Should bakers be forced to make gender transition celebration cakes?

[James Madison]

What is the difference between a special order used for a gender transition and an existing cake used for one?

The baker's knowledge of the implied message.

Let's consider two scenarios.
1) Your best friend tells you "Hey, I'm going to drive out to the middle of nowhere with my girlfriend, and I'd like you to come along".
2) Your best friend tells you "Hey, I'm going to drive out to the middle of nowhere with my girlfriend so I can kill her and hide her body, and I'd like you to come along".

In both scenarios, your friend intends to kill their girlfriend. But in one scenario, you do not have knowledge of that fact. Your decision and your choice of action is dependent upon that knowledge.

I previously provided a scenario that is substantially similar to the Phillips case:
1) A customer calls in and orders a chocolate cake with white icing.
2) A customer calls in and orders a chocolate cake with white icing to celebrate his promotion to grand dragon of his local KKK unit, where the white icing symbolizes the supremacy of the white man over the black man, as symbolized by the chocolate cake.

You previously took the position that the baker should be allowed to refuse to bake the cake that will be used to celebrate bigotry... but he can only make that choice because of his knowledge of the use to which it is being put. In the first situation above, the baker does not have that knowledge - he knows only that it's a chocolate cake with white icing, which is a fairly common combination. It is explicitly because of the knowledge given to the baker regarding the purpose and message of the cake that would allow him to refuse it in the second scenario.

You've used the KKK/Nazi argument several times here. Members of the KKK/Nazi party aren't in a protected class. You been told this several times and you have never acknowledged it.

Uh, they would be under certain circumstances. After all “creed” is protected as a class under Colorado’s law. And Emily’s hypo in number two DOES involve a “creed,” and the “creed” is “ where the white icing symbolizes the supremacy of the white man over the black man, as symbolized by the chocolate cake.”

So, why would she acknowledge your point as accurate or correct when her hypo comes within the protection of Colorado’s public accommodation law protecting “creed.”

 

[James Madison]

You've used the KKK/Nazi argument several times here. Members of the KKK/Nazi party aren't in a protected class. You been told this several times and you have never acknowledged it.

It's irrelevant to the point being made.

I chose neonazis because it's something that we all agree is abhorrent. None of us are going to insist that racism is good - we all share the same belief with respect to white supremacists. And because we all share the same belief, I expect that we would all feel that it should be the baker's right to refuse to bake a cake celebrating something that he (and we) truly and deeply believe is abhorrent. Additionally, there is no written message on the cake, there is only a symbolic color scheme.

It gives us a baseline scenario with which to establish whether a scenario exists in which the convictions of the provider of a service justifiably allow them to refuse service to a customer on the basis of those convictions.

But, under Colorado’s public accommodation law, your hypo would be protected under the umbrella protection afforded to “creed.”

“ 2)(a) It is a discriminatory practice and unlawful for a person, directly or indirectly, to refuse, withhold from, or deny to an individual or a group, because of disability, race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, or ancestry, the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of a place of public accommodation

 

[James Madison]

What is the difference between a special order used for a gender transition and an existing cake used for one?

The baker's knowledge of the implied message.

Let's consider two scenarios.
1) Your best friend tells you "Hey, I'm going to drive out to the middle of nowhere with my girlfriend, and I'd like you to come along".
2) Your best friend tells you "Hey, I'm going to drive out to the middle of nowhere with my girlfriend so I can kill her and hide her body, and I'd like you to come along".

In both scenarios, your friend intends to kill their girlfriend. But in one scenario, you do not have knowledge of that fact. Your decision and your choice of action is dependent upon that knowledge.

I previously provided a scenario that is substantially similar to the Phillips case:
1) A customer calls in and orders a chocolate cake with white icing.
2) A customer calls in and orders a chocolate cake with white icing to celebrate his promotion to grand dragon of his local KKK unit, where the white icing symbolizes the supremacy of the white man over the black man, as symbolized by the chocolate cake.

You previously took the position that the baker should be allowed to refuse to bake the cake that will be used to celebrate bigotry... but he can only make that choice because of his knowledge of the use to which it is being put. In the first situation above, the baker does not have that knowledge - he knows only that it's a chocolate cake with white icing, which is a fairly common combination. It is explicitly because of the knowledge given to the baker regarding the purpose and message of the cake that would allow him to refuse it in the second scenario.

If someone who is a Nazi or a member of the KKK wants to buy a cake, they should be allowed to buy a cake. The baker should not be compelled to make a cake in the shape of a swastika or a burning cross or other imagery (know it when you see it) that can be deemed as offensive, nor is it a design they would sell anyone else!

So enough with the fucking KKK and Nazis when speaking about a LGBT'er. Talk about being obscene.

“Deemed as offensive”? Okay, great, the cake Scardina asked was “deemed as offensive” by Phillips. So, he likewise “should not be compelled to make” the cake.

 

[James Madison]

The contextual fact is that the trans person takes the common features of a cake to be symbolic of the trans person's own message when in the presence of a party that includes a celebration later on. The baker is not expressing him or herself by the cake since no manufacture of a cake by a baker licensed to serve the general public is an endorsement of anything. Bakers also are not wishing Happy Birthday to grammas. They are writing Happy Birthday because it is the job, not the ownership of the expression. It's the same thing as when newspapers charge a fee to print an obituary based on number of words and how many days it is to be printed.

This is the same thing as an obituary notice where it contains a life story of the first black man to legally marry a white woman in some state but the newspaper refuses to print the obituary, not because the political opinion being expressed is theirs but instead because they do not endorse it and want to stop it. They are refusing a service to a customer based on their own religious views thereby limiting equality.

The REAL TRUTH is that the baker AND YOU know the expression isn't owned by the baker, the baker just doesn't endorse the idea. Therefore, he or she is trying to STOP the trans person from having a celebration later on because they are imposing their religious views on a customer. Let's at least be intellectually honest about what is really going on here. The baker and conservatives and libertarians (who are completely different!11!) want to continue to have the elite classes of society be protected by the government to discriminate against others.

After the red herring is destroyed, perhaps we can have a real discussion.

So, having one’s free speech rights protected renders the person as belonging to an “elite class”? Or is it they want the same free speech right not to be compelled to speak like everyone else?

So I accept that you have conceded your ludicrous assertion that the message of the cake belonged to the baker now, and we can actually move on to an adult conversation since your claim was completely frivolously unnecessary to the real political expression argument?

Revisionist history, as I never took the view the message belonged to the baker. You are addressing a complete fiction. Does addressing a fictional view I never took, but allows you to say I did so you can knock down, enhance your virility?

 

[untermensche]

If the baker had a robot that made cakes and a person simply put the colors and kind of cake they wanted into a computer.

Would the cake now be the expression of the customer, the baker, the kid that programmed the computer, or the computer?

Could the kid that programmed the computer decide who gets cakes?

 

[Metaphor]

If the baker had a robot that made cakes and a person simply put the colors and kind of cake they wanted into a computer.

Would the cake now be the expression of the customer, the baker, the kid that programmed the computer, or the computer?

Could the kid that programmed the computer decide who gets cakes?

T-shirt printing companies already refuse certain messages. Why would cake be any different?

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Some people also said going to a diner to get a milkshake was unimportant. Yet the COLLECTIVE ACTS of similar incidents and similar things orchestrated by PEOPLE in concert creates a second-class citizenry or caste.

Yes, this could happen. A sensible argument can be made this did happen in the U.S. in the past. One could also argue the federal public accommodation law was in part conceived because of what you described above, and there’s some facts to support your view.

My point is while the public accommodation law may have been conceived to address a de facto second class citizenry, they cannot trample on free speech rights or other rights in the Constitution.

Well, first that isn't the question of the op. It isn't what the current law is, but instead what ought happen...i.e. SHOULD bakers be forced? The context of the op involves a for-profit business with license to trade with the general public. A person's free speech rights are different than a business's licensure. A business may be required to do things an individual would not want to do. If I am a conscientious objector, I might not go work for a military contractor. I have the right not to do so. Likewise, the baker does not have to join a commercial business that serves the public in a non-discriminatory manner. They can get a job working from home, they can bake as a side hustle, or they could have someone else at the business do the things they do not want to do, provided customers are treated the same by the business.

 

[Jarhyn]

If the baker had a robot that made cakes and a person simply put the colors and kind of cake they wanted into a computer.

Would the cake now be the expression of the customer, the baker, the kid that programmed the computer, or the computer?

Could the kid that programmed the computer decide who gets cakes?

I would say, the kid shouldn't suffer being asked to program a machine that discriminates in any way. Then, some people in software have no ethics.

Though I would find it hilarious if they made it recognize swastikas and Hitler birthday cakes and then spit out a MLP birthday cake that says "Hitler sucked Hiemmel's Hummer"

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

So I accept that you have conceded your ludicrous assertion that the message of the cake belonged to the baker now, and we can actually move on to an adult conversation since your claim was completely frivolously unnecessary to the real political expression argument?

Revisionist history, as I never took the view the message belonged to the baker. You are addressing a complete fiction. Does addressing a fictional view I never took, but allows you to say I did so you can knock down, enhance your virility?

Yeah, whatever. You've been saying it for the last 3000 pages, but the baker's actions take advantage of a business license given by the state in exchange for privileges but he uses those privileges to block someone else's future speech and ability to celebrate a thing the baker disagrees with.

 

[untermensche]

If the baker had a robot that made cakes and a person simply put the colors and kind of cake they wanted into a computer.

Would the cake now be the expression of the customer, the baker, the kid that programmed the computer, or the computer?

Could the kid that programmed the computer decide who gets cakes?

T-shirt printing companies already refuse certain messages. Why would cake be any different?

I asked who's expression is the cake.

I do not agree that all existing law is just or moral or rational.

 

[untermensche]

If the baker had a robot that made cakes and a person simply put the colors and kind of cake they wanted into a computer.

Would the cake now be the expression of the customer, the baker, the kid that programmed the computer, or the computer?

Could the kid that programmed the computer decide who gets cakes?

I would say, the kid shouldn't suffer being asked to program a machine that discriminates in any way. Then, some people in software have no ethics.

Though I would find it hilarious if they made it recognize swastikas and Hitler birthday cakes and then spit out a MLP birthday cake that says "Hitler sucked Hiemmel's Hummer"

The computer would never ask what the cake was for.

The baker does not even know what is on the cake.

This machine does not discriminate in any way.

It makes it's cakes where no human can see. Decorates them where no human can see. Puts them in boxes with no windows.

Who's expression is the cake?

If somebody gets a cake with a bad message, a threat, who or what should the police talk to?

The computer or the customer?

Why the customer if the cake is the expression of the computer?

 

[James Madison]

So I accept that you have conceded your ludicrous assertion that the message of the cake belonged to the baker now, and we can actually move on to an adult conversation since your claim was completely frivolously unnecessary to the real political expression argument?

Revisionist history, as I never took the view the message belonged to the baker. You are addressing a complete fiction. Does addressing a fictional view I never took, but allows you to say I did so you can knock down, enhance your virility?

Yeah, whatever. You've been saying it for the last 3000 pages, but the baker's actions take advantage of a business license given by the state in exchange for privileges but he uses those privileges to block someone else's future speech and ability to celebrate a thing the baker disagrees with.

Then you’ve clearly not read the last 3000 pages. So, since you say I have stated the baker “owned” the message, for the last 3,000 pages, you have no shortage of pages to identify a post where I stated the baker “owned” the message.

 

[Elixir]

It's a shitty argument.

You're a shitty argument! <raspberry noise>

More seriously, what part of the preliminary premise that I laid out is "shitty"? Do you disagree that there are some scenarios where we, in general, believe that the convictions of the provider justify them denying service to a customer?

Artists, for instance.
That Baker should have been a cake artist.

 

[Elixir]

If the baker had a robot that made cakes and a person simply put the colors and kind of cake they wanted into a computer.

Would the cake now be the expression of the customer, the baker, the kid that programmed the computer, or the computer?

Could the kid that programmed the computer decide who gets cakes?

I would say, the kid shouldn't suffer being asked to program a machine that discriminates in any way. Then, some people in software have no ethics.

Though I would find it hilarious if they made it recognize swastikas and Hitler birthday cakes and then spit out a MLP birthday cake that says "Hitler sucked Hiemmel's Hummer"

The computer would never ask what the cake was for.

The baker does not even know what is on the cake.

This machine does not discriminate in any way.

It makes it's cakes where no human can see. Decorates them where no human can see. Puts them in boxes with no windows.

Who's expression is the cake?

If somebody gets a cake with a bad message, a threat, who or what should the police talk to?

The computer or the customer?

Why the customer if the cake is the expression of the computer?

A righteous Baker/Inventor would never allow his creation to be used for purposes of evil!

 

[ZiprHead]

It's a shitty argument.

You're a shitty argument! <raspberry noise>

More seriously, what part of the preliminary premise that I laid out is "shitty"? Do you disagree that there are some scenarios where we, in general, believe that the convictions of the provider justify them denying service to a customer?

Because it's not analogous to the op case, for one. And two. you're conflating a trans person with nazis and the KKK. It's disgusting.

 

[untermensche]

A righteous Baker/Inventor would never allow his creation to be used for purposes of evil!

They had no such intention but were naive.

But the police came and locked up that computer for making threats anyway.

It was the computer's expression after all.

 

[Metaphor]

It's a shitty argument.

You're a shitty argument! <raspberry noise>

More seriously, what part of the preliminary premise that I laid out is "shitty"? Do you disagree that there are some scenarios where we, in general, believe that the convictions of the provider justify them denying service to a customer?

Artists, for instance.
That Baker should have been a cake artist.

I've asked before. Are you saying that if he had marketed his business as 'custom cakes by a cake artist' instead of 'masterpiece cakeshop', that would make all the moral difference?

 

[Jarhyn]

If the baker had a robot that made cakes and a person simply put the colors and kind of cake they wanted into a computer.

Would the cake now be the expression of the customer, the baker, the kid that programmed the computer, or the computer?

Could the kid that programmed the computer decide who gets cakes?

I would say, the kid shouldn't suffer being asked to program a machine that discriminates in any way. Then, some people in software have no ethics.

Though I would find it hilarious if they made it recognize swastikas and Hitler birthday cakes and then spit out a MLP birthday cake that says "Hitler sucked Hiemmel's Hummer"

The computer would never ask what the cake was for.

The baker does not even know what is on the cake.

This machine does not discriminate in any way.

It makes it's cakes where no human can see. Decorates them where no human can see. Puts them in boxes with no windows.

Who's expression is the cake?

If somebody gets a cake with a bad message, a threat, who or what should the police talk to?

The computer or the customer?

Why the customer if the cake is the expression of the computer?

Computers are programmed, and do the the things they are programmed to. They are not logical; rather they are slaves to their basest instincts: to do as The Truth demands.

A person can be prejudiced, or neutral. And so a program can be the same, either consciously or not. Everything from what colors are made available, or arbitrarily prevented from combination (red/black/white; powder blue/pastel pink/white; whatever the programmer preemptively spitballs into the filter list and thus makes it unchallenged, somehow, into production)... All of these things can lead to bad automations.

 

[untermensche]

The computer would never ask what the cake was for.

The baker does not even know what is on the cake.

This machine does not discriminate in any way.

It makes it's cakes where no human can see. Decorates them where no human can see. Puts them in boxes with no windows.

Who's expression is the cake?

If somebody gets a cake with a bad message, a threat, who or what should the police talk to?

The computer or the customer?

Why the customer if the cake is the expression of the computer?

Computers are programmed, and do the the things they are programmed to. They are not logical; rather they are slaves to their basest instincts: to do as The Truth demands.

A person can be prejudiced, or neutral. And so a program can be the same, either consciously or not. Everything from what colors are made available, or arbitrarily prevented from combination (red/black/white; powder blue/pastel pink/white; whatever the programmer preemptively spitballs into the filter list and thus makes it unchallenged, somehow, into production)... All of these things can lead to bad automations.

Are you saying we should arrest the programmer and the computer for the cake expressing threats?

 

[Jarhyn]

The computer would never ask what the cake was for.

The baker does not even know what is on the cake.

This machine does not discriminate in any way.

It makes it's cakes where no human can see. Decorates them where no human can see. Puts them in boxes with no windows.

Who's expression is the cake?

If somebody gets a cake with a bad message, a threat, who or what should the police talk to?

The computer or the customer?

Why the customer if the cake is the expression of the computer?

Computers are programmed, and do the the things they are programmed to. They are not logical; rather they are slaves to their basest instincts: to do as The Truth demands.

A person can be prejudiced, or neutral. And so a program can be the same, either consciously or not. Everything from what colors are made available, or arbitrarily prevented from combination (red/black/white; powder blue/pastel pink/white; whatever the programmer preemptively spitballs into the filter list and thus makes it unchallenged, somehow, into production)... All of these things can lead to bad automations.

Are you saying we should arrest the programmer and the computer for the cake expressing threats?

I'm saying we should consider, in the face of automations technology for cake decoration, consider that this may actually come down to a Common Carrier consideration after all.

Someone has to program the machine, someone will inevitably "suggest*" that someone programming the machine puts in a filter heuristic (no cakes "similar to a banned cake"), and this may even be a primary selling point for the robot given these discussions.

And then we're on a collision course with musical liabilities when someone tries suing a bakery for aiding and abetting harassment.

*Order