Should bakers be forced to make gender transition celebration cakes?

[Jimmy Higgins]

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.

Sadly, this is where being adults in a conversation should be overriding the childish response gene. But it isn't. Else, we could ban kissing on the movie screen because some people think it is equivalent to porn and they find it "offensive" (and some people would be for that!).

A swastika, genitals, the 7 words you can't say on tv, NY Jets, stuff that is communally understood as being offensive, the 'know it when you see it' stuff. And none of that has to do with the identity of the buyer.

 

[untermensche]

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.

*Order

But this is a robot that makes cakes with all the shapes they have pans for with all the colors they have.

It has limitations but no restrictions concerning content.

It can't make a penis cake without a pan for it.

So some things can be unavailable.

But it would draw a penis on a rectangular cake for you.

It would draw that swastika for you.

Go have fun you crazy Nazi.

 

[Jarhyn]

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.

Sadly, this is where being adults in a conversation should be overriding the childish response gene. But it isn't. Else, we could ban kissing on the movie screen because some people think it is equivalent to porn and they find it "offensive" (and some people would be for that!).

A swastika, genitals, the 7 words you can't say on tv, NY Jets, stuff that is communally understood as being offensive. And none of that has to do with the identity of the buyer.

Like, it's fairly easy to decide "the line" today. It exists at the point of encouraging or engaging in unilateral harms.

There is no harm here, other than the harm of one human gatekeeping the power to celebrate like normal people only to the celebrations they find tasteful; and that this line is drawn on "which celebrations celebrate violence or are themselves intended as acts of violence or harassment", and not "it makes me, the baker, a third party facilitator and nobody else in the universe*, uncomfortable to think about."

*Maybe someone, but they don't know so they can't be in a position to catch feels for this one so they don't matter

 

[Jarhyn]

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.

*Order

But this is a robot that makes cakes with all the shapes they have pans for with all the colors they have.

It has limitations but no restrictions concerning content.

It can't make a penis cake without a pan for it.

So some things can be unavailable.

But it would draw a penis on a rectangular cake for you.

It would draw that swastika for you.

Go have fun you crazy Nazi.

I agree that's how it should work, but I guarantee that's not how it will work. Someone's going to put in a "naughty filter", some bakery is going to buy that naughty filter, and they are going to fill it with some bigoted bullshit, because they don't want to be the company that makes it easy to get your hitler cakes, or your trans cakes, or your interracial wedding cakes*.

Then a legal battle will ensue over liabilities and where they live with regards to last-mile celebration communications infrastructure.

*I don't know which company; the software and bakery companies are both potential owners of this "sin".

 

[untermensche]

Like, it's fairly easy to decide "the line" today. It exists at the point of encouraging or engaging in unilateral harms.

Harm oriented morality is the only possible human morality.

Christian dogma is not morality even if many Christians are moral. They avoid harming others. Some are even opposed to US imperial wars.

They can be blinded in their obsession with abortion and blind to the harm done to unwanted children and mothers not wanting children.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

But this is a robot that makes cakes with all the shapes they have pans for with all the colors they have.

It has limitations but no restrictions concerning content.

It can't make a penis cake without a pan for it.

Yes it can. It would 3D print the pan. 3D custom prints would be $50 extra. Also, no guarantee on the cake sticking to the pan. This hypothetical is really just out there and we aren't addressing the issue at hand, that the identity of the people involved in the purchase is influencing whether they get the cake. Anti-LGBT'ers and those who aren't anti-LGBT but feel the individual right to freedom overrides other people's individual right to freedom (!?!) will tie themselves into knots to try and make this about the baker and their expression and their rights. Just like the arguments made to restrict access to commerce for blacks. It wasn't about the blacks, it was about the white's freedom. SCOTUS called it "bullshit" back then (I'm paraphrasing), but in 2021, the hyper-polarized and heavy right tilted SCOTUS isn't what it used to be. It has edged back towards a Plessy v Ferguson mindset, using a lot of pretending to justify opinions, such as bribery is speech, buttercream can be speech, and voting rights protections, we don't need to voting rights protections!

 

[untermensche]

But this is a robot that makes cakes with all the shapes they have pans for with all the colors they have.

It has limitations but no restrictions concerning content.

It can't make a penis cake without a pan for it.

So some things can be unavailable.

But it would draw a penis on a rectangular cake for you.

It would draw that swastika for you.

Go have fun you crazy Nazi.

I agree that's how it should work, but I guarantee that's not how it will work. Someone's going to put in a "naughty filter", some bakery is going to buy that naughty filter, and they are going to fill it with some bigoted bullshit, because they don't want to be the company that makes it easy to get your hitler cakes, or your trans cakes, or your interracial wedding cakes*.

Then a legal battle will ensue over liabilities and where they live with regards to last-mile celebration communications infrastructure.

*I don't know which company; the software and bakery companies are both potential owners of this "sin".

It is already easy to get a Hitler cake.

You think Nazi's can't buy cakes and decorate them?

By refusing to sell the cakes you are not preventing their existence. You are doing nothing but losing money.

 

[untermensche]

This hypothetical is really just out there and we aren't addressing the issue at hand, that the identity of the people involved in the purchase is influencing whether they get the cake.

For some reason I have not wanted a gender transition cake.

Who would want such a thing?

 

[LoAmmo]

a truly authentic Hitler cake would ice itself.
[/rim shot]

 

[TomC]

a truly authentic Hitler cake would ice itself.
[/rim shot]

Took me a few minutes to get that...

Tom

 

[Emily Lake]

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

It may meet Colorado's definition, but I still think it's irrelevant to the premise that in some cases, rational people would agree that a person's truly held beliefs (regardless of whether they're religious, political, philosophical, or what-have-you) are sufficient justification to deny service to someone who represents a material violation of those beliefs.

I'm trying to establish the underlying abstract concept.

 

[Emily Lake]

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.

Alright, I'm going with you don't comprehend this.

It's not intended to be analogous to the OP. It's intended to establish an underlying abstract concept of whether or not cases exist in which a person's individual beliefs are sufficient for them to deny services to another because provision of those services would violate the provider's beliefs. I contend that every one of us here does hold that in some cases, this is true.

Secondly, I'm in no way conflating transpeople with nazis. Not at all. If you lack the ability to understand an illustrative mechanism without errantly jumping to "you called trans people nazis" well, that's entirely on you.

 

[TomC]

Secondly, I'm in no way conflating transpeople with nazis. Not at all. If you lack the ability to understand an illustrative mechanism without errantly jumping to "you called trans people nazis" well, that's entirely on you.

Somewhere upthread someone compared me to a murderer(Zimmerman).
Tom

 

[ZiprHead]

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.

Alright, I'm going with you don't comprehend this.

It's not intended to be analogous to the OP. It's intended to establish an underlying abstract concept of whether or not cases exist in which a person's individual beliefs are sufficient for them to deny services to another because provision of those services would violate the provider's beliefs. I contend that every one of us here does hold that in some cases, this is true.

Well, thank you, Captain Obvious, for providing us this new and breathtaking bit of human sociology.

Secondly, I'm in no way conflating transpeople with nazis. Not at all. If you lack the ability to understand an illustrative mechanism without errantly jumping to "you called trans people nazis" well, that's entirely on you.

Correct the quote. I didn't say that.

And yes, you did (bolded).

 

[James Madison]

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.

Sadly, this is where being adults in a conversation should be overriding the childish response gene. But it isn't. Else, we could ban kissing on the movie screen because some people think it is equivalent to porn and they find it "offensive" (and some people would be for that!).

A swastika, genitals, the 7 words you can't say on tv, NY Jets, stuff that is communally understood as being offensive, the 'know it when you see it' stuff. And none of that has to do with the identity of the buyer.

Then stop reasoning as a child with the poor logic of “offended,” especially when the logic of being “offended” is arbitrarily applied based on your snowflake notions of offense, as if your notions of offense is some law of nature. You can also dispense with the poor, child like argument it’s self-evident, and “communally understood” as being “offensive.”

You did a fantastically piss poor job of demonstrating some objective standard of offensive by which you can judge whether something is offensive.


I have no idea what is “communally offensive.” It seems to me what is offensive varies by region, State, county, and town. Hell, FX airs movies with the sinful 7 words you are telling me can’t be said on television. I’ve seen Swatiskas on the history channel and in movies on cable television. Some movies are highly censored, some movies are minimally censored. I’m being to think you reside in a puritanical “community,” scrubbed and sanitized.

I have no idea what is “know it when you see it' stuff.” Given what I have seen and heard on cable television, and plain ol television, I’m inclined to think there’s wide variance as to what the hell constitutes as “know it when I see it.”

See, human beings have this funny quality of seeing things differently, being offended differently. So, the “know it when you see it” doesn’t establish some objective standard of what is offensive.

As if this mattered anyway, since a purpose of free speech is the community, the majority, can’t infringe upon free speech through and by laws based on what they personally, and collectively, agree upon what is offensive. Free speech rights exist to protect the free speech of the minority from the tyranny of a majority.

Your views of “offense” are your own, and the baker has his own. Neither your views of offensive or that of anyone else is superior to the bakers such as to deny the baker being offended. Which, I add, there isn’t evidence the baker was offended by Scardina as a trans.

 

[untermensche]

We must wear clothes in public.

The law says so.

The law knows what is offensive some times.

 

[Jarhyn]

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

It may meet Colorado's definition, but I still think it's irrelevant to the premise that in some cases, rational people would agree that a person's truly held beliefs (regardless of whether they're religious, political, philosophical, or what-have-you) are sufficient justification to deny service to someone who represents a material violation of those beliefs.

I'm trying to establish the underlying abstract concept.

No. Even if you yourself were to walk into my store, I would still sell you the same things I sell other people, at the same prices. I would do so for Hitler. I would do so for Donald Trump. I would check their money, and in the case of Hitler, I would probably also kill them, and/or follow them to try to find their time machine.

I reject this premise of yours.

I would probably, considering further options, just call the cops or a social worker on whoever tried to get me to break some law against harassment or whatever; or report the Nazis to the FBI.

No need to turn them down for service though.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

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.

Alright, I'm going with you don't comprehend this.

You don't seem to have comprehended the reasoning for the statement. In context it is about why the features of being a Nazi are not the same as the features of being trans and so these features play a role in decision-making vis-a-vis so-called discrimination. Since some people come up with various OTHER reasons for treatment of Nazis differently based on their OTHER features, they are not concluding things for the same reasons across the board in the two different cases. Ergo, one can infer you are CONFLATING the different treatment-associated features of being a Nazi with a single treatment-associated feature of being trans.

Since you have not yet comprehended this, as an exercise to increase your understanding, I will ask you not to jump to your first instinct emotionally and try to argue with the above. Instead, please just use the example of al Qaeda instead of Nazis. See how far you can take the analogy and why eventually you will agree after several scores of pages why it is a bad idea to have made the analogy.

 

[TomC]

The law knows what is offensive some times.

But how do you, personally, decide?

Most of our marriage the law did not allow Doug and me to get legal recognition of our relationship. It was the law. Recognizing our relationship would be "offensive" to enough people to prevent it from happening.

I don't see the law as anything resembling a moral requirement or standard. It is what it is, and subject to change.
Tom

 

[Bomb#20]

A more common example would be wedding cakes. In general, I don't like the idea of a baker refusing to do business at all with gay/straight persons just because they are gay/straight so I would be against the baker not selling any off-the-shelf cakes to gay/straight people just because they are gay/straight. If he makes an off-the-shelf item, he should accept that anyone could buy it. The issue of compelled expression shouldn't arise with an off-the-shelf item. But I am not inclined to go so far as to want to force the baker to create a make-for-order cake if he has reason to feel that making the cake expressed/celebrated something he was against, including gay marriage/sex or whatever.

Funny story about that. Even though Phillips won his case -- the Supreme Court justices overruled the state that prohibits viewpoint discrimination other than its own -- out in the field the Colorado local authorities won. Phillips no longer makes custom wedding cakes for any kind of wedding. Now he just makes off-the-shelf wedding cakes, which he of course sells to anyone. Suing somebody is often an effective way to bully him into submission even when your suit is legally meritless.