Should bakers be forced to make gender transition celebration cakes?

[Metaphor]

It would also be a great cake for a baby shower, or a my little pony themed kid's birthday party, or a pregnancy announcement party.

To the contrary, there is a message. The requested color scheme and the arrangement of the colors was done to represent, symbolically, someone who was a male and transitioned to a woman. The blue color was outside the cake, symbolically representing who she was on the outside, but inside was pink, her gender identity inside. The cake was requested to represent a second birthday, when she symbolically went from blue to pink, the date she transitioned from male to female, and the cake was to be used as a symbol for this second day birthday and celebrate the occasion.

So you acknowledge he will make the cake for others but will not make the cake for a trans person, which is illegal discrimination.

No. He will not make a cake symbolising and celebrating gender transition for any person.

Why is this so hard to understand?

 

[James Madison]

I argue that in a fundamental way the laws for common utility carriers were written to address these specific issues is informative of why these further public interests exist. We have in this country at least once recognized a compromise between entrenched interests and public access to core parts of our culture and society: they are people who handle the communications of others, and so rules for each party need to be understood clearly, with respect to core concepts of responsibility and culpability.

People have some specific need to communicate to each other, and we have as part of the deal of society, agreed to share the skills we each learn, in exchange for access to the skills we don't and can't learn.

In this respect, bakers are more akin to common carriers. They have a responsibility to ban those who apply their connection for criminal applications, but that's about where it ends, and for ISPs, this is purely extended to after-the-fact. Of course, harassment, intimidation, and threatening speech are perfect examples of "criminal applications".

If they don't want to be held liable for the messages they do make, then they must accept that responsibility to treat all requests neutrally with respect to all other requests.

This strikes me as an inaccurate summation of the law and liability. But I can’t say for sure without knowing what federal or state statute(s) do you believe to support your comments?

Common carrier provisions for type 2 "utility" carriers must behave in a fundamentally neutral way, passing all messages regardless of content. In this way, the protections of type 2 utilities enjoy the fact that they cannot be held liable for this. This is the fundamental pro couple of network neutrality.

Other formats of carriers enjoy similar immunity. Just Google "network neutrality". Have you not been paying attention when these things come up here?

The issue is that cakes take a lot of time, effort, and require that someone in the middle has to see whatever awfulness and know what it is. But doing things you can often dislike for other people's money is what we call "public business". It would be impossible to claim lack of culpability in good faith for a cake that they knew was a threat or harassment.

This is where I do believe criminal law steps in, in that it's really personally impossible to not aid nor abet a libel, slander, harassment on some medium that passes human hands and sight with knowledge of it's intent to do so.

I think that anyone should have every right to not bake a cake. I just don't think that someone who refuses open commission on cakes which are specifically not meant to harass or intimidate people should be the ones for whom the niche of the community remains open to.

You say that you find problems with our documents by crusty men, and/or interpretation later thereby?

One thing that strikes me is that, should a baker be found to have a right to not make a cake for a customer that they would for another, that baker will be then criminally liable for aiding and abetting in harassment were some customer to actually get one past them. So perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps the baker should be even expected to make such cakes, for their own sake.

How so? Tell me what exactly you mean by “criminal harassment” and how your hypo satisfies your meaning.

I'm not going to do the Google search for you.
Just search for "common carrier provisions FCC". It's part of the laws that literally define the FCC and if you like to read, you should read up on it all yourself. It's a fun rabbit hole to fall into. The cliffs notes:

Excuse me? You are the individual who spoke in an affirmative manner regarding criminal liability and legal liability. Doing a Google search doesn’t tell me what statutes, if any, you are basing your comments upon. After all, if you like to make persuasive positions, as much as I enjoy reading, and I am a voracious reader, then you are not going to shove off on other people what is your burden, that of telling others what statute, or what law, supports your affirmative remarks of criminal and legal liability.

Common carrier provisions for type 2 "utility" carriers must behave in a fundamentally neutral way, passing all messages regardless of content. In this way, the protections of type 2 utilities enjoy the fact that they cannot be held liable for this. This is the fundamental pro couple of network neutrality.

Edifying. Except, what you’ve provided isn’t a common carrier “making messages” and as a result, the above regarding common carriers isn’t akin to Phillips, who is making a message.

Other formats of carriers enjoy similar immunity. Just Google "network neutrality". Have you not been paying attention when these things come up here?

Depends. Were you the one who brought “these things up”?

Regardless, the FCC rescinded its own rules treating ISPs as Title II common carriers.

What is a useful principle with regards to communication on wires is a similarly applicable standard for communications on frosting. As communications on frosting are similarly vulnerable to carrier monopoly, the principle would demand they too be expected to be neutral.

Sure, if we ignore the distinction that Phillips is speaking when creating a message with frosting, whereas a phone company isn’t speaking when someone uses their telephone lines to speak to someone else. Neither was the famed pony express rider speaking by delivering someone else’s speech in a letter to a third party. So, no, it isn’t a “useful principle” at all.

Let's say I want to send you a cake that says "James Madison of FRDB is a big meany!*" *You are not. Honestly, this is a great moment in a fairly good conversation!

But say that I had this slanderous thing (libel?) Baked up and sent to your doorstep. You would be pretty angry at me! And you might even think to yourself (as I know I would) "who would bake such a thing just to insult someone so flagrantly," and have some cross words were the persons of this chain of bad decisions to come about and offer themselves up. Imagine that I had said something much worse, and sent it to an FRDB meet up at an atheist convention or whatever.

Well, your example isn’t criminal or civil liability. It is opinion as to whether I’m a “meany.”

But I understand your point. Suppose you requested of a baker to make a cake that says “James is a liar,” and had the cakes “sent,” and I suffered some reputational harm or beach of the peace because of the message on the cake. There’s some considerable difficulty in assessing whether the baker is criminally culpable for libel. The baker Miley has a good defense he did not “knowingly” make the false statement, i.e., the baker didn’t know the statement to be false.

Otherwise, however, there’s no crime for having a cake, with the message of “You are a dickhead” on the cake, sent to someone you dislike. Yes, free speech permits such offending speech. Free speech permits speech that hurts others’ feelings. Free speech allows speech that generally or personally offends people.

How about this: I honestly think that part of doing public business is best served in expecting public licensure to come with an expectation of serving the whole public in every way that does not aid nor abet the breaking of a law, such as harassment or intimidation or slander or libel. I don't think it protects you from having to facilitate a communication of a thing you think is untrue.

Unless “facilitate” requires the facilitator to speak, then free speech would protect the facilitator from facilitating the message.

Imagine weaponizong cakes against people. That's not very neutral. And in some ways cakes are wider, more abstract threats, as much against the baker as anyone else. Like Nazi cakes.

A bat mitzvah cake is not a threat, even for a Christian.

Yeah but so what? Phillips and bakers do not have to be “neutral” as he isn’t a common carrier. He can tell Michigan fans he will never sell anything to them or make anything for them, but he will for anyone else. That’s not neutral but he may do so, and where speech is involved, he couldn’t be compelled even if Michigan fans was a protected class.

 

[James Madison]

It would also be a great cake for a baby shower, or a my little pony themed kid's birthday party, or a pregnancy announcement party.

To the contrary, there is a message. The requested color scheme and the arrangement of the colors was done to represent, symbolically, someone who was a male and transitioned to a woman. The blue color was outside the cake, symbolically representing who she was on the outside, but inside was pink, her gender identity inside. The cake was requested to represent a second birthday, when she symbolically went from blue to pink, the date she transitioned from male to female, and the cake was to be used as a symbol for this second day birthday and celebrate the occasion.

So you acknowledge he will make the cake for others but will not make the cake for a trans person, which is illegal discrimination.

The CCRD has its own precedent that Phillips didn’t refuse service because she was trans, but rather service was refused because the message offended his religious beliefs. Yes, CCRD refused to find a violation of the protected class of “creed,” where a customer wanted a message on a cake that same sex was sin, and the bakers refused, because the message offended their personal moral convictions. The CCRD said service wasn’t refused because of the “creed” of the customer but because of the “message” and that the message offended their personal morality.

In addition, he will not make the cake for anyone in which the context demonstrates the cake symbolically has the message prompting his refusal to Scardina. It’s the message, the speech, he is being asked to make and create that he is objecting too.

And where the “cake” doesn’t have the message he finds objectionable, he will make such a cake for trans and others.

 

[Bomb#20]

I don't know any women with penises. People with penises are men or boys.

"I cannot accept another warrior's trophy."

 

[untermensche]

No. He will not make a cake symbolising and celebrating gender transition for any person.

Why is this so hard to understand?

Only transsexuals would want one.

He is discriminating against a certain kind of person he has a strange hatred for.

Why is that so hard to understand?

 

[Metaphor]

No. He will not make a cake symbolising and celebrating gender transition for any person.

Why is this so hard to understand?

Only transsexuals would want one.

He is discriminating against a certain kind of person he has a strange hatred for.

Why is that so hard to understand?

Whether only transsexuals would want one is both false and irrelevant.

 

[untermensche]

No. He will not make a cake symbolising and celebrating gender transition for any person.

Why is this so hard to understand?

Only transsexuals would want one.

He is discriminating against a certain kind of person he has a strange hatred for.

Why is that so hard to understand?

Whether only transsexuals would want one is both false and irrelevant.

It's totally relevant.

It is unjust discrimination against a totally innocent person based upon irrational hatred of a certain kind of person.

Religious delusion is allowed but not in the market place.

There you have to respect and treat people equally.

If they have harmed someone you can discriminate.

If they promote hatred or harm you can discriminate.

But you can't discriminate against a certain kind of person just for being that kind of person.

 

[ideologyhunter]

According to the pious SCOTUS we have now, that's exactly what you can do. Religious icons can stand on public property because they are 'traditional', not religious, and religious freedom allows you to mistreat others on the same basis that was disallowed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, i.e.: "I just don't approve of that sort of person."

 

[untermensche]

Slavery was traditional for a long time.

It is what built the nation. North and South.

Tradition is nothing to worship.

History is something to learn from.

 

[Jarhyn]

I argue that in a fundamental way the laws for common utility carriers were written to address these specific issues is informative of why these further public interests exist. We have in this country at least once recognized a compromise between entrenched interests and public access to core parts of our culture and society: they are people who handle the communications of others, and so rules for each party need to be understood clearly, with respect to core concepts of responsibility and culpability.

People have some specific need to communicate to each other, and we have as part of the deal of society, agreed to share the skills we each learn, in exchange for access to the skills we don't and can't learn.



Common carrier provisions for type 2 "utility" carriers must behave in a fundamentally neutral way, passing all messages regardless of content. In this way, the protections of type 2 utilities enjoy the fact that they cannot be held liable for this. This is the fundamental pro couple of network neutrality.

Other formats of carriers enjoy similar immunity. Just Google "network neutrality". Have you not been paying attention when these things come up here?

The issue is that cakes take a lot of time, effort, and require that someone in the middle has to see whatever awfulness and know what it is. But doing things you can often dislike for other people's money is what we call "public business". It would be impossible to claim lack of culpability in good faith for a cake that they knew was a threat or harassment.

This is where I do believe criminal law steps in, in that it's really personally impossible to not aid nor abet a libel, slander, harassment on some medium that passes human hands and sight with knowledge of it's intent to do so.

I think that anyone should have every right to not bake a cake. I just don't think that someone who refuses open commission on cakes which are specifically not meant to harass or intimidate people should be the ones for whom the niche of the community remains open to.

You say that you find problems with our documents by crusty men, and/or interpretation later thereby?

One thing that strikes me is that, should a baker be found to have a right to not make a cake for a customer that they would for another, that baker will be then criminally liable for aiding and abetting in harassment were some customer to actually get one past them. So perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps the baker should be even expected to make such cakes, for their own sake.

How so? Tell me what exactly you mean by “criminal harassment” and how your hypo satisfies your meaning.

I'm not going to do the Google search for you.
Just search for "common carrier provisions FCC". It's part of the laws that literally define the FCC and if you like to read, you should read up on it all yourself. It's a fun rabbit hole to fall into. The cliffs notes:

Excuse me? You are the individual who spoke in an affirmative manner regarding criminal liability and legal liability. Doing a Google search doesn’t tell me what statutes, if any, you are basing your comments upon. After all, if you like to make persuasive positions, as much as I enjoy reading, and I am a voracious reader, then you are not going to shove off on other people what is your burden, that of telling others what statute, or what law, supports your affirmative remarks of criminal and legal liability.

Common carrier provisions for type 2 "utility" carriers must behave in a fundamentally neutral way, passing all messages regardless of content. In this way, the protections of type 2 utilities enjoy the fact that they cannot be held liable for this. This is the fundamental pro couple of network neutrality.

Edifying. Except, what you’ve provided isn’t a common carrier “making messages” and as a result, the above regarding common carriers isn’t akin to Phillips, who is making a message.

Other formats of carriers enjoy similar immunity. Just Google "network neutrality". Have you not been paying attention when these things come up here?

Depends. Were you the one who brought “these things up”?

Regardless, the FCC rescinded its own rules treating ISPs as Title II common carriers.

What is a useful principle with regards to communication on wires is a similarly applicable standard for communications on frosting. As communications on frosting are similarly vulnerable to carrier monopoly, the principle would demand they too be expected to be neutral.

Sure, if we ignore the distinction that Phillips is speaking when creating a message with frosting, whereas a phone company isn’t speaking when someone uses their telephone lines to speak to someone else. Neither was the famed pony express rider speaking by delivering someone else’s speech in a letter to a third party. So, no, it isn’t a “useful principle” at all.

Let's say I want to send you a cake that says "James Madison of FRDB is a big meany!*" *You are not. Honestly, this is a great moment in a fairly good conversation!

But say that I had this slanderous thing (libel?) Baked up and sent to your doorstep. You would be pretty angry at me! And you might even think to yourself (as I know I would) "who would bake such a thing just to insult someone so flagrantly," and have some cross words were the persons of this chain of bad decisions to come about and offer themselves up. Imagine that I had said something much worse, and sent it to an FRDB meet up at an atheist convention or whatever.

Well, your example isn’t criminal or civil liability. It is opinion as to whether I’m a “meany.”

But I understand your point. Suppose you requested of a baker to make a cake that says “James is a liar,” and had the cakes “sent,” and I suffered some reputational harm or beach of the peace because of the message on the cake. There’s some considerable difficulty in assessing whether the baker is criminally culpable for libel. The baker Miley has a good defense he did not “knowingly” make the false statement, i.e., the baker didn’t know the statement to be false.

Otherwise, however, there’s no crime for having a cake, with the message of “You are a dickhead” on the cake, sent to someone you dislike. Yes, free speech permits such offending speech. Free speech permits speech that hurts others’ feelings. Free speech allows speech that generally or personally offends people.

How about this: I honestly think that part of doing public business is best served in expecting public licensure to come with an expectation of serving the whole public in every way that does not aid nor abet the breaking of a law, such as harassment or intimidation or slander or libel. I don't think it protects you from having to facilitate a communication of a thing you think is untrue.

Unless “facilitate” requires the facilitator to speak, then free speech would protect the facilitator from facilitating the message.

Imagine weaponizong cakes against people. That's not very neutral. And in some ways cakes are wider, more abstract threats, as much against the baker as anyone else. Like Nazi cakes.

A bat mitzvah cake is not a threat, even for a Christian.

Yeah but so what? Phillips and bakers do not have to be “neutral” as he isn’t a common carrier. He can tell Michigan fans he will never sell anything to them or make anything for them, but he will for anyone else. That’s not neutral but he may do so, and where speech is involved, he couldn’t be compelled even if Michigan fans was a protected class.

You're putting the cart before the horse. "Doesn't have to because he [has not been ruled] a common carrier" is a matter of 'what law has been placed down', part of the body of things we must all accept are in some way wrong.

The question being put is not whether they are title II utilities, but rather whether the concepts and principles that resolve the ethical conundrum presented by Common Carrier infrastructure are reflected by bakers.

I pose that they are. All title 2 carriers make arbitrary shapes in nature (charges within a wire across time) exist for the purposes of allowing one party to communicate with another. The level of automation is only relevant in the potential that the carrier can be ignorant of what is spoken on that wire.

I concede that because cake bakers cannot be ignorant, that they can be expected at the least to not facilitate harmful communication. But that is what they do. I do not hire bakers to communicate their messages. I hire them to bang out my messages, in frosting, the same way I hire my ISP to bang out my messages in electrons.

Because there are in many cases only one baker in an area and in many cases opening another bakery can be impossible (given the Chamber of Commerce), the bakery that does exist can be expected to reasonably accommodate everyone. The one accommodation that is not reasonable is to be expected to assist in harassing or intimidating others.

It is not harassment to be asked to do your job. It is your job to be expected to do your job.

 

[ZiprHead]

So you acknowledge he will make the cake for others but will not make the cake for a trans person, which is illegal discrimination.

No. He will not make a cake symbolising and celebrating gender transition for any person.

Why is this so hard to understand?

At its core, it is still discrimination against trans people.

Why is that so hard for you to understand?

 

[ZiprHead]

So you acknowledge he will make the cake for others but will not make the cake for a trans person, which is illegal discrimination.

The CCRD has its own precedent that Phillips didn’t refuse service because she was trans, but rather service was refused because the message offended his religious beliefs. Yes, CCRD refused to find a violation of the protected class of “creed,” where a customer wanted a message on a cake that same sex was sin, and the bakers refused, because the message offended their personal moral convictions. The CCRD said service wasn’t refused because of the “creed” of the customer but because of the “message” and that the message offended their personal morality.

In addition, he will not make the cake for anyone in which the context demonstrates the cake symbolically has the message prompting his refusal to Scardina. It’s the message, the speech, he is being asked to make and create that he is objecting too.

And where the “cake” doesn’t have the message he finds objectionable, he will make such a cake for trans and others.

Not equivalent. There was no written message on the cake in this case. It's the same cake he would bake for anyone else. But because it's for a trans person he refused.

 

[Gun Nut]

No private business should be forced to provide service to anyone for any or no reason. Any private business that chooses to enter an agreement to provide a service shall be held accountable for their end of the agreement.
Pretty easy. Not sure what the confusion is.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Then there should have been no attempt whatever to end the Jim Crow practices of restaurants, hotels, clinics, etc., etc. etc.?

 

[Gun Nut]

Then there should have been no attempt whatever to end the Jim Crow practices of restaurants, hotels, clinics, etc., etc. etc.?

Can you be specific?

 

[TomC]

Then there should have been no attempt whatever to end the Jim Crow practices of restaurants, hotels, clinics, etc., etc. etc.?

I find it dishonest to compare this to the Civil Rights battles of the 60s.

Racism was huge and pervasive. It went from basic equality before the law to basic human needs like housing and health care and education. It was entrenched for centuries.

Extremely different from managing to find a bakery or campground that isn't accepting, when 99% of all such frivolous stuff is fine with the businesses who just want your money.
Tom

 

[laughing dog]

Then there should have been no attempt whatever to end the Jim Crow practices of restaurants, hotels, clinics, etc., etc. etc.?

I find it dishonest to compare this to the Civil Rights battles of the 60s.

Racism was huge and pervasive. It went from basic equality before the law to basic human needs like housing and health care and education. It was entrenched for centuries.

Extremely different from managing to find a bakery or campground that isn't accepting, when 99% of all such frivolous stuff is fine with the businesses who just want your money.
Tom

Using your reasoning, it would be okay for a baker or a gas station to refuse service to a black person because there are other bakers and gas stations that will. Can you understand why someone might find your reasoning unconvincing?

 

[TomC]

Then there should have been no attempt whatever to end the Jim Crow practices of restaurants, hotels, clinics, etc., etc. etc.?

I find it dishonest to compare this to the Civil Rights battles of the 60s.

Racism was huge and pervasive. It went from basic equality before the law to basic human needs like housing and health care and education. It was entrenched for centuries.

Extremely different from managing to find a bakery or campground that isn't accepting, when 99% of all such frivolous stuff is fine with the businesses who just want your money.
Tom

Using your reasoning, it would be okay for a baker or a gas station to refuse service to a black person because there are other bakers and gas stations that will. Can you understand why someone might find your reasoning unconvincing?

You don't appear capable of understanding my reasoning.
Tom

 

[James Madison]

So you acknowledge he will make the cake for others but will not make the cake for a trans person, which is illegal discrimination.

The CCRD has its own precedent that Phillips didn’t refuse service because she was trans, but rather service was refused because the message offended his religious beliefs. Yes, CCRD refused to find a violation of the protected class of “creed,” where a customer wanted a message on a cake that same sex was sin, and the bakers refused, because the message offended their personal moral convictions. The CCRD said service wasn’t refused because of the “creed” of the customer but because of the “message” and that the message offended their personal morality.

In addition, he will not make the cake for anyone in which the context demonstrates the cake symbolically has the message prompting his refusal to Scardina. It’s the message, the speech, he is being asked to make and create that he is objecting too.

And where the “cake” doesn’t have the message he finds objectionable, he will make such a cake for trans and others.

Not equivalent. There was no written message on the cake in this case. It's the same cake he would bake for anyone else. But because it's for a trans person he refused.

That doesn’t matter. Neither speech or a message is limited to only words written down. Both speech and a message can both be nonverbal.

The cake wasn’t refused because of her status as a trans. The cake was refused because of the message of the cake, and the message offended his religious beliefs.

 

[laughing dog]

Using your reasoning, it would be okay for a baker or a gas station to refuse service to a black person because there are other bakers and gas stations that will. Can you understand why someone might find your reasoning unconvincing?

You don't appear capable of understanding my reasoning.
Tom

. Your statement "Extremely different from managing to find a bakery or campground that isn't accepting, when 99% of all such frivolous stuff is fine with the businesses who just want your money." as written and understand in standard English to permit a baker to deny service to a black person. Same thing with a gas station attendant - those services are not necessary and there may be plenty of other bakers and gas stations that will offer that service.

Apparently, you don't understand your own written rationale.