Christian bakers who refused cake order for gay wedding forced to close shop

[Alfalfa]

so-called "Christians" who persecute Gays but leave alone drunks, thieves, liars, cheats, are not real Christians.

Their religion is HYPOCRISY.

Not to mention child molesters and rapists.

 

[Cecilie1200]

sure and why don't we go back to refusing black people a ride on the front of the bus while we are at it.

buses are usually a government funded service, and thus are required to provide equal services for equal cost.

Bakers are usually not government funded, nor do they have an irreplaceable role in interstate or even intrastate commerce.

Thomas Sowell actually offers some very interesting history on this subject.

Why was there racially segregated seating on public transportation in the first place?
"Racism" some will say -- and there was certainly plenty of racism in the South, going back for centuries. But racially segregated seating on streetcars and buses in the South did not go back for centuries.

Far from existing from time immemorial, as many have assumed, racially segregated seating in public transportation began in the South in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Those who see government as the solution to social problems may be surprised to learn that it was government which created this problem.
Many, if not most, municipal transit systems were privately owned in the 19th century and the private owners of these systems had no incentive to segregate the races.

These owners may have been racists themselves but they were in business to make a profit -- and you don't make a profit by alienating a lot of your customers. There was not enough market demand for Jim Crow seating on municipal transit to bring it about.

It was politics that segregated the races because the incentives of the political process are different from the incentives of the economic process. Both blacks and whites spent money to ride the buses but, after the disenfranchisement of black voters in the late 19th and early 20th century, only whites counted in the political process.

It was not necessary for an overwhelming majority of the white voters to demand racial segregation. If some did and the others didn't care, that was sufficient politically, because what blacks wanted did not count politically after they lost the vote.

The incentives of the economic system and the incentives of the political system were not only different, they clashed. Private owners of streetcar, bus, and railroad companies in the South lobbied against the Jim Crow laws while these laws were being written, challenged them in the courts after the laws were passed, and then dragged their feet in enforcing those laws after they were upheld by the courts.

These tactics delayed the enforcement of Jim Crow seating laws for years in some places. Then company employees began to be arrested for not enforcing such laws and at least one president of a streetcar company was threatened with jail if he didn't comply.

So maybe what the right has said all along is true, and it really IS better to let the free market and private enterprise work these things out than to get the government involved in trying to force everyone to comply with whatever mandate they currently think they have?

 

[Cecilie1200]

the idea was to force them out of business....or kowtow to their gay agenda.

That's what I told somebody by PM. Fine, you want to 'teach them a lesson' or whatever, spread the word, take your money and walk, etc. But going after their vendors (in my estimation) - they went too far. That meant they couldn't honor the jobs they did have.

the refused in the wrong way......

personally i would NOT want someone who did not want to service me....making my cake.

I can't imagine wanting someone to participate in my wedding who didn't want to do so. But then, I don't secretly think I'm weird and aberrant and deviant, and have a desperate need to prove to myself that I'm normal by forcing other people to offer me approbation. I suppose that changes one's perspective.

 

[Cecilie1200]

For private enterprises there shouldnt be anti-discrimination laws.

The government is another matter.

I agree, private business should be able to discriminate based on any criteria they determine fits their business model including race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or religion. (And yes I'm serious.)

Public Accommodation laws should apply to government entities and of course bar them from doing business with discriminatory businesses, but private businesses should not be limited.


>>>>

And those businesses can pay the price if their discrimination offends those in the market they serve.

That's free enterprise the way it's supposed to be. the market decides which business lives or dies

But not by way of harassment, threats, and intimidation.

 

[Cecilie1200]

TODD'S AMERICAN DISPATCH: Christian bakery closes after LGBT threats, protests | Fox News

threats are something else.

Oh my!! Christians are so, so passively sensitive to those that would use the 1st Amendment. lol!! What threat?

Klein told me he received messages threatening to kill his family. They hoped his children would die.

"They would tell our vendors, ‘If you don’t stop doing business with Sweet Cakes By Melissa, we will shut you down.’”

It's in the article. You have trouble reading, or are you just the same sort of gutter trash as the Oregon homosexuals and friends? Do tell us about YOUR commitment to tolerance.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Not if it has a public license to serve customers, TemplarKormac. unless the can file and win over religious beliefs.

I think the SCOTUS conservative margin would not approve that. I could be wrong.

anti-discrimination laws against people are not a matter of consitutional rights, but a matter of local and federal law. The recontruction amendments only ban the federal and state/local GOVERNMENTS from discriminating.

The question then becomes is the government ALLOWED to force you to go into business with someone you do not want to go into business with?

Walter Williams:

Here's a question: What is the true test of one's commitment to freedom of expression? Is it when one permits others to express ideas with which he agrees? Or is it when he permits others to express ideas he finds deeply offensive? I'm betting that most people would wisely answer that it's the latter, and I'd agree. How about this question: What is the true test of one's commitment to freedom of association? Is it when people permit others to freely associate in ways of which they approve? Or is it when they permit others to freely associate in ways they deem despicable? I'm sure that might be a considerable dispute about freedom of association compared with the one over freedom of expression. To be for freedom in either case requires that one be brave enough to accept the fact that some people will make offensive expressions and associate in offensive ways.

In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Loving v. Virginia, held that laws banning interracial marriages violated the equal protection and due process clauses of the 14th Amendment. Thus, Virginia's anti-miscegenation laws not only violated the U.S. Constitution but also violated the basic human right of freedom of association.

Now let's ask ourselves: Would Virginia's laws have been more acceptable if, instead of banning interracial marriages, they had mandated interracial marriages? Any decent person would find such a law just as offensive — and for the same reason: It would violate freedom of association. Forced association is not freedom of association.

What if you wanted to deal with me but I didn't want to deal with you? To be more concrete, suppose I own a private company and I'm looking to hire an employee. You want to deal with me, but I don't want to deal with you. My reasons might be that you're white or a Catholic or ugly or a woman or anything else that I find objectionable. Should I be forced to hire you? You say, "Williams, that's illegal employment discrimination." You're absolutely right, but it still violates peaceable freedom of association.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Yours is a common and mistaken reading of the law.

Where in the consitution is it written that a buisiness can be forced to serve anyone?

Well, as memory serves, the congress got there via the commerce clause, and the supreme court said, OK. (which is why I suspect Roberts did not find Obamacare valid under the commerce clause) You may not like it, and I may disagree with it, but it's the law, and we live with it. And, it's not so onerous. Even those of us who disagreed, pointed out that eventually KFC with an non discriminatory policy would bury Maddux economically, regardless of who had better chicken.

It's EXTREMELY onerous. The government has no business interfering in freedom of association, either by banning it or mandating it. Let individuals and the market sort it out for themselves.

 

[Cecilie1200]

TODD'S AMERICAN DISPATCH: Christian bakery closes after LGBT threats, protests | Fox News

threats are something else.

A family-owned Christian bakery, under investigation for refusing to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple, has been forced to close its doors after a vicious boycott by militant homosexual activists.

“Better is a poor man who walks in integrity than a rich man who is crooked in his ways,” read a posting from Proverbs on the bakery’s Facebook page.


Nothing crooked morally or legally about baking a wedding cake for a lesbian couple...IMO.
Take the order from the customer, bake the cake, payment for it changes hands legally, all good.

Now, if one turns baking wedding cakes into a 'morals crusade', then one has to deal with the consequences.
Consequences that can be dire.

Also, there are discrimination laws.

Since it's not YOUR business, I'm pretty sure YOUR "moral opinion" is irrelevant. Likewise, your judgement of what's "all good".

Now, if one turns ordering a wedding cake into a "morals crusade", and expresses that "morality" by issuing threats and intimidation, one is a shit-covered piece of garbage, as is any mealy-mouthed politically correct loser who tries to defend that behavior or gloss over it as "the consequences".

Also, it's past time you people learn to have your own moral compass, rather than looking to the government to provide it for you. It makes you even more stupid and vile than you were to start with.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Christian bakers who refused cake order for gay wedding forced to close shop - Washington Times

A year ago I would have said 'good.' But actually seeing that it happened, - I don't like how this feels. They shouldn't have been treated as they have been treated, not in my estimation.

Some of those threats were shocking. One emailer wished for the couple’s children to fall ill. Another expressed hope that Mr. Klein should be shot and even raped, The Blaze reported.

And yet another wrote: “Here’s hoping you go out of business, you bigot.”
The couple said on top of that, their vendors were “badgered and harassed” into stopping all associations with the bakery.

The Kleins say they’re now closing up their doors and moving their operations to their home. Their business, they say, has suffered a serious revenue hit from the unexpected activism and backlash.

Looks like they need a Chik-Fil-A-type support system.

Klein is a jewish name.

So what, Captain Irrelevant?

 

[Cecilie1200]

I don't do links so I haven't read the article.

I am curios, however, as to how the owners of the bakery knew that the couple was gay?

It isn't like it is stamped on their foreheads.

I smell an agenda going on here.

Perhaps you should read the story before commenting on it. One of the women and her mother came in to talk about a cake and told the owner, Mr. Klein, that it was for a lesbian wedding. At that point, he declined to participate in the event, quite politely. They left, and then came back later and got all belligerent and nasty.

 

[Cecilie1200]

The homosexual couple were not in the wrong here. The bakers were.

Why?

Their faith in God informs them that homosexuality is filthy and unholy and perverse and sinful and unclean and degenerate and emasculating and that association with homosexuals is either prohibited or otherwise condemned as consorting with those in whom God is greatly displeased.

And they live in a country whose history is steeped in the influence of that faith, and whose majority population adhere to such belief-systems.

Perhaps they saw it as a matter of Man's Law in conflict with God's Law, and chose God over Man?

Having children out of wedlock is a sin, and human cloning is immoral. Tattoos are clearly forbidden. Yet they are happy to support all of those things, just not the gays.

You know what else is immoral? Trying to dictate to other people what their morals should be.

Newsflash. No one on this planet is obligated to conform their moral standards either to what YOU think is moral, or to what you project their morals to be.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Simple question.

What if this was a homosexual bakery refusing service to Christians? Would any of you pro equality liberals be squealing your heads off right now? I highly think not. Think about it. And then think about how hypocritical you are.

Good night.

Or try it this way. What if the bakery was owned by a black couple, and a pair of white supremacists wanted them to provide a cake for THEIR wedding? Would anyone here deny that black couples' right to refuse to be part of such a thing?

And before you question it, yes, it IS a valid scenario that would happen.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Simple question.

What if this was a homosexual bakery refusing service to Christians? Would any of you pro equality liberals be squealing your heads off right now? I highly think not. Think about it. And then think about how hypocritical you are.

Good night.

They wouldn't do that, having been on the receiving end of such bullshit for so long.

Oh, yes, we can SEE how tolerant gays and their partisans are. "Burn in hell, pigs"; "Fall off a cliff"; etc. Gays and other leftists are SO morally superior to regular human beings.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Having children out of wedlock is a sin, and human cloning is immoral. Tattoos are clearly forbidden. Yet they are happy to support all of those things, just not the gays.

Do we know that the Christian Bakery Owners support such things?

And even if they did...

So, they cherry-picked the Bible for the parts that THEY want to believe-in or to consider operative as God's Law or Moral Law...

Big deal...

Some parts of ancient sacred texts are still relevant today...

Some parts are not...

Most folks hold that the ancient prohibitions against homosexuality still hold true...

Some folks do not...

And our secular government has - very recently- begun issuing rulings and laws and regulations as if those ancient prohibitions against homosexuality do not still hold true...

To the displeasure of much of the population - in contravention to the Consent of the Governed...

A thoroughly Conservative President and Congress, and a sizable Conservative contingent within the Supreme Court, may end-up reversing some of that recent social engineering...

Just as we now see Roe v Wade being slowly eroded in State after State after State, so many years after it first became operative...

Time will tell...

Meanwhile...

You really can't fault normal, decent people for shunning fudge-packers and carpet-to-carpet munchers, and being grossed-out by them, and wanting nothing to do with them...

Their faith tells them that such folks are deviants and unclean and an abomination in the eyes of God and Nature and Man...

And a lot of good folks who do NOT have such strong beliefs, also perceive Gays in that manner...

Generally speaking, Hate is an evil and unworthy thing, but there is ONE kind of Hate (or, at least, revulsion) which most of us are taught from childhood to be acceptable... ONE kind of Hate that is supposed to be OK...

The Hatred of Evil...

And, if homosexuality is tagged as Evil, or if its perception as an Evil Thing is valid, well...

The hating of EVIL things is considered a GOOD thing, right?

Sigh...

The People will sort this out in their own good time...

What a very long post to say "O HAI! I'm a bigot too!"

Yeah, saying, "I support the people putting these bakers out of business" is a much faster way of making that announcement. Certainly worked for YOU.

 

[Cecilie1200]

No Christian should judge homosexuals as sinners. It is really none of their business.

They should judge whether their own conduct is a sin and whether accepting the normalcy of homosexuality is the sin they are committing. If a gay couple got married it is none of my concern whether or not that is a sin. If I went to the wedding that would be my sin.

Personally, I happen to think that there's more right than wrong with such thinking; after all, did not The Founder (Jesus of Nazareth) serve-up a 'judge not, lest ye be judged' maxim or two? Did he not serve-up a 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone' maxim or two? And I ask myself, how can a Christian ignore such maxims, which go to the core of that Belief System?

Then again, I understand the arguments in favor of allowing Christians to judge, as well, who will argue that Jesus gave copious examples of man judging man's sinful behaviors and that Jesus did not intend for his teachings to be used as a cover for moral relativism nor aberration.

It's a dilemma, alright, and folks who practice that Belief System come to the best conclusions that their own intellects and hearts and spirit permit them to reach.

That's one of the reasons why I don't condemn any of the three types of Believers in this context (those tolerant of homosexuality, those who condemn but do not actively oppose, and those who both condemn and oppose).

You know what I ask myself? What the hell any of this has to do with the question at hand of whether or not this is a country of religious freedom, or a country of freedom to believe only what the politically correct tyrants allow you to believe.

It's irrelevant whether or not you think their religious beliefs, or their exercise thereof, is Biblically correct or not.

 

[TemplarKormac]

so-called "Christians" who persecute Gays but leave alone drunks, thieves, liars, cheats, are not real Christians.

Their religion is HYPOCRISY.

Not to mention child molesters and rapists.

Like I told BDBoop, if you are judging the entire religion based on the actions of those whose actions don't represent Christianity, you are foolish and making a grave error. And speaking of hypocrisy, you gay folks seem to think people are stereotyping you, well just what exactly do you think you're doing to Christians?

 

[Cecilie1200]

​

Okay, here's an idea. Why don't you let Jesus instruct His followers, and butt out, particularly since this thread proves how utterly immoral and hypocritical YOU are?

You're defending "Burn in hell, pigs" messages being sent to people. THAT is your morality and tolerance. I wouldn't let you instruct me on how to get to the nearest supermarket, let alone on how to be a Christian.

Did I stutter, BIGOT?

 

[Luissa]

so-called "Christians" who persecute Gays but leave alone drunks, thieves, liars, cheats, are not real Christians.

Their religion is HYPOCRISY.

Not to mention child molesters and rapists.

Like I told BDBoop, if you are judging the entire religion based on the actions of those whose actions don't represent Christianity, you are foolish and making a grave error. And speaking of hypocrisy, you gay folks seem to think people are stereotyping you, well just what exactly do you think you're doing to Christians?

Do you say the same thing to right wingers who assume gay men are pedophiles?

 

[Luissa]

so-called "Christians" who persecute Gays but leave alone drunks, thieves, liars, cheats, are not real Christians.

Their religion is HYPOCRISY.

Not to mention child molesters and rapists.

Like I told BDBoop, if you are judging the entire religion based on the actions of those whose actions don't represent Christianity, you are foolish and making a grave error. And speaking of hypocrisy, you gay folks seem to think people are stereotyping you, well just what exactly do you think you're doing to Christians?

How about when people stereotype black people?

I see you screaming hypocrisy all the time, but I never see you calling out people who are on the other side.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Christian bakers who refused cake order for gay wedding forced to close shop - Washington Times

A year ago I would have said 'good.' But actually seeing that it happened, - I don't like how this feels. They shouldn't have been treated as they have been treated, not in my estimation.

Some of those threats were shocking. One emailer wished for the couple’s children to fall ill. Another expressed hope that Mr. Klein should be shot and even raped, The Blaze reported.

And yet another wrote: “Here’s hoping you go out of business, you bigot.”
The couple said on top of that, their vendors were “badgered and harassed” into stopping all associations with the bakery.

The Kleins say they’re now closing up their doors and moving their operations to their home. Their business, they say, has suffered a serious revenue hit from the unexpected activism and backlash.

Looks like they need a Chik-Fil-A-type support system.

I understand OP what you mean by how they were treated, and it makes me feel the same way. It is one thing to protest what seems to be a bias and prejudice by a business; it's another to threaten and harrass the people out of business, to threaten their children, etc.

If people are going to do that kind of thing, it just weakens their case for equal and fair treatment.

I do think in our country, and as far as the capitalism ethic goes, if you are going to be in business, your business has to be open to everyone. This is the proverbial slippery slope. If these people refuse to bake a cake for someone because they disagree with their lifestyle, all over the country people can bar customers from their businesses because they don't like the way they live or dress or their religion or whatever. There has to be one standard and one law for everyone. If you want to be in business, you have to make your business open to everyone.

Where'd you get the wacky notion that capitalism requires your business to "open to everyone"? Try even getting an appointment with a Wall Street stockbroker if your personal net worth is below $10 mill. I dare you.

Businesses are open to their target client base. Who that is is defined by the business owners, based on their own personal criteria . . . or it used to be before liberals decided they were entitled to mandate "tolerance" toward themselves that they would never DREAM of extending to anyone else.