Gay community takes care of hateful bakers.

[doggie]

Who knows in the hearing they may have been all self richous and full of themselves. Plus they never opted to change or feel remose for their actions

[SquirrelySquirrel]

Two things that are being conflated here (including in my own earlier post) are a business owner's right to provide whatever services he or she wishes, versus being able to choose WHO is able to purchase those goods or services.

For instance, if I owned a restaurant that specialized in Lobster and cheeseburgers, Jewish people who kept Kosher rules would not be able to eat there and conform to the tenets of their religion. Am I being discriminatory? No. However, if I refused to serve my food to Jewish people, that would be.

If I specialized in baking cakes for baby showers and refused to bake a wedding cake for a LGBT couple, that would be fine, as long as I wasn't making wedding cakes for anyone. However, I should not be able to refuse to sell them a cake for the baby shower they're having for their child.

This makes complete sense and I thank you for it. I was trying to wrestle it around in my head this morning and was utterly failing on examples.

I go back and forth on whether the penalty was too harsh, and whether I agree with raising the funds to bail these assholes out. I get wanting to shame them by rising above and being the better person, but I know I could never do that. Because whether people agree or not, you'd have to be living under a rock to be a business owner and not be aware of discrimination laws. There have been plenty of "bakery refuses cake for gay couple" stories in the national news over the past several years.

And it makes me wonder about fundies like Christopher Maxwell. Is he courting a potential lawsuit if he refuses to photograph a second marriage?

[Terrie]

I'm not entierely sure how this works in the US, but in the UK, they had this case:

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2683949/Bakery-court-gay-cake-row-owners-refused-decorate-confectionery-slogan-support-gay-marriage.html

If a bakery can be forced to make a cake with a slogan supporting gay marriage, they could be equally forced to make a cake with a slogan against gay marriage. Or, for that matter, making a cake or flyers with advertise some religious or political group they don't agree with at all. Say some crazy fundie cult (like PPs church, the ATI) or some radical left or right wing party.

It has been explained to you many times what happens in the US. I'm not sure how else to explain it. And what happens in the UK has no bearing on US law.

As for being "forced" to provide flyers to a group you don't like, the US solution is simple. Don't go into the flyer business.

[DGayle]

I do absolutely support gay marriage and would boycott the bakery personally, but I don't believe the law should force someone to do business with another person.

I'm not from the US, but if I had a business, and the PP or ZsuZsu, the FRC or any other crazy fundie group I strongly dislike would show up at my door, I'd like to have the freedom to turn them away.

So do you think a store owner should be allowed to ban black people? Muslims? Disabled people? Wow. That's fucked.

[DGayle]

This poses an interesting question. At what point could a baker refuse? If PP came in and wanted some sort of anti-Obama cake? Or an anti-Semitic cake? What about something with a misogynistic message written on it?

I'm not defending these bakers by any means as I'm completely on board with not being able to discriminate. But I'm curious where the lines are drawn wrt the law.

Politics and religious hate aren't protected classes in any state or at the federal level.

[DGayle]

I disagree. Punishment has never been proven to be helpful. Showing love and helping people out is a much better way to behave. Even if they don't change the Kleins' minds, the people donating are making themselves feel better because they're doing a good thing and taking the really high road.

I think having to close their bakery is fair if they refuse to follow the rules, but paying $150,000 is poopy. Who has $150,000?

If the Kleins had to sell their house and give up their children's college funds in order to pay that fine, do you think that would make them hate gay people more or less? If gay people donate the money to cover the fine, do you think that will make the Kleins hate gay people more or less?

The answers are (1) more and (2) less.

If punishments never work, I guess let's close all the jails and release murderers and rapist back to the streets and hope that being kind to abhorrent people will change them.

Knowing the consequences of breaking the law, which is always a punishment, or a damned good deterrent. Why do you follow the speed laws? They're not always the safest speed to travel.

[DGayle]

I think the fundies who want to use their beliefs as an excuse for refusing service to a certain class of people should be careful what they wish for. If I owned a restaurant, I might not want to serve Christians, because in my experience they are lousy tippers. Also they'll disturb the other patrons with their loud prayers before they eat. Similarly, I might want to refuse to seat people with a bunch of children because who has time to clean up the mess they leave? It doesn't matter if "not all Christians" behave this way. If I believe that they do, then my beliefs trump their right to accommodation.

But...but...THAT would be OPPRESSIVE to Christians! And wrong! :roll:

[Trynn]

Regardless of whether we agree with the details or not... What a truly Christ like response.

[It'sFunToRun]

I understand that $150,000 is a lot, and that the fine could harm these specific people. But, a case like this is about more than these specific bakers. If there is not a consequence for which they are responsible- and closing the bakery was their choice, not a consequence- other people who would discriminate would see that this couple "got away" with discrimination or at least were blunted from the consequences. It's like with a kid- if you did a bad thing as a kid, but had a helicopter parent that would take care of any consequences of your actions for you, you'd be more likely to do bad or stupid things.

The key here is deterrence. Seeing the serious consequence faced would make other people who would discriminate anxious or fearful about said consequences. Again, kid analogy. If the kid that threw spitballs is sent to the principal's office and given a week's detention, it will keep other would-be throwers from throwing spitballs, since they have seen a severe consequence.

Your reasoning makes sense only if you look at their refusal without a broader context. In the big picture, it's better for these people to face a consequence that, yes, could seriously harm their life, if it prevents others from refusing to follow the law (and thus facing a similar consequence).

They didn't just decide to close their bakery in a vacuum, they were given the choice of closing or serving gay people and they chose to close. Event though you can say that's technically a "choice" and not a "punishment", I think it's a proper consequence and is enough on its own. If other anti-gay people with bakeries saw that the Kleins had to close their bakery, that would be deterrence enough without the fine.

Rather than provide deterrence, I see the fine as providing fuel to the fire of "the gay agenda is out to ruin your life!" A homophobic couple with a bakery would not become less homophobic or discriminate less, they'd just make sure they didn't break that specific law while going out of their way to be assholes because they're angry. So they'd bake the cake, but they'd make a huge donation to FRC and put a big "Keep Marriage Safe!" sign up in their yard, and treat their gay customers passive aggressively while not technically breaking the law, etc.

Would a bakery be legally allowed to say "for each gay wedding cake we have to make, we will donate the entire profit to the FRC"? I think so.

[NoneandDoneinCali]

If punishments never work, I guess let's close all the jails and release murderers and rapist back to the streets and hope that being kind to abhorrent people will change them.

Knowing the consequences of breaking the law, which is always a punishment, or a damned good deterrent. Why do you follow the speed laws? They're not always the safest speed to travel.

No, harsh punishments (aka the death penalty) do NOT work as a deterrent. The death penalty doesn't prevent premeditated murder any more than a life sentence does. Minor laws/minor deterrent (texting while driving, for example)? Yes. Murder/rape and capital punishment? No. It's a bit histrionic to go from "this punishment doesn't fit the crime" (debatable) to "let's release ALL violent criminals!" You have to think of your "audience" when you create sanctions. Rapists and murderers don't think they'll get caught, or they wouldn't do it. Not to mention, in some countries, stoning is legal, and people STILL commit adultery (in no way do I think this should be a legal situation). Come on.

[It'sFunToRun]

If punishments never work, I guess let's close all the jails and release murderers and rapist back to the streets and hope that being kind to abhorrent people will change them.

Knowing the consequences of breaking the law, which is always a punishment, or a damned good deterrent. Why do you follow the speed laws? They're not always the safest speed to travel.

Dangerous criminals need to be locked up to keep normal people safe, not to punish the criminals. If I had magic G-d powers and knew that someone who had just committed murder would never hurt anyone again, then I would make them pay restitution to the family, and do community service, but I wouldn't lock them up. Of course, I don't have such powers, and neither does anyone else, so we have to lock them up to keep normal people safe.

Rapists have a high incidence of raping again after being released from prison, so apparently the punishment doesn't help. I would say it does help though, because if the rapist is in prison for five years, that's five years that he's not raping anyone. We need to either be happy with just that fact that he's not raping while in prison, or we need to find another solution (chemical castration, therapy that hasn't been invented yet...), because it's a FACT that just the punishment alone does not keep him from raping.

I think small punishments can work for small offenses, i.e., you come in late to school, you get half an hour detention, but big punishments don't work for big offenses. Definitely for me, the reason that I don't murder or rape or steal isn't because I'm afraid of punishment, it's because it's wrong to do.

{L_MESSAGE_HIDDEN}:

When I was in the military we sometimes got lectures on a wide array of subjects, and once it was a school psychologist talking about classroom discipline. She said it's okay to cancel a punishment sometimes, and that's better than being completely rigid. For example, if you're on a field trip and a kid makes a mess on the bus so you tell him "you have to stay after everyone gets off and clean the bus", but then it turns out that if the kid is five minutes late for his bus home, then he has to wait two hours for the next bus, then it's better to say "okay, since that is the case, I'm going to let you go once we get to school, but I never want to see you make a mess on a bus again" than to say "nope, I don't care what your circumstances are, if you made a mess, you clean it up". It's counterintuitive for a lot of people, because they think a disciplinarian has to always to what they say, but someone who is flexible gets more respect, as long as you cancel punishments for a good reason, and not just because it's unpleasant for you to punish or because you're afraid the person getting punished will get mad at you.

[Phoenix]

Regardless of whether we agree with the details or not... What a truly Christ like response.

I agree with Trynn. The Klein's have already experienced the legal, business, social and financial consequences of their extreme discrimination. So more of the same will only cement their pre-existing hatred of gays. Radical forgiveness and love might just get them to reconsider. Nothing else will, why not try it?

Another way to look at this response: It is the Marshall Plan on a smaller scale. Utterly brilliant and guess what? It worked, we were not in World War III by 1965, 20 years after the end of World War II unlike what happened between 1918 and 1939 as the fallout from The Treaty of Versaillles.

[formergothardite]

That would be your right. There are, by the way, restaurants (even at Disney!) and hotels which are adult-only. Some restaurants, hotels, schools and colleges are women-only. In some clubs and associations, you can only join if you belong to a cerain religion, gender and even race I think.

Like I said before, usually the market doesn't discriminate. A business owner is otherwise put out of business pretty quickly. These problems with people who discriminate usually resolve themselves.

Also, I'm convinced this fine for the homophobe bakers is highly counterproductive for the cause of gay marriage itself. Now organisations like the FRC use this example in order to scare people of gay marriage.

Right now there is currently a lot of hatred towards Muslim people in my area. There is a very, very, very small Muslim population that is here. It is not large enough or appears to be rich enough that they could just start all their own businesses. They have lived here for decades. If what you believe was actually legal it wouldn't surprise me if most of the businesses around here would stop allowing them to shop there and since the hatred is so strong, they would probably get extra customers, not be put out of business. And you think this is a good idea to make this behavior legal?

[It'sFunToRun]

Right now there is currently a lot of hatred towards Muslim people in my area. There is a very, very, very small Muslim population that is here. It is not large enough or appears to be rich enough that they could just start all their own businesses. They have lived here for decades. If what you believe was actually legal it wouldn't surprise me if most of the businesses around here would stop allowing them to shop there and since the hatred is so strong, they would probably get extra customers, not be put out of business. And you think this is a good idea to make this behavior legal?

I think whether you can refuse service to someone depends entirely on what kind of service you're offering. On one extreme, an emergency room doctor should never be allowed to refuse anyone. On the other extreme, a prostitute (it's legal is certain counties in Nevada!) should be allowed to refuse absolutely anyone for any reason.

For less extreme cases, I don't think it should be legal for a store owner to say "No Muslims", but it should be legal for a clown who works at children's birthday parties to refuse to perform at Muslims' houses. What if the clown were black and the KKK requested he go to their house? That would be scary, so he should be able to refuse. But if a store owner is black and a KKK guy comes into his store, he should be able to deal with that.

[nomoxian]

I think you can refuse to provide any sort of certain service as a business owner, as long as you don't discriminate. In other words, I could refuse to decorate a cake with anti-Obama or anti-Semetic messages as long as I was refusing to provide any hostile to people/politicians/religions to anyone. I couldn't advertise my anti-fundamentalist cakes and then refuse to do anti-Catholic ones.

I think there's a difference between me, as an atheist, making a cake for a Muslim or Christian, and making a cake that says "Fuck off K-word". One is making a cake for someone with a different belief (which I believe supports hate speech and hateful acts) and one is literal HATE SPEECH.

[browncoatslytherin]

On one extreme, an emergency room doctor should never be allowed to refuse anyone.

just an fyi, but in the u.s., facilities that are labeled as "emergency room" have to meet certain qualifications, one of them being that they cannot refuse to render aid to anyone for any reason, regardless of race, religion, social status, insurance coverage, ability to pay, etc. if they want to refuse service, by law they cannot hold the title of "emergency room".

[Firiel]

I agree with Trynn. The Klein's have already experienced the legal, business, social and financial consequences of their extreme discrimination. So more of the same will only cement their pre-existing hatred of gays. Radical forgiveness and love might just get them to reconsider. Nothing else will, why not try it?

Along these lines, I think this is about more than the Kleins. The man heading this up is a gay Christian and serves on the board for a Christian non-profit that fights for marriage equality. Conservative Christians believe that gay people can't be Christians, but seeing gay Christians truly acting as Christ would have by offering forgiveness and unconditional love could certainly help many conservative Christians re-think their position, even if the Kleins themselves never change their own views.

[It'sFunToRun]

I think there's a difference between me, as an atheist, making a cake for a Muslim or Christian, and making a cake that says "Fuck off K-word". One is making a cake for someone with a different belief (which I believe supports hate speech and hateful acts) and one is literal HATE SPEECH.

Is the "K-word" "kike"? I like that word, it reminds me of "cute" and "cunt", two other words that I like. It's meaning came from illiterate Jews signing their name with a little circle, which I think is cute. Certainly nothing to get offended over.

[VelociRapture]

On the one hand, I think this couple got exactly what they asked for and what they deserved.

On the other hand, I do think further attempts to penalize them could just lead to more hatred and prejudice - and not just from the couple, but from all the people who think like them.

I think that it is a beautiful example of Christ-like behavior for this man and group to collect donations to help them. Will it actually change their beliefs in the long run? Who knows. But it could have a big impact on someone who is on the fence or is questioning whether what they believe is right or not.

[doggie]

yes because these idiots are poster children for the duggers and such to show how persecuted Christians are. The sad part is if anyone did this to a Christian all hell would break loose.

[nomoxian]

Is the "K-word" "kike"? I like that word, it reminds me of "cute" and "cunt", two other words that I like. It's meaning came from illiterate Jews signing their name with a little circle, which I think is cute. Certainly nothing to get offended over.

Yes... and I did hear that it means "circle". The N word also means "black" - but both of those words have historically been used against those groups of people, and I'm not personally a member of those groups, so I prefer not to use those words.

I do really like the word cunt though. Even the Germans I play kicker with, who say "Scheisse" every other word, are surprised when I say "Fotze"

[DGayle]

They didn't just decide to close their bakery in a vacuum, they were given the choice of closing or serving gay people and they chose to close. Event though you can say that's technically a "choice" and not a "punishment", I think it's a proper consequence and is enough on its own. If other anti-gay people with bakeries saw that the Kleins had to close their bakery, that would be deterrence enough without the fine.

Rather than provide deterrence, I see the fine as providing fuel to the fire of "the gay agenda is out to ruin your life!" A homophobic couple with a bakery would not become less homophobic or discriminate less, they'd just make sure they didn't break that specific law while going out of their way to be assholes because they're angry. So they'd bake the cake, but they'd make a huge donation to FRC and put a big "Keep Marriage Safe!" sign up in their yard, and treat their gay customers passive aggressively while not technically breaking the law, etc.

Would a bakery be legally allowed to say "for each gay wedding cake we have to make, we will donate the entire profit to the FRC"? I think so.

Choosing to close your own business isn't a deterrent. If other anti-gay people see the Kleins closing their bakery, they'll see that as a choice they made, not a consequence.

If a bakery says they'll donate the amount charged for same-sex cakes to the FRC, they would still have to take the order and provide service.

[DGayle]

I think whether you can refuse service to someone depends entirely on what kind of service you're offering. On one extreme, an emergency room doctor should never be allowed to refuse anyone. On the other extreme, a prostitute (it's legal is certain counties in Nevada!) should be allowed to refuse absolutely anyone for any reason.

For less extreme cases, I don't think it should be legal for a store owner to say "No Muslims", but it should be legal for a clown who works at children's birthday parties to refuse to perform at Muslims' houses. What if the clown were black and the KKK requested he go to their house? That would be scary, so he should be able to refuse. But if a store owner is black and a KKK guy comes into his store, he should be able to deal with that.

You're comparing apples to stink bombs. You're comparing refusing service in an emergency room to refusing service for genuine concerns of safety. Refusing to provide service to a same-sex couple wanting a cake is in no way comparable to a black person refusing to provide clown-entertainment at a party thrown by the KKK, and only a really fucking stupid moron would think these compare in any way at all. We're not talking about a couple afraid for their safety. We're talking about a couple who doesn't want to bake a wedding cake because Bible.

[DGayle]

Right now there is currently a lot of hatred towards Muslim people in my area. There is a very, very, very small Muslim population that is here. It is not large enough or appears to be rich enough that they could just start all their own businesses. They have lived here for decades. If what you believe was actually legal it wouldn't surprise me if most of the businesses around here would stop allowing them to shop there and since the hatred is so strong, they would probably get extra customers, not be put out of business. And you think this is a good idea to make this behavior legal?

This is why equal rights for gays, women, and non-Christians, is sliding backward. There really are people who think it should be legal for businesses to refuse service for these things.

I can imagine it now. A society where we all wear patches declaring our sexuality, our genitalia, and our religion, so that store-owners could make sure we're the kind of people they want in their store. How 1940....

[DGayle]

Is the "K-word" "kike"? I like that word, it reminds me of "cute" and "cunt", two other words that I like. It's meaning came from illiterate Jews signing their name with a little circle, which I think is cute. Certainly nothing to get offended over.

And faggots are bunches of thin sticks used to get kindling going. Doesn't mean it's not offensive to call a gay person a fag or faggot. Calling Jewish people a bunch of kikes is purposefully insulting, and is very emotionally charged since it wasn't that long ago that people who were considered to be kikes were spat on, beaten, and sent to the ovens to die. If you think words like this are cute, then there's something deeply wrong with you. You think a word that marked someone to DEATH is cute. Are you a troll?