“Gay wedding cake” case poses a major threat to civil rights

[jimnyc]

Good, and I hope they change it, and make it so that NO business owner is forced to do business in a manner that he/she chooses not to do so. Just as I hope that consumers are ALWAYS free to do business with anyone of their choosing.

---

“Gay wedding cake” case poses a major threat to civil rights

If Masterpiece Cakeshop wins its Supreme Court showdown, businesses will have a broad right to discriminate

For more than 50 years, conservatives have been trying to find ways to wriggle out of public accommodation laws, which hold that a person who opens a business to the public cannot discriminate based on race, religion, gender or, in recent years, sexual orientation. Tuesday, the Supreme Court will be hearing another such challenge, in the case of Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission.

This already-famous case involves a married couple, David Mullins and Charlie Craig, who went into a Denver-area bakery called Masterpiece Cakeshop, seeking to buy a cake for their wedding reception. Upon finding out that the cake was destined to be consumed at a same-sex wedding, bakery owner Jack Phillips refused to sell them one.

The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a far-right legal group that the Southern Poverty Law Center has deemed a hate group, is arguing that Masterpiece Cakeshop has a First Amendment right to refuse service, on the grounds that baking a cake (or at least choosing who gets to buy it) is a form of speech.

“Artists shouldn’t be forced to express what the government dictates,” ADF senior counsel Kristen Waggoner said in a statement. “The Supreme Court has never compelled artistic expression, and doing so here would lead to less civility, diversity, and freedom for everyone, no matter their views on marriage.”

It's no surprise that civil rights lawyers see the case in a different light. “What the law is really about is the sale of goods and the sale of services," Louise Melling, the director of the ACLU's Center for Liberty, told Salon. "What’s perfectly clear here is that the bakery needed to know the identity of the couple here to make that decision -- that the bakery refused service once it learned who wanted the cake, and that it was a same-sex couple."

Rest - https://www.salon.com/2017/12/04/gay-wedding-cake-case-poses-a-major-threat-to-civil-rights/

[Abbey Marie]

Along these lines, and to me also disturbing:

A Philly councilwoman introduced a bill to prohibit storeowners' use of bullet-proof glass. This brilliant politician thinks they are offensive to customers. This specifically targets those little corner stores in high crime neighborhoods.

Despite lots of protest, the bill has passed committee, and is going on to the full council for vote.

How dare governemnt tell storeowners what they can or cannot do to passively protect their lives?
My belief is that this is race-based legislation, and in Philly, that is par for the course.

[Kathianne]

Masterpiece should be that the bakeries should not be forced to act against their religious beliefs. I can see something like, 'Asking to have a cake baked from a bakery is fine; asking the baker to write something contrary to his/her beliefs or in any fashion being forced to participate in a ceremony against their belief system is wrong. Being denied service is wrong; so is forcing behaviors against conscience.

In the case of a law being passed regarding bulletproof glass, I think the law would be struck down, for the right that Abbey cites.

[mundame]

Bars have a sign "We reserve the right to refuse to serve anyone" and a leftist I know supposedly saw one at the counter of a knitting yarn store. She went up in the air and was carrying on about how this knitting store was refusing service to homosexuals or blacks or who knows who and I was confused too --- I guess neither of us frequents bars much --- and my husband told me it's a common sign and the law requires bars not to serve drunks. I guess it was a joke in the knitting store.

But it made me think. Within human memory --- mine, at least --- hotels and stores and everywhere could do OR REFUSE business with anyone they wanted. Libertarian. If a hotel or restaurant didn't want to do business with blacks, it lost that custom and their money, so they had to consider the issue carefully.

I think we should go back to that. Extreme libertarianism. People would be a lot better behaved and not shoot and beat up each other trying to get into Black Friday sales.