It WAS damned good pizza. You expected anything less?

Seems like the legal issues are which businesses are subject to public accommodations laws and which protected groups are covered in public accommodations laws. Sex is a protected group, sexual preference a lot murkier as recent court cases have shown.

There is but one simple answer. Soviet style Communism. The state tells you what you shall make, from whom you shall buy, and what price you shall pay. The all powerful state can force you to do whatever it wants to, regardless of your feelings in the matter.

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.

"Forcing Phillips to create expression for and participate in a ceremony that violates his sincerely held religious beliefs invades his First Amendment rights,”

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.

Let's approach this in principle.

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.

Anyone else feel like the cake on the left is about to fall over?

Not even forcing acceptance, just enslavement of someone who didn't agree. You can't force acceptance.

"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."

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.

That makes what happened to the baker even more monstrous IMO.
That's for that information that should have been reported up front.

This is the agenda of the left. You must agree with their philosophy or they will call you a bigot, a racist, a white supremacist, or in this case anti-gay. They don't care what your beliefs are, you are guilty. It's similar to their belief that big government is always best and always right, no matter how bad a job they do. The two are connected.

It is about time. But I do not get my hopes up that sanity will last. I just keep seeing things getting crazier and crazier.

Correct. Freedom of Association applies as much to business dealings as it does to religious affiliation or membership in one's Neighborhood Watch (where you are associating against criminals).

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.

The right to say no for any reason to anybody should be held as immovable. Yes, I know all the arguments, like having to say no to an unjust law, but that is the eventual path to true freedom. Don't want to suffer the consequences? I don't blame you, neither do I. But at least when judging the right and wrong of a thing, keep the "no" in mind.

In this case, the baker even REFERRED the clients to a local baker who would (and ultimately DID) make the cake. Also, the patrons had been customers of the shop for a long time, and the baker had no problem selling them baked goods--he just didn't want to design a custom cake based on the relationship of the couple, their uniqueness, and vision, etc., because the couple was same-sex. ... this case is picture perfect for the horrible reporting in MSM.

It's all about being insulted/feelings hurt/offended. That's their argument. What it's really about though is control. Nice people, those leftists!

Yes! And yesterday I was listening to radio hosts arguing whether or not a monkey had intellectual rights to a photo it took (for real). Later, I had many beers.

I've put the following scenario out to a few of my left-leaning acquaintances, and not one of them has an answer. Hell, I'd settle for a bad answer if they had one. They don't.

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.

Well said, nick. Force is the goal of all things PC and all those deluded "here we can do socialism better than Venezuela" Marxist wannabes.

That is indeed possible. I find it disgusting that they say this:
"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).

That is the point, and the Obamanation Empire was the one FORCING people to do their politically correct way. I am glad someone is finally standing up to say "this is just wrong" No "hate crime" legislation could ever force someone to serve some BS political agenda they do not support, yet that is exactly why this case is at the SCOTUS. The food chain down (state local) seem to think they CAN do just that and this needs to be stopped. It is a violation of a persons fundamental right to personal freedom. This idea is what is going on in all these "issue driven" agendas. Look at the Nurse issue in Utah: a cop forced the nurse to try to get a blood samle, and she refused, following the law, yet the law enforcement people were trying to force her to to do it. Turns out it was to try to find something to protect them from a lawsuit for crating the accident that the patient was in in the first place. He was a reserve cop driving a truck that was hit head on by a dude being chased by the same police who went after the nurse. It is unacceptable that the system feels it can abridge our individual rights, and the law, whenever they want to serve their own agenda.

About time some sense was established. This was never about the cake it was about FORCING acceptance.

It's never been mentioned in the stories about this abusive lawsuit, but I wonder if this couple wasn't purposely targeted after someone spotted the little abstract fish symbol that some Christian merchants display on their windows. With a malicious intent to go after Christians to get a judgement that sexual preference overrules other people's moral beliefs that would seem to be the strategy.

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.

Stranger things have happened...[sic]

It doesn't have anything to do with cakes. It has to do with bludgeoning people into accepting your personal decisions.

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!!

In a free market, if you are not satisfied with the baker of a cake, you go to another baker of a cake until you are satisfied.
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.