Masterpiece Cakeshop Is Fighting For The First Amendment, Not Against Gay Marriage

[Guest shiloh357]

Just now, Flowerwater said:

He doesn't have a constitutional right to be a bigot in the name of Christ.

He is not being a bigot.  A bigot would not serve gay people at all.   If he were a bigot, he would post a sign on his storefront banning gays from any of his goods and services.  He is not doing that.   Simply not wanting to lend services to a gay wedding is not bigotry.

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He doesn't have a constitutional right to refuse service because he disapproves of someone's lifestyle. That's not what the constitution allows. 

He is not refusing services to anyone who is gay or is involved any other kind of unbiblical lifestyle.   He doesn't even know what lifestyle they are in when he serves them.  He doesn't ask them if they are gay.   He simply takes their order and gives them what they want.

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Now though he wants the legal right to do all that. And his short sighted bigotry, and it is delusional on his part to think this is first amendment and not selective discrimination, thinks if he wins this it is a victory for all Christians opposed to gay marriage. No, it's chaos busting lose if this passes in the supreme court. 

You don't have a case to make for bigotry.   You clearly don't understand the issue at hand and are not really framing the issue correctly.   You are arguing from a poor understanding of the problem.

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It won't pass. God forbid it does pass. Because I don't want someone to refuse to sell me a car because they think Christians are hell bound infidels. I don't want an atheist to refuse to refuse to be a handyman in my house repairs when they see the God Bless You plaque on my front door. I don't want to be discriminated against because someone's personal beliefs about my personal self gives them a right to do that. 

That again, proves that you don't understand the issue.   He is not denying anyone service because they are gay.

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This garbage went out with the separate but equal laws in the old south. Black and white water fountains and all that. No Christian can support this in good conscience and claim Jesus, who supped with sinners, and sought out the untouchables in his community. Even his disciples chastised him for that and Jesus set them straight. How can a Christian baker invoke Jesus name and do exactly what he didn't do when he walked the earth?

I am sorry, but this just more nonsense from someone who doesn't understand the issue.

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Bake a cake! That's his job! He's not supporting gay marriage baking a cake. He's supporting his family as a baker, because he bakes cakes!

If it violates his sincerely held convictions to lend his services to ceremonies that violate his convictions, he should not be forced to violate those.   We don't ask that of anyone else, and Christians should not be forced to do it.

[Guest shiloh357]

7 minutes ago, Flowerwater said:

He's not practicing his faith. He's moving smack dab against the example of the very savior that set the groundwork for his faith.

Yeah, that demonstrates a really poor understanding of the life and ministry of Jesus, not to mention a really poor comparison.

[Flowerwater]

21 hours ago, Running Gator said:

That is not the way the US Constitution works, it does not tell us what we are "permitted to do" it limits what the government can do.  So, while the equal protection clause would keep the government from discriminating, it does not have anything to do with private citizens.   Any anti-discrimination law applies to private citizens is unconstitutional, even though the courts have allowed them.  

If I was a private business owner I should be legally allowed to discriminate against anyone and everyone that I so desired to do so.  I do not know how anyone that claims to be for smaller government or more personal freedoms can support any sort of anti-discrimination laws

There seems to be a whole bunch of flip flop in your position here and in other posts on this topic. 

Meanwhile, there are certain inalienable rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. Equality Before the Law  The right to be treated equally before the law, regardless of social status. https://www.aclu.org/other/bill-rights-brief-history

And this can help you too. The Public Accommodations laws both state and federal. http://dictionary.findlaw.com/definition/public-accommodations.html 

This baker is going to lose before the supreme court. Thank God.

I was going to say something to the person who accused people who were against this bakers discrimination of not being Christian but I'm new here and I figure someone else can report them for violating what  I read about the rules saying you can't accuse someone of not being a Christian. 

[Flowerwater]

4 minutes ago, shiloh357 said:

Yeah, that demonstrates a really poor understanding of the life and ministry of Jesus, not to mention a really poor comparison.

No. 
The poor understanding started when someone argued a baker refusing to bake a cake for a gay customer because a gay customer asks for a gay wedding cake isn't discrimination but religious freedom. 

God shows no partiality. Jesus taught that by example. 

 

[Guest shiloh357]

1 minute ago, Flowerwater said:

 

Meanwhile, there are certain inalienable rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. Equality Before the Law  The right to be treated equally before the law, regardless of social status. https://www.aclu.org/other/bill-rights-brief-history

And this can help you too. The Public Accommodations laws both state and federal. http://dictionary.findlaw.com/definition/public-accommodations.html 

 

This is not a 14th amendment issue.

The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibits states from denying any person within its territory the equal protection of the laws.  This means that a state must treat an individual in the same manner as others in similar conditions and circumstances.  The Federal Government must do the same, but this is required by the Fifth Amendment Due Process.

The point of the equal protection clause is to force a state to govern impartially—not draw distinctions between individuals solely on differences that are irrelevant to a legitimate governmental objective.  Thus, the equal protection clause is crucial to the protection of civil rights.https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/equal_protection

The 14th amendment is about equal protection under the law with respect to the even-handed application of our laws.   That is not what this issue is about with respect to the baker.

 

[Guest shiloh357]

1 minute ago, Flowerwater said:

No. 
The poor understanding started when someone argued a baker refusing to bake a cake for a gay customer because a gay customer asks for a gay wedding cake isn't discrimination but religious freedom. 

God shows no partiality. Jesus taught that by example. 

 

He is within his rights to refuse to do anything that violates his sincerely held beliefs.   And this is really just about some radical LGBT activists going after a known Christian baker.  It has nothing do with him discriminating against anyone.

And since he regularly serves gay people all of the time, you really have no argument.   Your line of reasoning is just nonsense.

[Guest Thallasa]

On ‎29‎/‎06‎/‎2017 at 1:06 PM, shiloh357 said:

This week, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case of Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips, the man who refused to create a specialty wedding cake for a same-sex couple in Colorado in 2012. (Last year, I visited Masterpiece and wrote a long piece detailing the incident that has upended Phillips’ life.) Yet the stories that dominate coverage not only distort the public’s understanding of the case, but also its serious implications.

For one thing, no matter how many times people repeat it, the case isn’t about discrimination or challenging gay marriage. When the news first broke, for instance, USA Today tweeted “The Supreme Court has agreed to reopen the national debate over same-sex marriage.” The headline (and story) at the website was worse: “Supreme Court will hear religious liberty challenge to gay weddings.” Others similarly framed the case. (And don’t worry, “religious liberty” is almost always solidly ensconced inside quotation marks to indicate that social conservatives are just using it as a facade.)

There is an impulse to frame every issue as a clash between the tolerant and closeminded. But the Masterpiece case doesn’t challenge, undermine, or re-litigate the issue of same-sex marriage in America. Gay marriage wasn’t even legal in Colorado when this incident occurred.

So the Associated Press’ headline and story — “Supreme Court Will Decide If Baker Can Refuse Gay Couple Wedding Cake” — is also wrong. As is The New York Times headline: “Justices to Hear Case on Baker’s Refusal to Serve Gay Couple,” which was later changed to the even worse “Justices to Hear Case on Religious Objections to Same-Sex Marriage.”

A person with only passing interest in this case might be led to believe that Phillips is fighting to hang a “No Gays Allowed” sign in his shop. In truth, he never “refused” to serve a gay couple. He didn’t even really refuse to sell them a wedding cake, which they could have bought without incident. Everything in his shop was available to gays and straights and anyone else who walked in his door. What Phillips did was refuse to use his skills to design and bake a unique cake and participate in a gay wedding. Phillips didn’t query anyone on his or her sexual orientation. It was the Colorado civil rights commission that took it upon itself to peer into Phillips’ soul, indict him, and destroy his business over a thought crime.

Like many other bakers, florists, photographers, and musicians — and millions of other Christians — Phillips holds genuine, long-standing religious convictions. If David Mullins and Charlie Craig had demanded that Phillips create an erotic-themed cake, the baker would have similarly refused for religious reasons, just as he had with other costumers. If a couple had asked him to design a specialty cake that read “Congrats on the abortion, Jenny!” I’m certain he would have refused them as well, even though abortions are legal. It’s not the people, it’s the message.

In its tortured decision, the Colorado Court of Appeals admitted as much, contending that while Phillips didn’t overtly discriminate against the couple, the “act of same-sex marriage is closely correlated to Craig’s and Mullins’ sexual orientation” so they could divine his real intentions.

In other words, the threshold for denying religious liberty and free expression is the presence of advocacy or a political opinion that conflates with faith. The court has effectively tasked itself with determining when religion is allowed to matter to you. Or in other words, if SCOTUS upholds the lower court ruling, it will empower unelected civil rights commissions — typically stacked with hard-left authoritarians — to decide when your religious actions are appropriate.

How could any honest person believe this was the Constitution’s intent? There was a time, I’m told, when the state wouldn’t substantially burden religious exercise and would use the least restrictive means to further compelling interests. Today, the state can substantially burden a Christian because he’s hurt the wrong person’s feelings.

Judging from the emails and social media reactions I’ve gotten to this case, people aren’t only instinctively antagonistic because of the players involved, but because they don’t understand the facts. In this era of identity politics, some have been programed to reflexively side with the person making accusations of status-based discrimination. All of it in an effort to empower the state to coerce a minority of people to see the world their way.

Well, not all people. In 2015, a Christian activist named Bill Jack went to three Colorado bakeries and asked for each to design a cake in the shape of a Bible, with one side reading “God hates sin – Psalm 45:7,” and the other, “Homosexuality is a detestable sin – Leviticus 18:22.” They refused. Even though Christians are a protected group, the civil rights commissioners — one member of this tolerance brigade compared Christianity to Nazism — threw out the case. The ACLU called the biblical passages “obscenities.” Because I guess the Bible doesn’t “correlate” closely enough with a Christian’s identity.

Or perhaps we’ve finally established a state religion in this country: it’s just run on the dogma of “social justice.”

 

http://thefederalist.com/2017/06/27/masterpiece-cakeshop-fighting-first-amendment-not-gay-marriage/

 Thankyou , for a very clear ,informed ,article .

[Flowerwater]

1 minute ago, shiloh357 said:

This is not a 14th amendment issue.

The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibits states from denying any person within its territory the equal protection of the laws.  This means that a state must treat an individual in the same manner as others in similar conditions and circumstances.  The Federal Government must do the same, but this is required by the Fifth Amendment Due Process.

The point of the equal protection clause is to force a state to govern impartially—not draw distinctions between individuals solely on differences that are irrelevant to a legitimate governmental objective.  Thus, the equal protection clause is crucial to the protection of civil rights.https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/equal_protection

The 14th amendment is about equal protection under the law with respect to the even-handed application of our laws.   That is not what this issue is about with respect to the baker.

 

I noticed you ignored the public accommodations information. That's OK. 

When this baker loses what then? 

By your standard of belief, the KKK members who own businesses in Alabama and Kentucky and Georgia or anywhere at all, could refuse to serve a black person, a Hispanic person, certainly a gay person, a mixed race couple, by invoking their religious conviction.

Do know also that if it did pass muster with the supreme court that Muslims could discriminate against non-Muslims. That was tried in Minneapolis by the cabbies who were Muslim and serving the local airport. They refused to pick up passengers that violated their religious beliefs in appearance. The cabbies lost. 

See, you're arguing from the right to discriminate as a Christian. What you're not seeing is that if a decision was handed down that religious conviction permitted discrimination by the religious, every single religious person could discriminate at will. Atheists are a protected religious class now too. 

This isn't a Christian privilege thing. This would be a national chaos thing. Being that the religious and the non-religious but with religious protection could go at one another by refusing to provide the public service they're in business to provide everyone else but those they decide don't deserve to be served because it offends the religious conviction of the server. 

[Flowerwater]

19 minutes ago, shiloh357 said:

He is not being a bigot.  A bigot would not serve gay people at all.  

How would he know they were gay at all until they asked for a wedding cake? How does someone identify a gay person is gay on sight? Is there a neon sign on their forehead labeling them as gay? 

 And when the baker then realizes that customer who's patronized his shop for months is gay , refuses to serve that customer that order, that's discrimination. That's bigotry. The weak excuse is to clad it in religious conviction. And that insults Christ and the entire word of God. 

 

 

[Guest Thallasa]

On ‎30‎/‎06‎/‎2017 at 3:17 AM, shiloh357 said:

Yes, he does have a religious discrimination argument.   He should be forced to violate his faith.   Simply serving gays who are regular patrons doesn't violate his faith, quite the opposite.   It should also be pointed out that he does not necessarily know who is or is not gay when they enter his bakery.  He has served everyone who comes through the door regardless of their sexual orientation, religion or anything else.   In the Christian faith we hate the sin but love the sinner, so serving cookies or birthday cakes or other kinds of cakes doesn't violate his Christian faith and no claim of discrimination can be credibly made against him.

But a Christian must draw a line when it comes to serving an event that violates their faith.   No one asks Muslim bakers to make gay wedding cakes and they would not if asked, but for some reason that gets a pass. 

 

Since he had served them and since he did not ban homosexuals from his bakery, then they should return the courtesy by respecting his religious beliefs and simply go down the street to another baker who will do it.   It's that simple.  They are manufacturing a discrimination issue that doesn't exist.  This is being pushed by radical LGBT activists, not the average gay person.   It is being painted to be something it is not.

There is a kosher deli I love and they make great pastrami sandwiches.   I would never, as a Christian, even think about asking them to provide a service that violates their faith.   It is a matter of respect.  The fact that a Jewish baker or a Jewish deli manager will not make a Christian wedding cake or a provide me with a ham and cheese sandwich doesn't offend me in the least.   If I want ham I know another deli in town that will do it.  
 

That is completely fallacious reasoning.  And that is not how a Christian thinks or lives. First of all, it is not like they have to show a "gay" ID card and inform him that the person he is serving is gay.   He doesn't know (unless they told him for some reason) that they are gay.   Do you think every gay person walks into a bakery and trumpets, "I am a gay person?"    I mean, there is a difference between serving the regular generic fare of a bakery like cookies and donuts or sour dough bread, and an event-specific item like a gay wedding cake. 

By your logic if a gay person was dying of thirst and a Christian  gave that person some water, he  would be violating the Christian faith.  That is just nonsensical and you are really grasping at straws in that line of argumentation.

 

 

 

I agree , it is complete nonsense .