Should bakers be forced to make gender transition celebration cakes?

[Bomb#20]

And two. you're conflating a trans person with nazis and the KKK. It's disgusting.

No she isn't. You're making the same reasoning error somebody else made that I explained in post #704.

 

[untermensche]

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

The baker is refusing to make the cake because he sees the process of gender transition as offensive. It offends his personal morality.

But where does the offense come from?

If his only argument is some interpretation of a primitive text then he has no rational basis to be offended. His offense is irrational.

No court should recognize it.

The same with being offended by same sex marriage.

You need more than an interpretation of a primitive text. You need something real to say you are offended. In a court.

At least you should need it.

US courts are anything but rational sometimes.

 

[untermensche]

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.

Were Southern racists "bullied" when they were forced to not discriminate and serve all races?

There would have been no prior case had the baker just behaved morally and justly.

His irrational bigotry is what brought him to court. Even if he won and irrational bigotry won the day.

 

[laughing dog]

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.

You are misinformed. SCOTUS did not rule on the consitutionality of the law, but on the bias used in applying it.

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.

Phillips is a bigot and a coward. He could still make custom cakes.

And, your conclusion about the lack of legal merit to that case is your opinion, not a legal fact.

 

[Bomb#20]

Stop putting words in my mouth. In fact, just stop attempting to paraphrase other posters -- you aren't any good at it..

I see. So you deny the existence of the utility of the semaphore. Got it.

That's metaphysics by the way. Models for the way to describe and treat physics problems.

"Semaphores have objective existence". They take up 32 bytes of physical memory in C; and they're useful. Metaphysical notions about celestial spheres and epicycles are models for the way to describe and treat physics problems, but, much like notions about social contracts, those notions aren't useful for anything but misleading people about what the physical world is actually doing.

The plain fact of reality is that when you queue for a limited resource, a protocol is necessary to prevent deadlocking and resolve contention. You can deny the reality of the function of the protocol, but that is really transparently stupid.

But (to belabor the point that you really should have gotten two rounds ago and that you absolutely have no excuse for still failing to have gotten one round ago) I'm not denying the reality and function of the protocols that you make-believe are results of your mythical social contracts.

Just try programming multi-threaded applications without mutexes. I <expletive deleted> dare you. See how far you get.

Able to articulate a rational argument as well as ever, I see.

You are here denying the reality of social contracts, yet you work in a universe wherein there is a strong reliance on global/system contract.

It's a universe with a strong reliance on local/personally-consented-to and personally-signed contracts, and also a strong reliance on global/system protocols that are enforced whether people consent to them or not, which in no way resemble contracts, and which religious believers label "contract" for intellectually indefensible reasons.

 

[Bomb#20]

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.

You are misinformed. SCOTUS did not rule on the consitutionality of the law, but on the bias used in applying it.

And where exactly am I supposed to have said otherwise? The Colorado government lost because it was using viewpoint discrimination to apply its no-viewpoint-discrimination rule, so the SCOTUS overruled it.

Phillips is a bigot and a coward. He could still make custom cakes.

He does still make custom cakes, just not custom wedding cakes. Not sure why you're calling him a coward. He has a limited amount of time on this earth and better things spend it on than repeatedly fighting zealots who apparently don't have better things to spend their lives on than dragging him through the courts. I don't see what's supposed to be so brave about letting people who hate you decide how your life will be deployed.

That he's a bigot has never been in dispute here. The Constitution guarantees free speech rights to bigots same as to everyone else. The dispute is over whether the bigots in government should get to violate the rights of the bigots whose bigotries are different from their own.

And, your conclusion about the lack of legal merit to that case is your opinion, not a legal fact.

Are you disputing that SCOTUS rulings establish legal facts, or are you merely repeating your implication that the SCOTUS not having ruled on the constitutionality of the law implies I'm misinformed? That a case is meritless for narrow reasons doesn't make it have merit.

 

[Bomb#20]

Just try programming multi-threaded applications without mutexes. I... dare you. See how far you get.

Oh, and since you're apparently reduced to arguing by truth-or-dare, as a matter of fact I do program a multi-threaded application without mutexes. If my employer relied on mutexes to stop threads from stepping on one another they'd spend so much time waiting that the speedup would be nowhere near the number of CPUs. So we instead rely on careful planning -- it's just doing trapeze work without a net.

[Full disclosure: I just work within the framework a better programmer than me choreographed. ]

 

[Bomb#20]

Suing somebody is often an effective way to bully him into submission even when your suit is legally meritless.

Were Southern racists "bullied" when they were forced to not discriminate and serve all races?

Phillips serves all races, and all genders, and all sexual preferences; what he doesn't serve is all messages.

There would have been no prior case had the baker just behaved morally and justly.

We've already established upthread that you are not in favor of forcing artists to serve all messages. So go away and come back when you have a more principled argument than "Morally and justly, my friends should get to discriminate but my enemies shouldn't."

His irrational bigotry is what brought him to court. Even if he won and irrational bigotry won the day.

But it was irrational bigots on both sides of the case. If he'd lost then it would have just meant a different irrational bigotry won the day; and it would have been a worse irrational bigotry, because it would have been governmental irrational bigotry instead of mere private citizen irrational bigotry.

 

[Bomb#20]

Except the baker, in his right to free speech, has every right to refuse. It just also bears additional consequences: if you refuse to speak neutrally for the public (except Zionists), you refuse the protections and guarantees and licensure to sell those services of speaking in public.

If you want to have the rights to speak only those words you would for your own private reasons, don't seek public licensure (or only discriminate against Zionists).

Fixed it for you.

 

[untermensche]

Phillips serves all races, and all genders, and all sexual preferences; what he doesn't serve is all messages.

If I won't serve a message only a specific group would want I have excluded that group as well as their rational message that coincides with their being and harms nobody. There is no victim anywhere to be found from their message.

It is a clever tactic.

But it does not trump the need for the marketplace to be free of irrational and bigoted discrimination. That harms many people.

When you discriminate against a message only a certain group would want you have discriminated against a specific group.

No different from discriminating against the group called black people.

We've already established upthread that you are not in favor of forcing artists to serve all messages.

The baker is refusing to serve a specific group by refusing their message.

He needs a reason.

Because I am an ignorant bigot is not enough.

Calling your bigotry your morality is not enough. Adults can see through that charade.

But it was irrational bigots on both sides of the case.

Wanting to establish rights through legal precedent is not being a bigot.

This is about the right of transsexuals to not be discriminated against by the refusal of a message they would certainly want.

 

[Jarhyn]

Just try programming multi-threaded applications without mutexes. I... dare you. See how far you get.

Oh, and since you're apparently reduced to arguing by truth-or-dare, as a matter of fact I do program a multi-threaded application without mutexes. If my employer relied on mutexes to stop threads from stepping on one another they'd spend so much time waiting that the speedup would be nowhere near the number of CPUs. So we instead rely on careful planning -- it's just doing trapeze work without a net.

[Full disclosure: I just work within the framework a better programmer than me choreographed. ]

But in this situation you still have a framework...

You are ignoring that smooth operation requires an operational framework, an enforced system that failure to obey will result either in rejected existence (failure to compile) or rejected product (it fails to run).

These are realities: systems require systemic contracts. Society is a system, it requires a systemic contract.

Specifically, it is there to resolve contention or guarantee freshness of data.

Now, if you want to see what society looks like without such social contracts, maybe you should move to Grafton. Enjoy getting mauled by a bear if you do go that route.

If programs do not conform, sacrifice their "individual liberties" in some small respect, they won't even pass code review. Programs can do all sorts of amazing, nearly infinitely free things... But they can't do any of that without enforcement of those systemic contracts.

I can point materially to a situation where "freedom" is only possible in the event of some manner of systemic enforced conformity.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

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.

Did SCOTUS do as such? I thought SCOTUS ruled the commissions ruling was invalid because SCOTUS suggested the commission didn't take the religious objection seriously enough, in that because the Commission allegedly felt that the religious basis for the objection by default made it illegitimate. Had that alleged default position not been a thing, it is possible they come to the same ruling and there is a harder justification to overrule the commission.

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.

Odd how that works morally with his religious views. Apparently gays can buy his wedding cakes just as long as he doesn't know.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Did SCOTUS do as such? I thought SCOTUS ruled the commissions ruling was invalid because SCOTUS suggested the commission didn't take the religious objection seriously enough, in that because the Commission allegedly felt that the religious basis for the objection by default made it illegitimate. Had that alleged default position not been a thing, it is possible they come to the same ruling and there is a harder justification to overrule the commission.

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.

Odd how that works morally with his religious views. Apparently gays can buy his wedding cakes just as long as he doesn't know.

Maybe the lesson is that being a peaceful hypocrite makes better business sense than being a righteous moralist.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Did SCOTUS do as such? I thought SCOTUS ruled the commissions ruling was invalid because SCOTUS suggested the commission didn't take the religious objection seriously enough, in that because the Commission allegedly felt that the religious basis for the objection by default made it illegitimate. Had that alleged default position not been a thing, it is possible they come to the same ruling and there is a harder justification to overrule the commission.

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.

Odd how that works morally with his religious views. Apparently gays can buy his wedding cakes just as long as he doesn't know.

Maybe the lesson is that being a peaceful hypocrite makes better business sense than being a righteous moralist.

Bomb#20 makes mention to the guy only does off the shelf wedding cakes as some sort of retort, but in reality, it demonstrates their opposition's point that there is no such thing as a "gay wedding cake".

 

[Bomb#20]

the Supreme Court justices overruled the state that prohibits viewpoint discrimination other than its own

Did SCOTUS do as such? I thought SCOTUS ruled the commissions ruling was invalid because SCOTUS suggested the commission didn't take the religious objection seriously enough, in that because the Commission allegedly felt that the religious basis for the objection by default made it illegitimate.

That was part of the reason for the ruling; the other part was:

The treatment of the conscience-based objections at
issue in these three cases contrasts with the Commission’s
treatment of Phillips’ objection. The Commission ruled
against Phillips in part on the theory that any message
the requested wedding cake would carry would be attributed
to the customer, not to the baker. Yet the Division did
not address this point in any of the other cases
with respect to the cakes depicting anti-gay marriage
symbolism. Additionally, the Division found no violation
of CADA in the other cases in part because each bakery
was willing to sell other products, including those depicting
Christian themes, to the prospective customers. But
the Commission dismissed Phillips’ willingness to sell
“birthday cakes, shower cakes, [and] cookies and brownies,”
App. 152, to gay and lesbian customers as irrelevant.​

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-111_j4el.pdf

The commission was using special-pleading fallacies to justify applying the law non-neutrally to different viewpoints.

Odd how that works morally with his religious views. Apparently gays can buy his wedding cakes just as long as he doesn't know.

Gays can buy his wedding cakes even if he does know.

Bomb#20 makes mention to the guy only does off the shelf wedding cakes as some sort of retort, but in reality, it demonstrates their opposition's point that there is no such thing as a "gay wedding cake".

Huh? How the heck does his not making custom wedding cakes mean there's no such thing as a "gay wedding cake"?

 

[laughing dog]

He does still make custom cakes, just not custom wedding cakes. Not sure why you're calling him a coward. He has a limited amount of time on this earth and better things spend it on than repeatedly fighting zealots who apparently don't have better things to spend their lives on than dragging him through the courts. I don't see what's supposed to be so brave about letting people who hate you decide how your life will be deployed.

He had the time and resources to go to court. Retreating from custom wedding cakes is cowardly from such a devout Christian who is willing to go to court to defend his right to act like a bigot. The fact he hides by these bogus "free speech arguments" is another example of his cowardice.
You cannot know whether or not he has better things to do or not. But it instructive to see that you think fighting against bigoted actions is wasting one's time.

That he's a bigot has never been in dispute here. The Constitution guarantees free speech rights to bigots same as to everyone else. The dispute is over whether the bigots in government should get to violate the rights of the bigots whose bigotries are different from their own.

No, the dispute is whether a bigot can act in a discriminatory manner contrary to law.

That a case is meritless for narrow reasons doesn't make it have merit.

True, but it also means that it does not not have merit for wider reasons.

 

[Bomb#20]

If I won't serve a message only a specific group would want I have excluded that group as well as their rational message that coincides with their being and harms nobody. There is no victim anywhere to be found from their message.

It is a clever tactic.

But it does not trump the need for the marketplace to be free of irrational and bigoted discrimination. That harms many people.

When you discriminate against a message only a certain group would want you have discriminated against a specific group.

No different from discriminating against the group called black people.

But according to you it's okay to discriminate against a message only Jews would want.

Your reason for not allowing discrimination against a specific group, apparently, is that all animals are equal but some are more equal than others.

We've already established upthread that you are not in favor of forcing artists to serve all messages.

The baker is refusing to serve a specific group by refusing their message.

And you're okay with that, when it's a message you don't sympathize with.

He needs a reason.

Because I am an ignorant bigot is not enough.

Calling your bigotry your morality is not enough. Adults can see through that charade.

But that's your reason for authorizing discrimination against the group called Jews.

But it was irrational bigots on both sides of the case.

Wanting to establish rights through legal precedent is not being a bigot.

It is when the "right" in question is to be allowed to give favorable government treatment to citizens who agree with the government religion and unfavorable government treatment to citizens who disagree with the government religion.

(To clarify, the case we're discussing is "Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission". The Masterpiece Cakeshop owner and the Colorado Civil Rights Commission commissioners are the irrational bigots on the two sides of the case.)

This is about the right of transsexuals to not be discriminated against by the refusal of a message they would certainly want.

"This"? That's not what the ruling was about. The SCOTUS left that question to some future case.

 

[Bomb#20]

He had the time and resources to go to court. Retreating from custom wedding cakes is cowardly from such a devout Christian who is willing to go to court to defend his right to act like a bigot.

Interesting theory. You appear to be rejecting the Law of Diminishing Returns; and you appear to be implying that anyone brave enough to fight a duel is a coward if he isn't prepared to fight an army.

The fact he hides by these bogus "free speech arguments" is another example of his cowardice.

Good to know what you think of free speech arguments.

You cannot know whether or not he has better things to do or not. But it instructive to see that you think fighting against bigoted actions is wasting one's time.

Um, I didn't offer an opinion on whether Scardina et al have better uses for their time.

No, the dispute is whether a bigot can act in a discriminatory manner contrary to law.

Yes, exactly. The CCRD commissioners are bigots who act in a discriminatory manner contrary to law, and the SCOTUS ruled that they can't do that.

That a case is meritless for narrow reasons doesn't make it have merit.

True, but it also means that it does not not have merit for wider reasons.

It means nothing of the sort. Whether it has no merit for wider reasons is a question the SCOTUS has not yet answered.

 

[laughing dog]

Interesting theory. You appear to be rejecting the Law of Diminishing Returns; and you appear to be implying that anyone brave enough to fight a duel is a coward if he isn't prepared to fight an army.

Nope - try again. The application of the Law of Diminishing Returns is an empirical question since it does not state that returns immediately begin to diminish. Moreover, your analogy with duels and an army is silly, since Phillips is clearly willing to continue to act in bigoted manner.

Good to know what you think of free speech arguments.

There are valid ones and bogus ones. It is obvious you have trouble distinguishing between the two. Phillips' does not appear at all interested in free speech - he is interested in protecting his right to act like a religious bigot while hiding under "free speech". And he has duped many free speech absolutists to his cause.

Um, I didn't offer an opinion on whether Scardina et al have better uses for their time.

You offered one about Phillips which is to whom I referred to in the first sentence.

Yes, exactly. The CCRD commissioners are bigots who act in a discriminatory manner contrary to law, and the SCOTUS ruled that they can't do that.

And their were deciding on the bigot Phillips who acted in a discriminatory manner contrary to their law. It is fascinating how much you try to obscure that fact.

It means nothing of the sort. [ Whether it has no merit for wider reasons is a question the SCOTUS has not yet answered.

True, which means it may have merit. So it did mean something of the sort.

 

[Emily Lake]

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.

Let's back up a bit on the bodled. I have not said or implied that the features of [other person] being a nazi or being trans are in any way similar. That comparison is irrelevant to my point, and is part of why Zip is wrong about me conflating the two.

The point that I am trying to make is that the beliefs of [the person making the decision] are sometimes sufficient.

It's always so nice and refreshing to have other people insist that they know what I'm thinking so much better than I myself do. I mean, it really is just the highlight of my day.