Thursday, January 02, 2014

Terrible judge requires baker to bake cakes

Over in Colorado an administrative judge has ordered a baker to bake cakes, and your right wing conservatives are acting as if the sky has fallen. Why? Because the recalcitrant baker had been refusing to provide a gay couple with a wedding cake because RELIGIOUS BELIEFS.
Mullins and Craig married in Massachusetts and had originally gone to Masterpiece in July 2012 because they wanted to a cake for their wedding reception in Colorado. When Phillips refused, the pair went to the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission (CCRC) on their behalf. 
According to the complaint, Phillips told the couple that the store policy was to deny service to customers who wished to order baked goods for a same-sex wedding, based on his religious beliefs.

What do I think? Thanks for asking:

1) Do Mullins and Craig really want some bigot getting his hands all over their wedding cake? If a jew-hater refused to bake me a cake, I wouldn't force him. I'd just take my business to his competitor. I know its tempting to compare this case to Rosa Parks, etc., but the analogy doesn't work. Rosa Parks had only one choice when it came to bus riding, and that one bus line was run by the government. In the South, Jim Crow wasn't a matter of an individual business owner's personal choice. It was the law. The Civil Rights Movement wasn't about getting small-minded businessmen to join us in the modern age. It was about getting the government to treat all citizens equally under the law. Gays are the same as anyone else in the eyes of the government and there is no shortage of bakeries willing to serve homosexuals. Mullins and Craig should just tell Facebook about what Phillips did, and get their cake from someone else

2) But because they went to court (always so dramatic, the gays) the judge had to act, and I think he gave the correct ruling. A bakery can't refuse to do business with someone on the basis of their being gay.

3) Naturally, the Orthodox Jewish gay-haters (OJGH) are now concerned this means Orthodox Jewish rabbis will be required by law to officiate at gay weddings, but they aren't thinking calmly or carefully. The government can't make a Rabbi do anything that runs contrary to religious doctrine. If it could, wouldn't someone have sued Judaism for refusing to ordain women by now? (In 2002 someone challenged the tax exemption of the Catholic Church because it doesn’t allow women to become priests. She lost.)

4) OJGH are also concerned that kosher catering halls will be forced by the court to accommodate gay couples. They probably will - but only until the catering halls work out a loophole, which should take them about ten seconds.

BONUS BIGOTRY:

Here's Yaakov Mencken snarling away on this issue:
A private business owner... will face fines and penalties if he refuses to bake “wedding” cakes for deviant couples in violation of his religious faith. If it’s “racist” to discriminate against deviant couples having a “wedding,” then it’s wrong for a Rabbi to refuse to marry them, as well
Love the scare quotes, Yaakov. Of course it isn't a real wedding unless you say it is. Do you also use scare quotes when you refer to Catholic or Hindu weddings? Why are those weddings legitimate? They don't have erusin or kedushin either.

 Search for more information about deviant couples at4torah.com

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