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Comment by dijit | Hacker News Reader

idk, this seems fair.

It goes both ways though; if I ask a gay baker to make clitoris cakes I don't think he should have to do that either, we all have the right to refuse to work on things we oppose; surely.

There is such a thing as decency, I wouldn't expect my local baker to make sexually suggestive cookies for me, she would not be comfortable making them and it would be arrogant of me to force her.

EDIT: for those likening the service to race, it's not quite the same, unless you were talking about a white person being unable to buy a racist cake from a black baker. Which I'm sure we all agree is a fair thing to refuse service for. We have control of what we put into the world. Tolerance means being tolerant, it does not extend so far as to deny my right to refuse to create something I do not support (matter of what you should support or not is not the topic here), otherwise anyone can ask anyone to make racist/sexist shit and they have no recourse.

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They were buying a wedding cake, and were denied before any design was discussed.

That's not what the case details say; I am rereading now in case I misread.

From what I read they only found out that it was a gay couple _at_ the design phase because it was a same sex supporting cake, which went against the morality (however wrong) the bakers held.

>The Colorado Court of Appeals ruled that Mr. Phillips’s free speech rights had not been violated, noting that the couple had not discussed the cake’s design before Mr. Phillips turned them down.

That's indeed exactly what the article says.

>They were buying a wedding cake, and were denied before any design was discussed.

Then you could go all the way: Employers: I won't hire you because your black

Doctors: I won't treat you because you're gay.

It can't work that way or we have a lot of discrimination.

Race is constitutionally protected, sexuality is not.

That analogy isn't really what's happened in this case, no one is saying a baker would be forced to make a specific type of cake they otherwise wouldn't offer. The better analogy to your situation is a baker (gay or otherwise) who refused to bake cakes for women.

Which, by the way, under current law would in fact be illegal.

No, you've got it wrong. They make cakes, the couple asked them to make one, and were refused service based on their sexual preference. The baker would presumably make that exact same cake design for another same-sex couple. Design of the cake had nothing to do with it.

You are massively misrepresenting the case.

There is a world of difference between someone refusing to design or bake a cake on the basis of the contents requested and someone refusing to do the same on the basis of the person(s) requesting the cake.

The baker refused to bake a cake because the couple was gay, not because of what was on it.

>refused to make a cake in support of gay marriage

Sounds awfully like the content of the cake was what the bakers in question objected to, now necessarily the people requesting it.

So let's say then it was a black couple instead of a gay couple.

Would it be OK for the baker to refuse service because he's against black people getting married?

Would it be OK for a gay baker to refuse to make a cake with the inscription "Celebrating the third anniversary of the Pulse Night Club shooting" if the cake was being requested by someone whose religious teachings preach that homosexuality is a sin and those who engage in the practice should be killed?

Or how about for a gay coffee shop owner to kick Christians out of his shop because he disagrees with their belief system. See Bedlam Coffee in Seattle.

You're making an incredibly false analogy in the first scenario and misreading the case in the second.

In the first case there is no discrimination on the basis of religion, skin color or sex. In the second you are being disengenous because it was clear that they were not in fact kicked out because they were christian, but kicked out because of both what they were actively doing near and in his coffee shop. If they were kicked out solely on the basis of being Christian then yes, that would be a clear problem.

It's not false. There are religions that proscribe death for homosexual behavior. People celebrating such executions are celebrating their faith and their religion. Saying that denying them service is based on their actions and not on their religion is the same as saying that you're not refusing them service because they are gay, but because they act like gay people. There's no daylight between being something and acting like that thing.

>...but kicked out because of both what they were actively doing near and in his coffee shop.

They were doing nothing but be customers in his shop. They weren't leafleting or proselytizing. Kicking them out because they engaged in a protected practice outside of his shop is kicking them out because of what they are. Otherwise we could say that it's ok to deny service to people who, for example, march in a pride parade.

The baker offered to create the couple cakes for even things like a wedding shower, or to create various goodies for them. And of course they could also buy anything that was already baked in the shop including things that could be used as their wedding cake. The one thing he would not do is create a cake specifically for a same sex marriage as he felt it was endorsement of something he felt was unethical. He also had a long list of other things he would not create products to endorse, including Halloween.

This is why the case was fundamentally a freedom of speech case. The creation of a cake was seen as an expression of endorsement by the baker, and the state cannot compel individuals to endorse things they find offensive. To avoid copy pasting stuff, I wrote more details along with some background on 'speech' as well as state compulsion here [1].

[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17229172

That's wrong. The baker offered to sell another cake to them.

The difference between the cake not sold and the cake he was willing to sell was what was on it.

You've fallen victim to hyper-sensationalized blogs.

No, what I said was correct.

He offered to sell them other prefab cakes, but refused specifically to bake them a cake because he viewed it as supporting gay marriage (and ergo, supporting their marriage).

In this case there is little to no distinction between what was on the cake versus the people requesting it. As I mentioned in another comment, if a black couple was refused service because the baker does not recognize marriage among black people I believe it would be considered flagrant racism.

And don't resort to ad hominem attacks against my arguments.

Exactly. He was willing to sell a cake.

You're erither not understanding the issue or you're willfully obtuse.

Since it's such a charged issue, I'm pretty sure you're doing this out of malice.

agree

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