The Mexican Dream

[JudgeDredd]

As far as sale of products or services, I'm not sure why the government needs to be involved at all beyond preventing discrimination against customers doing business with them. Every business should have the right to determine what goods it will carry or what services it will provide. Consumers then have the right to decide whether or not they will patronize those businesses.

The problem with allowing businesses to decide what to do kind of ended up with Jews being black listed from pretty much everywhere in Nazi Germany, right?

There was a case in the UK (or perhaps Ireland) where a gay couple couldn't get a cake made at a shop because it had a picture of them both on the front - their wedding cake I believe. The shop refused to bake said cake and present it to them. The couple went to court and the bakery was fined.

Now - we can all sit here - as people who aren't deemed odd in society (I maybe be speaking for myself here  :P ) - and say "It's the shop's right to determine what and who they sell to, right?"...wrong.

I thought exactly the same thing - "What about the people running about the shop? What about their rights?". Well, they decided they were going to provide a service to the public and it should be done without prejudice.

So - the couple could've taken their request to another shop. But what if ALL bakeries were allowed to refuse to bake the cake? Then it's exclusion based on, in that case, sexual preference.

So no - perhaps businesses cannot determine what they can and can't sell.

I'm really not into government censorship - but businesses providing a service to the public shouldn't be allowed to do so by allowing any prejudices to determine which segments of the public they can include and exclude.

As for this game. The targeting and killing of innocent people shouldn't be in a game imo - particularly when it's so blatantly targeted.

[MikeGER]

I thought exactly the same thing - "What about the people running about the shop? What about their rights?". Well, they decided they were going to provide a service to the public and it should be done without prejudice.

So - the couple could've taken their request to another shop. But what if ALL bakeries were allowed to refuse to bake the cake? Then it's exclusion based on, in that case, sexual preference.

So no - perhaps businesses cannot determine what they can and can't sell.

I'm really not into government censorship - but businesses providing a service to the public shouldn't be allowed to do so by allowing any prejudices to determine which segments of the public they can include and exclude.

There is a Solomon solution
its depends on the size of business and if owner is personal involved in providing that service.

so a Mom and Pop store bakery can refuse to serve individual customers when they don't like the customer for whatever reason and even free of choice to don't let them on their property at all
so Pop just refuse to handcraft a 'dick in the ass erotic cake' or 'Jesus nailed upside down' or 'Swastika cluttered cake'  or '9/11-planes hit WTC'-cake     

if the biz get bigger, has more then one independent managed store (so owner don't swings between them) or it gets a chain and the owner just sits in a office building 'making directives' ...or even better is on the golf course and sail boat all day and just receive the benefits for being the majority stock holder, then the owner cant make directives that are exclude a social group. so he still can exclude an individual persons. (black list of individual names)

The problem today is that Political Correctness is a one sided left/green affair, abused as a political weapon
if the gay couple would sue for their 'dick in the ass' cake, the bakery get fined.
if an let's say WW2 reenactor group would sue for getting their 'Waffen SS-cake' , the bakery wins and get celebrated in MSM  for standing the ground (even so the reenactors are all Brits and no nazis at all)
(...and don't even dare to get an 'AFD'-cake for a let's say kickoff of an local AFD-party rally for the German elections in a few weeks here.)

and so today that exemplaric gay couple (activists) would search so long to finally find the single bakery left in town which refused and then ran for the media to air the scandal they where looking for.   

[Boggit]

I think MikeGER is right that political correctness is a device used as a political weapon to force people to comply with things they are bitterly opposed to, but also to shut down discussion of issues.

I'm in agreement with JD's view that shops should sell to people regardless of who they are, but MikeGER has made a very interesting point as to where a business is asked to provide a service to produce something in subject matter that is totally outside their normal course of business.

It is one thing for a gay couple to ask for a "normal" cake to be baked for them, but it becomes contentious and is an altogether different thing to ask for - and expect - for a bakery to bake a "sexually explicit" cake, when the business does not hold itself out as taking commissions for "sexually explicit" cakes. Now if the business is already in the practice of producing "sexually explicit" cakes for heterosexual couples, then a refusal to bake a gay version is unreasonable for direct discrimination based on a customers sexual preference, which is presently illegal. However, if the business does not make sexually explicit cakes, either as "normal" business, or for special commissions then I think a refusal to make is open to argument on the basis that the business is distinguished from being discriminatory by being asked to produce a product that it has not, and does not intend to supply/manufacture simply because it is not in that type of business.

A moral (not legal) argument to when such a request is outside the normal nature of the business, is that by making the cake it shows a tacit public approval of the subject matter, even though it may create offense to the people making it, and go against their views.

As with other contentious issues this all comes around to tolerance, and the limits we should set as a matter of law on the abuse of tolerance. This is an important issue in getting the balance right for any discrimination legislation - how far do you compel people to deal with people they are in notional opposition to? It is one thing compelling the right of purchase, but altogether another thing to stop exercising our personal right to embargo where it may be discriminatory on various grounds.  In the instant case, I think the matter hinges on the normal course of business, and of the reasonableness of any request outside of it.

[FarAway Sooner]

I was having this conversation with some friends the other night:  If you think a bakery shouldn't have the right to refuse to make a wedding cake for a gay couple, how about having the right to refuse make a Nazi-themed wedding cake?  I'm still not sure where I sit on this issue, but I tend to lean on the "Both groups should get the same treatment."

There are two tricky questions here.

#1:  Which group is more in the right here? (in the case of a kind, patient human being who is sadly refusing to provide the service on religious beliefs, both parties have some legitimacy in their claims here)

#2:  How much downside is there from having the government involved in drawing black and white lines here?

Based on my beliefs in #1, I am inclined to boycott a store or chain that refuses to sell cakes to gay couples.  But thinking that we should get the government involved is a separate conversation, as any good libertarian will tell us.

Folks just need to make sure whether they're objecting on grounds #1 or #2, I think.  If they're objecting at all...

[OJsDad]

As far as sale of products or services, I'm not sure why the government needs to be involved at all beyond preventing discrimination against customers doing business with them. Every business should have the right to determine what goods it will carry or what services it will provide. Consumers then have the right to decide whether or not they will patronize those businesses.

I don't have a problem with a business refusing to serve a customer, for whatever reason they choose.  The only requirement would be that they have to post that on the front of their store.  I'd rather know whom I'm really dealing with than some artificial PC business.

Healthcare and grocery stores are the two exceptions to the rule that I can think of. 

[Jarhead0331]

I don't think it is as simple as refusing to make a cake for a gay couple. That is not really the issue involved in the particular case, or line of cases. The issue is whether a person or business can be forced by the government to provide custom goods and/or services that in some significant, material way, violates a legitimate religious conviction or belief.

Some say that the government should not wield this level of authority, and that it is the marketplace that should control. If a business expresses views that the majority of people disagree with, then we would hope they would not do business there and the venture will simply wither and die.

[mirth]

violates a legitimate religious conviction or belief.

And there's the problem. Who gets to decide what that is? Ultimately it will have to be the government through legislation and legal decisions by the courts.

Anyway, I like how a thread about a stupid little game has morphed into a debate about gay and Nazis confections.

[Jarhead0331]

violates a legitimate religious conviction or belief.

And there's the problem. Who gets to decide what that is? Ultimately it will have to be the government through legislation and legal decisions by the courts.

That's not necessarily a problem. That's how literally everything works. There is a standard, or a test for everything in the law.

[mirth]

violates a legitimate religious conviction or belief.

And there's the problem. Who gets to decide what that is? Ultimately it will have to be the government through legislation and legal decisions by the courts.

That's not necessarily a problem. That's how literally everything works. There is a standard, or a test for everything in the law.

I agree. I wasn't trying to present it as a problem (poor phrasing on my part). It's really the only way these issues can be resolved.

[Gusington]

So has JH been suckered back in to his own thread? VICTORY

[mirth]

So has JH been suckered back in to his own thread? VICTORY

I'm going to have a slice of Gay Nazis wedding cake in celebration.

[Gusington]

Fabulous!

[mirth]

Victory has never tasted sweeter.

[Jarhead0331]

So has JH been suckered back in to his own thread? VICTORY

No. Its all a ploy to get Brant to come back for an encore.

[mirth]

Can I still have the slice of Gay Nazis wedding cake?