Where to Draw Line on Free Speech? Wedding Cake Case Vexes Lawyers

[Gerald]

Floyd Abrams, the nation’s most prominent First Amendment lawyer, almost always argues in favor of free speech, but not in the case of a baker who refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding. Credit Christian Hansen for The New York Times.

WASHINGTON — Floyd Abrams is the nation’s most prominent First Amendment lawyer, and he almost always argues in favor of free speech. But he has struggled with the case of a Colorado baker who refused to create a wedding cake for a gay couple.

Charged with discrimination, the baker said that forcing him to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding would hijack his constitutional right to express himself. Mr. Abrams’s first impulse was to agree.

“At first blush, the position of the baker had a good deal of appeal to me,” he said. “There was and is no reason to doubt his position was one of conscience, and the visage of state-ordered creation of what could be viewed as some sort of artistic offering certainly set some First Amendment flags flying.'

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/06/u...eme-court.html

Poor baker.

[Buddahaid]

I think both parties to this are stupid. Geeze bake the damned cake and leave your personal feeling out of it and get over yourselves and buy a cake somewhere else.

[Reece]

Originally Posted by Vendor

Poor baker.

Yes I agree!

[STEED]

Similar cases here in the UK and Ireland a few years ago. It also came to light certain members of the gay community go out there way to cause friction leading to court cases. If going around doing that strikes me more of a lets make a fast buck in the courts. Most would just go else where for a cake.

[Skybird]

The baker is nobody#s property and runs his own buiness, I assume at least. Declareing that he must accept just everybody as his custjm er - which means he must accept to do business and have a contract with just anybody - is a vilation of human rioghts. Of course he must have any right to have s sign in his wiondow: "No negros" or "No Jews". And the public has just any right to take not eof that, and to draw consequences form that by either not buying at this abkery anymore, or not caring.

The customer should have a right that any store must serve them, no matter what? Does this include that stores have any right to demand that peopole must buy at them, not at some other store?

This anti-discrimination law thing is hilarious. It always was.

Everybody who runs a business, shouzld and must have the right to decide whom he accepts as customer and wants to do bsuiness with and agrees on a contract, a treaty, an act of bartering. That is so profound that I do not even will to argue abiout it, that basic it is. I accept no reeducating and no moralising and no paternalising to play aorfund with and limit this, that profound I see it.

People and customers and compoanies must have the freedom to decide whom they accept as business partner, and whom, not. They necessarily also must accept any consequences form that. They then mjst decide whether they accept that conseqwuences, or alter their own decision scheme on whom to acept as business partners, or they must shot down andf nkvoe somewhere else, if they feel like it.

Nobody owns anyone else, n obody has a right to lay claim for th eother, nobody has a right to be liked, loved, accepted by somebody else. That is socialist, collectiovist, brainwashing, totalitarian, paternalistic drivel.

You cannot fight racism by forbidding racist opinions. Islam's behaviour shows that. The US racism problem shows it from the opposite direction.

Only enlightenment, and thus; culture, and family educaction help.

I rather accept some racist shop keepers her eor there, than the constant state-driven re-educaiton schmes and plans that int he end only limit freedom more and more and take respnnsiblity away form people and suibmit them to the self-claimed authority of the state.

The point is, while a racist shop may be there, I am not forced to buy there.

The point also is that what one sees as racism, another one does not necessarily agree on. And in our political correct times, these killer labels are swung like rhetorical war axes and broadswords just to silence unwanted opinions and pacify public opinion by consensus enforced by mobbing of anonymous masses.

This lawyer is wrong, and completely.

---

A bit more reason was shown by the German Constitutional High Court yesterday. There was a Muslim couple with a child, eligible for emelentary school, and two schools available in their neighbourhood: an ordinary public school 3 km away, and a Catholic school 250 meters away. They asked to be allowed into the Catholic school. The school said: Okay, but be advised that we are a deliberate Catholic school, and for our students, participation in Catholic religion courses and church services is mandatory, and parents have to agree to that by signing a legally binding declaration of consent. This is what I call the my-house-my-rules-masterrule. The couple did sign that, and the kid went to the school. Then they started to sue the school for forcing their Muslim child to attend said courses and services. They went through the various levels of the court system, lost everywhere, and finally adressed the Constitutional High Court - which thankfully now has refused to accept their case and drove them away, saying they have no valid claim to file at all.

I may or may not agree with religious schools, the point is: I am free to accept sending my kid to one, or choosing a public school. If this religious thing is so fundamental to me, then 2.5 km hardly shall make me waver.

We have had another court case two or three years ago, where a Catholic hospital was forced to accept a Muslim nurse wearing Islamic clothing. The judge said that the nurse knew it was a Catholic hposital with a certain dress code, did not mean that she shares respjnsiblity for her deicison to nevertheless ask for work there, nor means the fact the house is in ownerhsip by the Catholic church means it can rule that catholic values and rules shall not dominate there and demand its workers to comply with them. So, German courts do not decide consistsently on such "discrimination" claims. The ruling yesterday was anything but natural and to be expected, even if all courts before also refused the claim.

[Onkel Neal]

Singers and celebrities were OK with declining to serve Trump at his inauguration

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by STEED

Similar cases here in the UK and Ireland a few years ago. It also came to light certain members of the gay community go out there way to cause friction leading to court cases. If going around doing that strikes me more of a lets make a fast buck in the courts. Most would just go else where for a cake.

Yeah, created quite a stir at the time.

[vienna]

Originally Posted by Onkel Neal

Singers and celebrities were OK with declining try to serve Trump at his inauguration

The big difference there was not a quid pro quo (money or other form of payment for goods or services), it was merely a case of the singers and celebrities not wanting to be associated with the politics of Trump. It is interesting you used the word "serve"; they were invited and decided to decline the invitation; there was no mandate involved and they were free to refuse; if Trump took umbrage, the problem was his, not theirs...

I am of two minds about the bakery issue; while I respect the concept, as the phrase goes, of "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone", there are times when the exercise of any right ends when it impinges on the rights of others; there is no such thing as an 'absolute right'; however, it is true activists do deliberately go out of their way to create situations in order to feed their own agendas. This works both ways: back in the early 80s, I was at a newsstand/bookstore in West Hollywood, an area with a very large gay population; there was suddenly a loud commotion involving a couple of gay men and a family consisting of a man, a woman and two very young children. Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies were right on the scene. The man with the children began to loudly and aggressively accuse the two gay guys of making sexual advances to the two small children, which was denied by the gay guys. I knew they had not made any such actions because I had been watching them, waiting for them to move because they were blocking my access to the guitar magazine section. I went up to one of the deputies and offered my testimony of what actually had happened; with a somewhat weary manner he told me it probably wouldn't be necessary; it seems the 'family' were part of some extreme evangelical Christian sect and had been pulling the same stunts for some time; in fact, the LEOs were pretty much fed up with them and had been mulling over whether to file charges of making false police reports against the 'activists'. As said, it cuts both ways...





<O>

[u crank]

I can tell you one thing....if someone was forced to make a cake against his will...I wouldn't eat it.

[vienna]

Truer words...





<O>

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by vienna

I am of two minds about the bakery issue; while I respect the concept, as the phrase goes, of "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone", there are times when the exercise of any right ends when it impinges on the rights of others; there is no such thing as an 'absolute right'; however, it is true activists do deliberately go out of their way to create situations in order to feed their own agendas.

In how far does anyone have a right to expect that a baker must be to his service? He just be that only when he expected to be paid in advance.

The baker offers his service for a fee, and he must not even like it, he makes a choice of interest: if he wants people's money, he has to give back somethign that people want: bread and cake. However, to imply that he MUST be of service to others because want him to make a deal with him means that in case of circumstances he even must be of servcie wihtout getting paidk, becasue they have a right, a claim against him . Anyone thinbking baker slove to rise at 0130 in the mornign to start work in the middle of the night, anyone thinks they do so becasue they love to give their bread away for free and be loved for that? No, they want money in return, they need it. They act on the grounds of own interests and own needs. Altruism, a sense of duty, getting loved by foreigner,s has little to do with it. At best that is a bonus. Try to pay your baker with love next time. You'd be surprised that most liekly he will refuse to deal with you. Now what? Lay claim against him?

A busienss man refusing to make a deal, is not under any claim by others that he must make a deal with them. He must always be left the freedom to reject to do so. And then have to accept that hge will not get paid.

The idea that the baker must accept a deal with somebody with who,m he doe snot want to barter, is absurd. Simply absurd. Then just any Peter and Paul can come to me as well and demand that I accept to give them what they want form me, just becasue they want to pay me. You can also claim that the baker has no right to retire when he wants, or move his shop as he wants, or move to another place and raise a business there if that is what he wants. Because you make claim for that he has to make a deal with you, here, now.

Its absurd.

[vienna]

Kind of confused about your response; I did not say the customer has an absolute right of expectation from the seller; to the contrary, I stated there is no such thing as an absolute right of any kind. As I also stated, I am of two minds on the matter as the exact line of demarcation of rights in this matter is vague and motile. I have not taken a definitive stand either way...

Originally Posted by Skybird

...

The idea that the baker must accept a deal with somebody with who,m he doe snot want to barter, is absurd. Simply absurd. Then just any Peter and Paul can come to me as well and demand that I accept to give them what they want form me, just becasue they want to pay me. You can also claim that the baker has no right to retire when he wants, or move his shop as he wants, or move to another place and raise a business there if that is what he wants. Because you make claim for that he has to make a deal with you, here, now.

Its absurd.

Show me where, in my post you refer to, did I explicitly say, or claim, in any way, a seller "has to make a deal ..., here, now". You are arguing about statements never made and never even intimated; you are arguing a fallacy and untruth; all in all, I'd say your umbrage is, well...

...absurd...






<O>

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by vienna

The big difference there was not a quid pro quo (money or other form of payment for goods or services), it was merely a case of the singers and celebrities not wanting to be associated with the politics of Trump.

A devout religious baker can't choose not to be associated with the lifestyle of a gay couple?

Originally Posted by u crank

I can tell you one thing....if someone was forced to make a cake against his will...I wouldn't eat it.

Haha, no kidding!

I think there's a lot more to this than a gay dude wanting a cake, someone wants attention and compendium of damages

[vienna]

Originally Posted by Onkel Neal

A devout religious baker can't choose not to be associated with the lifestyle of a gay couple?

...

"Lifestyle" implies a choice; the overwhelming evidence, medically, biologically, and psychologically is homosexuality is not a choice. Political stance is a choice; no one is born with a 'GOP gene' or a DEM gene' or any hardwired predisposition to political ideology. Please note, I am not defending the gay couple nor am I condemning the baker; there is just no defining point in the arguments...

I also would never eat or drink anything from a person who is angry at me, at least not without my official taster sampling it first; which reminds me: I've got to post another "help Wanted" ad...






<O>

[Sean C]

Originally Posted by vienna

...there are times when the exercise of any right ends when it impinges on the rights of others...

I think this is a key concept here and a good litmus test for whether someone's rights are being violated.

I believe there are two relevant points which support the idea that the baker is well within his rights. One: The gay couple are not being denied the right to a cake per se, they're just being denied at that particular bakery. No one is suggesting that they can't have a cake at their wedding at all. Two: Even if they were, I know of no law or statute which guarantees the right to having a cake (in any circumstance) in the first place, let alone mandating that someone else bake it for you. However, the rights of freedom of religion and of expression are explicitly guaranteed in the Constitution. If the gay couple were to simply choose another bakery, or bake the cake themselves, they could have a wedding cake and the Christian baker would not have to violate his principles/beliefs. Everyone wins.

I believe this applies to other current events, as well. As I stated in the thread about the NFL controversy, no one is suggesting that the players cannot protest per se, some simply believe they shouldn't do it on others' time. Even if they do it on their own time: if their employer feels it is having a negative impact on their business by association, or if they simply disagree with it, firing the player does not deny their right to continue to protest. It just means they'll have to find another source of income. Again, I know of no law or statute which guarantees a person the right to a particular job regardless of their actions.

In the past, I have also echoed the sentiment that I would not want a cake that someone was forced to bake for me under duress. In a conversation with a friend, I even suggested that the baker go ahead and bake the cake, but just make it really poorly to prove a point. (For instance, decorate it with his eyes closed or add a crap ton of salt to it. Nothing harmful.) My friend countered with the suggestion that sales would drop after a poor review. I replied that might be so ... but personally, if I see ninety-nine great reviews for a company and one bad one, I usually assume that that was a fluke or just one of those people that can't be satisfied.

I also believe it is worth mentioning that the U.S. economy is based mostly on free market capitalism. This means that the person or company which can provide the best service/product at the lowest price will usually come out on top. The consumers themselves can directly vote with their dollars for whomever they want. If a community decides that they do not agree with the practices of a particular business, they can collectively avoid that business. In other words, if we as a society believe a business should behave in a certain way, we can directly influence that. There's no need for the law to get involved at all.

The only time I believe the law should get involved is when it comes to state or federally run/funded services or products/services which are vital for a person's well being. This includes such things as health care and public education.