypocritically whine around about not imposing one's morals on someone else, but then are suddenly and conspicuously silent as gays purposely target Christian business in order to impose their disgusting, immoral lifestyle on Christians. Their hypocrisy is duly noted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SandyU Posted February 23, 2014 Group: Members Followers: 1 Topic Count: 3 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 64 Content Per Day: 0.02 Reputation: 18 Days Won: 1 Joined: 01/13/2014 Status: Offline Share Posted February 23, 2014 If I were a baker and was asked to make an x rated cake I would turn it down. I can understand the problem a christian would have with a cake for a gay couple. Although the world will not see the connection. But I also have a problem with the government dictating to a privately owned business. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burning_Ember Posted February 23, 2014 Group: Diamond Member Followers: 0 Topic Count: 21 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 2,009 Content Per Day: 0.29 Reputation: 100 Days Won: 3 Joined: 09/20/2005 Status: Offline Share Posted February 23, 2014 noun 1. the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, esp. on the grounds of race, age, or sex. Selling something to a straight couple and refusing to sell something to a gay couple is indeed discrimination. Refusing to provide services to people because they are different from myself is not part of my religion. The exercise of my religion does not include refusing service to others. This is where you are wrong. They are not denying the service, ulimately. They are not denying them service on the grounds that they are gay. If they were, they would ban them from the store across the board and not sell them any goods or services, whatsoever. That is not what is happening, here, and I think you know it. <snip> They are not claiming that the gay couple cannot come into their store and buy other things like cookies and donuts and bagels. They are not banning gays from their store. They are simply refusing ONE category of service on the grounds that it promotes a lifestyle that violates their Christian faith, based on what God says in the Scriptures. Your argument is generally more solid when you don't contradict it in a later paragraph. You might actually have something meaningful to contribute to this conversation if you didn't ignore the context of both of those statements. In the first comment I said they are not denying service "ultimately." Meaning that they were not denying them any service at all. They are simply not going to make a cake for a samesex couple on the grounds that it violates their religious convictions. So my statements don't contraict. There is only thing they refuse to do. The over arching point that you overlook is that it was not because they were gay. It was because they didn't want to aid in a same sex union. The point stands that if it was a straight couple that went in to buy a wedding cake, it would have been made. Because they were a gay couple, they were refused service. Same goes for the case of the wedding photographer who refused service to a gay couple, but provided service to straight couples. No, you the one missing the point. The point is that they did not deny service to them simply on the grounds that they were gay. Were that the case, they would deny any and all service. But that was not the case. And since gay people are not minority like a African-American couple is, this is not a violation of civil laws. No one deserves minority status simply because of the way they have sex. Referring to this case, they were sued because they violated state law. In the words of the judge, they were asked to bake a cake, not make a speech. Doesn't matter. The fact is that they have religious freedoms and are free to practice those freedoms, including refusing to do something that violates their faith. Religious freedom is not trumped by homosexuality. The gay couple could go down the street and find another bakery to make their cake. Had they been intelligent, decent people, they would have done so. In this wedding photographer case, it also violated anti-discrimination statutes. It was found to be no different than if someone were to discriminate based on race. We as Christians answer to the Lord who is a higher authority than any government and sometimes, when God's laws conflict with the laws of the land, we have to make a choice. Will be obey God or man? Will submit to His laws or will we bow to social and legal pressure the world puts on us to conform to their demands. In the end every Christian may end up having to make that choice. If you were a Christian, you would understand. You call me "dishonest" because this wasn't "ultimately denying service" based on them being gay? It doesn't matter what portion of the service, or which product in the store it is. The instant the gay couple gets denied a product in a store that a straight couple would be allowed to be, that is denying service based on sexual orientation. They have been treated unequally. In both cases service was denied in the context of a same sex union, not merely on the basis of sexual orientation. If the gay person came in and asked the photographer to do his/her son's senior pictures for the Highschool yearbook, service would not have been denied. It would be different if gays were banned entirely from certain stores. That is something I would not support. That isn't the case here. Not only that ,but religious freedom is in play and that simply cannot be factored out of the equation. This is not a discrimination issue. It is a religious freedom issue, ultimately. I am a Christian. I make my living through photography. The courts decided that it violates the law. The courts have decided that it is discrimination. The Constitution upholds the rights of it's citizens to petition for a redress of grievances. You can repeat ad naseam all you like that it does not discriminate, but it really doesn't change court rulings. Gay couples who get discriminated against in that manner have the Constitutional right to sue like everyone else.. I don't recall the part in the gospel where it says that people shouldn't bake cakes for a gay couples wedding, or take photos at them. I have two questions. To what extent does this line of reasoning go? What limit should there be on for refusing services to people if it "violates sincerely held religious beliefs"? Should Christians support companies that end up supporting other immoral things, if so, how do you qualify it is immoral? What people are missing here is that in many cases across the country, Christian businesses have been specifically targeted by the gay community and forced to close. How is this right? That is what this law is attempting to prevent. In the news: The backlash against Aaron and Melissa Klein, owners of the bakery, was severe. Gay rights groups launched protests and pickets outside the family’s store. They threatened wedding vendors who did business with the bakery. And, Klein told me, the family’s children were the targets of death threats. (snip) Perkins told me that in many cases gay couples are targeting businesses owned by Christians. “Individuals are being persecuted and prosecuted using the leverage of the government through these homosexual activists,” he said. “Government has become a weapon that homosexual activists are using against Christian business owners.” http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/01/21/christian-bakery-guilty-violating-civil-rights-lesbian-couple/ The Constitution upholds the rights of it's citizens to petition for a redress of grievances. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LookingForAnswers Posted February 23, 2014 Group: Seeker Followers: 0 Topic Count: 10 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 1,033 Content Per Day: 0.27 Reputation: 67 Days Won: 2 Joined: 12/26/2013 Status: Offline Share Posted February 23, 2014 If I were a baker and was asked to make an x rated cake I would turn it down. I can understand the problem a christian would have with a cake for a gay couple. Although the world will not see the connection. But I also have a problem with the government dictating to a privately owned business. That is a very different thing. If X-rated cakes are not on your menu you could not be forced to make them, that would be like forcing a pizza joint to make you a steak. Very different than a pizza place refusing to make a pizza for a gay wedding party. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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