bennroe wrote:rfurtkamp wrote:Then he has no rights.
If you believe that, I'm not sure there's a productive conversation to be had.
Pretty much that one was obvious when it came about and all conservative opposition to Obama was based clearly on "racism."
You won't catch me advocating 1st amendment erosions, but the only reasonable solution when two rights come into conflict is to protect whichever right is being trampled on by the other. Otherwise, nobody truly has any rights. To that end, there are other places to buy cakes only because great strides have been made in combatting bigotry, in no small part with the help of laws that protect against discrimination.
Protections come and go based on need - they're still restricting the rights of folks, ostensibly for the greater good. Are we saying there's no cake to be had for those folks?
That they couldn't bake one?
What happens if there's only one church in town, and someone wants to get married there - but isn't part of or accepted by that religion? Etc.
This isn't just the poor cakeless couple unable to go forward - if there's no protections for religion beyond "you can say you believe X, but you can't act upon it where it isn't otherwise criminal"....then there's no protection for the rights of the religious.
The lack of such laws can lead, and has led, to situations where there are no sources of cake for certain groups of people (and obviously much worse). Those laws are pretty crucial to upholding the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which is of equal importance to the right to freedom of religion, regardless of where it appears in the Bill of Rights.
It can also lead, when applied overzealously to frivolous things like a wedding cake, to a situation where we're trampling someone's right of religion (and compelling participation in a ceremony they do not agree with) for..cake.
That baker has religious freedom because congress can never pass a law that bans the wearing of crosses, the building of churches, or the training of priests, but he doesn't have the right to put his wife to death for cheating on him, regardless of what the bible says.
It's a difference of harms and rights. Essential services, yes, access - requiring participation in ceremonies or events, nope. I don't see it likely that anyone is going to be real angry that, say, a black baker isn't willing to make a cake for the induction of the new KKK Grand Wizard, or someone else to have to conform to that organization's desire that the cake only be made by white people, etc.
You say you prefer social or economic pressure as a vehicle for combatting this sort of hate, but your disdain for that approach is what sparked this debate in the first place, when you called speaking out against JHS irrational.
In the sense that tying JHS to a group that they at one point in the past through their owner supported, yes, it is irrational.
No different than when the then-head of Mozilla was chased out of town on a rail for supporting traditional marriage.
But I also accept that people have the right to do irrational things.
I would imagine it's to the surprise of nobody that there are also muslim bakers out there discriminating against the queer community. Christians certainly don't have a monopoly on bigotry.
Yet the state is not using its force against those bakers with aplomb. It's selective application.
If the goose can discriminate, so can the gander.
And yes, cake for anyone who wants it. They can download the recipe and cook it however they want and bless it in the name of Jesus, Allah, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Butthead, or any combination of things!