Same-sex-wedding cakes violate baker’s rights: DOJ
Finaslly some sanity in the argument. An individual has a right just like a group, who would have thought. I would have used the argument of the fact that Conscienous OBjectors have been allowed in the military for many, many years. It has never been found Unconstitutional, but that is because the liberal states have not had their claws in it, yet.
Assume I'm a baker, and you--as a gay couple--come to me and ask me to make a cake for your wedding. I refuse on religious grounds. Since you think I'm discriminating against you because you're gay, you think you have the right to force me to bake that cake. You think you have the right to claim something I own--my time--to force me to do business with you.
I ask them if I understand this correctly, and they always say yes.
So let's still assume I'm a baker, and you--as a gay couple--come into my shop looking at wedding cakes. I need and want the business, and I'm okay with the idea of gay marriage. So I tell you that you have to buy a cake from me. I'm claiming the right to something you own--your money--forcing you to do business with me.
I tell them that I assume they're okay with this scenario as well.
Whoa, they say. You can't force me to buy something from you.
So I ask, then why can you force me to sell something to you?
Why are force and coercion a one way street? Why can you force me to sell to you, but I can't force you to buy from me?
Silence. Crickets. Scuffing of shoes.
But never an answer, not even a bad answer.
You, Comrade, are BAKER. We tell you what you shall bake, what you shall not bake, for good of people.
These fine proletariats have need of cake. They SHALL purchase cake from State Bakery #463.
You do not like it, you subversive anti-revolutionary elements can discuss it in Gulag.
Have nice day. Comrade.
And that is one of myriad of things that struck me as I re-read and re-listen to A.S.: to the society she created, "trader" is a 4-letter word, the equivalent of something stuck to the bottom of one's shoe.
Said it before, I'll say it again: If I could go back in time and interact with one individual with the guarantee that it would not alter the future, Ayn Rand is on that very, very short list of people.
No one's life needs to be ruined for any bullying control freak to make a point.
Could such plain as day so-called free society common sense ever become obvious to a libtard judge? No.
That's for that information that should have been reported up front.
There does seem to be an aggressive effort from progressives to destroy Christian institutions and believers, while (for now) ignoring other faiths. They've even formed a devil's alliance with Muslims, who, if anything, are far less tolerant than Christians of progressive values. The latter seems confusing, but it's a strategy based on using Islam as a weapon to take down the majority religion in this country. I think it's a strategy of fools, as Islam will eagerly assume more power, with the result being the death of progressivism.
"Businesses and other places that are considered “public accommodations” are barred by law from discriminating against people on the basis of factors like race and religion."
This is fundamentally unconstitutional for the very reason they are there. It is an arbitrary law built on an arbitrary idea, in that how do you know if someone is discriminating or exercising their constitutional freedom to express their beliefs. The law assumes that any refusal is discrimination, and denies any ability of an individual to say no. It also neglects one of the greatest reasons it IS unconstitutional, the use of Conscientious Objection to not serve in the military. By granting that exception, the Federal government has acknowledged that there are specific times a persons personal beliefs DO trump a federal or state law (conscription).
In order to be able to express this fundamental freedom, people must - even erroneously - be allowed to exercise their freedom to to business with whomever they choose. So-called "public accommodation" laws are an affront to the First Amendment.
I'm failing to see how, despite the stupidity of that claim, it would apply. Being gay is not a religion or race, marriage isn't religion or race. An individual is neither a religion nor a race (Hubbard notwithstanding ;) .
That said, such laws are wholly untenable from both a constitutional perspective and from a basic premise of freedom. Indeed, they are a key factor in implementing actual fascism.
There was a pizza parlor which was nearly driven out of business because a reporter asked them if they would serve pizza for a gay wedding and they answered "probably not". No one actually even asked them to -- and the boycotts and protests began.
Seriously, what gay couple would serve pizza at their wedding!!
He's not "participating in the ceremony", he's baking a freaking cake.
What if someone ordered a cake, DIDN'T tell Phillips it was for a gay wedding, used it, and then he found out later it had been used as a wedding cake for such an event? Would Phillips then considered his rights violated because he was forced into "participating" in the wedding? could he sue someone for using a cake they ordered after the terms of sale had been completed because he personally disagreed with that person's sexual orientation, and was somehow dragged backwards in time, and made a participant in this heinous event?
That's like arresting the clothing shop owner for selling John Dillinger the coat and shirt he was wearing during a bank robbery, because in supplying him clothing he wore during the robbery, he was a participant in the robbery.
The contention that the baker should not have to work for someone FOR WHATEVER REASON holds water - he can choose (and has the right to choose) to refuse service to anyone. That's his RIGHT. Damned skippy.
But... refusing to provide a service - not because he "Reserves the right to refuse service", but because somehow providing that service makes him a PARTICIPANT in the ceremony - not his cake, but him personally - is a stretch. It feels like one of those Gay Community vs Conservative Christian doctrinal fights... and blown up as a media brouhaha for just that reason by BOTH sides.
Equal under the law is sensible. Equality for all in government coercion for its proper role is just.
The public accommodation part of the Civil Rights law was a mistake. People should not loose their right of association by being in business. Freedom includes freedom to make wise and stupid decisions and take the consequences of those choices. If I don't like the way a business person treats customers, I'll go elsewhere, live without it, or do it myself.
Business people are not my slaves. My right to their product or service is only by our mutual agreement to trade or offer charity, period.
The real 'crime' they are accused of is a thought 'hate crime' of not believing what they are told to believe. The left will never let go of that.
Perhaps a closer analogy is the civil war draft under which those selected had a legal right under the law to pay for someone else to go. But that was not included in later draft law. Once again, your "rights" were whatever they said they were by their permission only. Maybe the Bradley strategy would work: the baker puts himself into the process, illegally steals and gives classified information and cakes away to the world public, goes to jail for it and while there gets an entitled taxpayer funded sex change mutilation to get a same-sex the same as something or other, gets pardoned as an entitlement to celebrate lunacy, and then goes to Harvard as a celebrity.