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Colorado: Discrimination by gays good! Discrimination by Christians bad!

The state religion rules! In Colorado, the same civil rights office that punished a bakery for refusing to participate in a homosexual wedding ruled this week that a gay bakery can refuse to bake cakes with anti-homosexual messages on them.

This is more proof that the discrimination claims of the pro-homosexual movement are a lie, that the real goal is to persecute religious Christians.

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On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
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29 comments

  • Cotour

    A false equivalency.

    Gay people, even if they are operatives, are reasonably just asking for what others normally enjoy in these businesses. Blatantly offensive (IMO) and volatile language is a poor response and counter attack, as it is meant to be. They are free to say and think these things but no one is always bound to produce what it is they want. I would bake you the cake and you can write what ever you want written on it yourself at home.

    Again, there is no absolute, black or white interpretation here.

    The law which is populated by human judges, who are the personification of the state is charged with interpreting each case both in its subjective and objective terms as they relate to duly passed law. This was seen by this judge to be just what it is, inflammatory language for the sake of inflammatory language, an attempt at pushing back at. This is reactionary and the wrong way to go about pushing back and changing perceptions.

    Barack Obama reacts most times but acts in relation to what he truly believes. Act, don’t react.

  • Edward

    Does your response that “… no one is always bound to produce what it is they want” mean that you, Cotour, now side with the religious shopkeepers who have been persecuted these past few years? Despite your other comments, above, are you beginning to side with liberty and not with tyranny?

    Both cases deal with business practices, religion, and LGBT behavior. The only difference is that the bakery, in this case, was not asked to violate anyone’s First Amendment-protected religious beliefs. All other things were equivalent. In fact, for both cases the ruling was against the religious person, despite the same request: performance of services routinely rendered by an open-to-the-public business.

    This case allows the bakery to violate the freedom of speech of the customer, who clearly was going to have some form of celebration of traditional marriage. Don’t you find it a dichotomy to refuse a celebration of traditional marriage but to require a celebration of same-sex marriage?

    Inflammatory language or not, it is inflammatory language that is most in need of protection. The nature of the language does not make it any less constitutional nor any less free speech. The baker in this case may not have agreed with what the customer had to say, but it is necessary in a free society that he be willing to fight for his customer’s right to say it.

    In the previous cases of wedding-related businesses, you had considered it unequal treatment if a shop that routinely performed for weddings were to refuse to perform for a gay wedding. But here, it was ruled that a bakery that routinely puts messages onto cakes did not treat the customer unequally when he asked for messages on cakes. If the customer was discriminated against in the prior cases, why do you not think that the customer was not discriminated against in this case?

    Why is it not an equivalency when religious people as well as gay couples have the same request, then when refused service goes to a higher authority for redress of grievance?

    So, why do you believe that turnabout is not fair play? Even if the religious customer were an operative, as you are willing to allow the gay people to be, if the gays get their day in court, why shouldn’t the religious customer?

    Why is freedom of speech and freedom of religion of lesser value? Why should the courts and Civil Rights agencies only side against religious beliefs and freedom of expression of those beliefs?

  • pzatchok

    It would have been better if the bakery was asked to make a cake for a skinhead group with the swastika on it.
    The symbol alone is not offensive or inflammatory. Unless your particularly sensitive.

    Or if they were asked to cater a KkK meeting. Unless they have proof to believe their life was in danger. But they would then have to prove court that that group was trying to do them harm.

    It was a good try but just a bit off the mark. The group that tried this move should have found a lawyer to help iron out the possible problems with details.

    Catering a gay wedding is not considered generally offensive but producing something with obviously offensive language in it, is, and thus the gay baker has their ‘out’ in this case.

  • Cotour

    As an INDIVIDUAL you can say or write what ever it is that you choose to say or write, there may be consequences relate to what it is that you choose to say or write, but you have the right to say it, as an individual.

    When an individual who has all of the rights of free speech as an individual enters into business and that business serves the public that individuals rights can be modified in certain ways under certain conditions related to other individuals rights who are in the public and are who they serve.

    The key words in that sentence are “CAN” and “CERTAIN”.

    Why?

  • Chris L

    The gay bakers were being asked to perform a service they normally perform. Bakers don’t normally have a say in what goes on the customer’s cake. They were refusing to do something because it offended their beliefs, just like the other baker.

  • Phill

    In all the rhetoric, one tends to lose the real issue; One side is pushing their ideas on another side. I am all for persons on religious beliefs not doing something that offends them. The homosexual movement can be defined as a religion and certainly discriminates in hiring practices in Canada. Some may argue, but having homosexual acquaintances, I know this to be true. True freedom of speech does not bait one side and try to ram their point through the courts. True freedom of speech has people walk out of a situation where practices are offensive, not force their point across.

  • Cotour

    So by your estimation anyone can go into the bakery and have them put what ever words that they “command” the baker to put on the cake? Really? The bakers rights may be modified by choosing to enter into an open to the public business as it relates to the public but he certainly does not trade in HIS rights in in order to do so. Being reasonable and being responsible is essential in this situation on all sides.

    Is it reasonable for a Catholic or “religious” baker to be “commanded” to write “Satan is my God” with various symbols associated with that belief system if that is not a normal and reasonable part of their business?

    That IMO would be up to the baker to decide whether he or she would participate in that particular request from the customer. It would be reasonable to expect if the baker had a sign outside of his store that read “we will write ANYTHING on your cake”. However, if a customer came into the store and asked to buy a cake and have what ever “vial” words they wanted written on their cake and the baker said “I will not write anything on your cake because you are gay, or you are a Jew, or you are black, or you are a white devil, as a matter of fact because of those reasons I will not even sell you anything.”

    That is classic discrimination, someone who normally provides something to the public will not provide it to you because you are not someone that they want to do business with for those listed and other reasons or tests. That is unreasonable in the context of operating an open to the public business that normally sells those items in question to the public.

    That is different than him saying that he does not want to write something because he finds what is wanted written on the cake is either deemed to be not usual related to the kinds of cakes and writing that is normally made in that particular shop because it is offensive as judged by the owner.

    Its a gray area and the responsibility and the shadow of the doubt must go to the baker because he has the added responsibility in the transaction. Being reasonable and responsible falls on the business owner, you can not force the owner to do what he deems unreasonable. If you become really twisted about it than their are legal avenues to go down if you so desire. And this “gray” area is what is being leveraged into legal action by different action groups attempting to change or broaden some attitudes in society that they see as being discriminatory.

    What ever the baker normally produces and freely offers to the public should be available to that general public without any test of race or religion or orientation. They are in business to serve / sell to that public those items / foods/ services that the business owner determines is a sound item / food or service to offer to the market in order to do business with the goal of making a profit. In other words “doing business”.

    (the market is defined as a person who identifies an item, need or service on one side of the equation and on the other side of the equation is someone who desires or needs that particular item or service. The state or government does not enter into the equation other than the consideration as to the business structure / entity which is a function of the state, and any duly passed laws that may help or hinder the business model being considered)

  • CVA

    Bob….the fact is, the majority of gay rights activist are adherents to the broadly defined “progressive movement”; ergo, gay’s too, willfully and routinely resort to “lies.”

    but why is this so? my contention, “progressives” of every stripe, allow themselves to be disproportionately, politically defined by a single “cause.” collectively, “progressives” are unable to grasp the concept of the “greater good served” as this concept requires the ability to give and take. the “progressive movement” provides a platform for single “cause” aggregation among single minded adherents, while simultaneously condoning the perpetuation of distorted, sympathetic affinities among zealots; in addition to providing a vehicle to better falsely define the identity(s) of their pseudo-oppressors.

    However, to suggest the “real goal” is to persecute religious Christians is a stretch. A tactic?..absolutely, but the “real goal?” i’d need more persuasion.

    in my view, “modern progressives” includes those who can manages to contort their singular cause to fit within an existing and ever changing framework of multiple “causes.” “progressives” offer a welcoming home to those who harbor extremist beliefs. an ends justifies the means mentality exists within these people…..democratic politicians recognize and exploit this.

    so….my considered opinion leads me to believe, “progressives” are actually a disparate group of extremists, compromised primarily of single issue zealots. furthermore, they manage to co-exist within the trap created by “democratic progressive politicians” who are in it for themselves, and themselves alone. this is the “real goal” most “progressive” rank and file are unwittingly supporting. it is also why hypocrisy and inconsistency often surfaces among “progressives” as illustrated in the bakery case you referenced above.

  • The bottom line remains: people are being destroyed and persecuted. We can argue endlessly about the number of Christians who can dance on the head of a pin, but meanwhile the homosexual leftwing movement continues to destroy people’s lives. Sometimes they do it to Christians. Sometimes they do it to the head of a software company. Sometimes they aim for politicians whom they don’t like. Sometimes they go for the heads of talk radio hosts. Sometimes they slander innocent university students and their fraternities.

    You can come up with all kinds of complex clever sounding theories about why this is happening, but meanwhile we have a community of Americans who are getting pleasure out of destroying people, and that community is routinely leftwing and Democratic.

  • Chris L

    I believe that since we have already decided that businesses do not have the refuse to provide a service to a customer based on personal beliefs, that principle should be applied equally. Decorating a cake to the customer’s specifications is part of the service bakers routinely provide. To not provide it in this case is no different than the baker who would not provide a cake for a gay wedding.

  • Cotour

    The logic to be considering:

    The Constitution guarantees the individual their enumerated rights. There is no distinction here as to sexual orientation or anything else other than a human being born in America.

    From the beginning of everyone’s life until they die they have rights as per the Constitution. An individual who is an American citizen and possesses these rights lives within a society that has until recently judged that legitimizing homosexuality and homosexual marriage to be against society’s interests based mostly on religious teachings and the morality that extends from it. This reasoning has served society well over time resulting in order and an expanding population as a result.

    So we have two main issues here:

    1. The individual that posses these unarguable unalienable or unchangeable rights where sexual orientation has no consideration at all related to the Constitution from which it is recognized and codified.

    And

    2. We have society’s judgement about the subject that is based in morality and religious doctrine both of which are malleable and adjustable.

    Two different things, the Constitution is totally objective on the subject and society is totally subjective on the subject.

    Q: How do we or does society resolve this problem in logic, one totally counter to the other?

    The gay movement is taking this paradox between logic and emotion and using it to change or attempt to change as best as they can the society in which they find themselves. Liberals, progressives or community organizers are successful because they operate primarily in emotion and not in logic. Human beings almost always act based in their emotion as a default until they are faced with an existential threat and then they are able to think in terms of logic and survival.

  • Robert

    In a piece at National Review titled The Church of the Left, Yuval Levin reminds us that in the American-sense, “religious freedom is not a freedom to do what you want, but a freedom to do what you must. It’s not a freedom from constraint, but a recognition of a constraint higher than even the law and therefore prior to it and deserving of some leeway from legal obligations when reasonably possible. (And remember, Indiana’s law says only that when such freedom is burdened, it should be clear to a judge that it was so for a compelling reason and that no less burdensome alternative was available.) [The author of the First Amendment to our Constitution James] Madison put the point this way:

    “It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to Him. This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society.”

    Levin expands writing that “It is important to note that Madison was making this case not in the context of arguing for permitting the free exercise of religion but rather in the context of arguing against the establishment of any religion by law. His point was that no one ought to be compelled to affirm as true a religious tenet he took to be false and that no one should be compelled to participate in a religious rite that violated his own understanding of his religious obligations.”

    And this is precisely what I’ve argued, that marriage to most of the religious is a rite, R.I.T.E, of the church [it is one of the official sacraments of my church] and that to be compelled by civil authority to participate in any wedding ceremony seen as objectionable due to a person’s religious conscience is not dissimilar to the state forcing religious practice. It’s not about catering to homosexuals but about protecting individuals from being forced into a religious practice.

  • Cotour

    Please attempt to make a distinction between a private individual being compelled somehow to participate in a religious “rite” by a government action, which IMO is un-Constitutional, and an individual who is freely partaking in conducting business with the public and makes decisions in the operation of that business where they apply a religious test in order to allow business transactions to take place.

    “This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society.””

    Please define the interests of a “civil society”. What does Madison mean by the word “degree of obligation” and how does he resolve the difference between the individual, and the public, and the conducting of commerce in the public square where all individuals participate equally?

    Does Madison site reason and flexibility in the the degree that an individual should apply to these differing and fluid situations?

  • Edward

    Cotour wrote:
    > “As an INDIVIDUAL you can say or write what ever it is that you choose to say or write, there may be consequences relate to what it is that you choose to say or write, but you have the right to say it, as an individual.”

    There are not supposed to be legal consequences. Please read the First Amendment to the US Constitution. The rest of the US Constitution is a pretty good read, too:
    http://constitutionus.com/

    In a state where a pious shopkeeper can be coerced into involuntary servitude, why is it allowed for a non-pious shopkeeper to arbitrarily violate the First Amendment? The problem here is not that the customer should have wandered down the street to a shop that would perform as he desired (as this ruling and I support), but that the ruling class is consistent only in its rulings against religion.

    To rule against a shopkeeper whose religion would be violated makes this ruling inconsistently enforced. When shopkeepers are allowed to deny a customer’s request when the shopkeeper’s feelings might be hurt, why is it not allowed for shopkeepers to be allowed to deny a customer’s request when not only will their feelings be hurt, but their souls will be damaged as well?

    To have such inconsistency in rulings makes it difficult for businesses to know what is right and what is wrong in running an open-to-the-public business. If right and wrong change on a daily basis, then what do I do today to run my business? If right and wrong depend upon who you are (as in: some people’s rights will be modified in certain different ways than other people’s rights), then the Fourteenth Amendment has been violated. We seem to be seeing this latter case happening a lot, in Obama’s America.

    These changes, inconsistencies, and arbitrary rulings are making it harder and harder to live free in an increasingly tyrannical America.

  • Edward

    > Please attempt to make a distinction between a private individual being compelled somehow to participate in a religious “rite” by a government action, which IMO is un-Constitutional, and an individual who is freely partaking in conducting business with the public and makes decisions in the operation of that business where they apply a religious test in order to allow business transactions to take place.

    Making such a distinction alienates the individual’s right to enter into a business. A person has the right to have both a religion and a business, but your arguments continually suggest otherwise, that an individual must choose between one or the other. This attitude of yours violates the very foundation of freedom in this country. If we are not free to have both a religion and a business, then we are not free.

  • Chris L

    It’s simple. Both the straight and the gay bakers are engaging in commerce. Decorating a cake the way the customer wants is part of their business. If one is free to refuse to do business based on their beliefs, so should the other.

  • Cotour

    ” “Where does the structure for all legal business in America come from as you understand it ? ”

    A simple question, legal business does business how, in what form?

    A: All legal businesses in America come into being in the form of an entity granted to individuals by the state, I.E. a Corporation, a DBA, an LLC etc. This fact does NOT however mean that the state is the primary owner and or the primary controller of the business, other than the duly passed laws that apply to the proposed business.

    An individual petitions the state for the states sanction and the state grants the individual the entity that is appropriate to the business model proposed by the individual.

    Why is this important? Our conversation has to do with the individual and their rights as individuals. An individual that becomes responsible for a business because they are the primary person responsible for and are the primary controller of the entity that has been granted by the state is a bit different than just the rights of an individual as they might relate to another individual.

    The state does not own nor does the state control nor can the state demand the business entity carry any particular product. Nor can the state demand that a business owner take a religious stance one way or the other. The only thing that the state can do is insist that a business reasonably follow the duly passed laws of the state within which the business exists.

    Since the business owner, who is an individual, has the additional responsibility and burden to comply with the duly passed laws, all reasonable decisions related to the running of the business or the duties of the owner and their employees are the responsibility of the owner.

    This describes the difference between an individual as an individual among individuals and an individual who runs a business and who has additional responsibilities related to all individuals rights in the context of doing business.”

  • Edward

    And once again, you argue that the state should have the right to deny an individual the right to his religion or the right to run a business, as though we should not hold both rights simultaneously. This is a position that advocates for the very kind of tyranny that the American Revolution overthrew.

    I ask you to favor freedom over the growing tyranny that is taking over this country.

  • Cotour

    I am asking you to understand a basic string of logic, cause and effect. The state does not own nor does it control the business nor does it say that the individual that owns the business must choose to have religion or not have religion.

  • Cotour

    And I am asking you to understand a basic string of logic, cause and effect. The state does not own nor does it control the business nor does it say that the individual that owns the business must choose to have religion or not have religion.

  • I think you are wasting your time asking Cotour to favor freedom over tyranny. He does not. I have stopped trying.

    He favors government power over freedom, and has made this point clear in numerous comments. He is not going to change his mind. I am saddened by this, but I also recognize it is important to see things as they really are.

  • Edward

    I understand cause and effect and the logic behind it. This is not the discussion at hand.

    You are the one continually advocating that in order to start a business, the state may eliminate certain rights. When an individual’s “business serves the public that individuals rights can be modified in certain ways under certain conditions”
    http://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/colorado-discrimination-by-gays-good-discrimination-by-christians-bad/#comment-739389

    It is clear from your many comments that you mean that the businessman’s right to freely practice his religion can be modified so that he can be coerced into violating his religion or, because he operates a business, be punished for not doing so. Thus, he must choose between his religion and his business; choosing to violate his religion in order to practice his business is not that same as having both, as one or the other must necessarily be violated.

    When the shopkeepers in our discussion choose their religions over their customers’ convenience, you advocate that the customers’ convenience should have taken precedence, just as the various governing bodies have ruled. You and the governing bodies are acknowledging that you believe that the shopkeepers can either have their religions or their businesses but not both. Otherwise, you would be advocating that the customers should merely walk down the street to the shop that would not violate anyone’s religion in order to fulfill the customers desires.

    Then you illogically make the claim to the contrary, as you made above.

    (Yes, the guy who wanted the biblical quotes on his cakes could and should have gone to another bakery, but we can see how he could be confused into believing that — due to these rulings — he, too, should be allowed to coerce shopkeepers into fulfilling his desires. He, after all, was not even trying to get anyone to violate their religion, nor did he — or anyone else — incite hatred or violence against the shop or shopkeepers that refused to serve him.)

  • Chris L

    Except that it will punish you if you choose to not act in contridiction of those beliefs (the ones they disagree with anyway). Either commerce nullifies personal beliefs or it doesn’t. If it does, then it better be applied equally. Otherwise it’s just a damn power grab in the culture war.

  • Cotour

    Being petulant or stubborn about the above story and its blatant and sad apples to oranges attempt at contriving to create an equivalency between the two story’s tells the tale here.

    Yours and Roberts apparent inability to even attempt to see a little bit of an adjusted point of view on this subject that has been very carefully laid out and logically supported tells me that after all this we may well have to agree to disagree, but for all of the wrong reasons.

    I have said this before and I will repeat it here again, Libertarianism is best kept within the cranium, it is only a philosophy and is not a form of governance and its only result when visited on the real world out side of the cranium is chaos under the banner of “freedom!”

    I am sure we will re-visit this in the future.

  • “Being petulant or stubborn about the above story…”

    You are once again beginning to drift into insult and personal attacks, rather than defend your position properly. None of the disagreements with you have been either “petulant” or “stubborn.” They have been frustrated maybe with your inability to see the fascist aspects of your position, but no one here has yet responded to you in a childish petulant manner. If anything, people have been remarkably patient and reasonable and reasoned in the discussion.

    As for your accusation that we are stubborn or have an “apparent inability to even attempt to see a little bit of an adjusted point of view,” this is hogwash and ridiculous. We disagree with you, fundamentally. You won’t move an inch in our direction, and we won’t move an inch in your direction. It is that simple.

    Moreover, I understand your position entirely. It is not that I haven’t attempted to see it. I see it for all it is worth. As I said as directly as I can, I disagree with it. Agreeing even a little with your position is, as I see it, the road to hell. Sadly and unfortunately, it is the road that the United States has been traveling now for half a century. “Let’s all be reasonable and give in to the left and the regulators and the people with the good intentions. Maybe it will work out.”

    It hasn’t. It won’t. And the worst is yet to come.

  • Cotour

    Our conversation and this piece below speaks to my point about a philosophy with no purpose other than stating “I am for freedom”. And then what? People tell me all the time that they are “Libertarian”, someone told me the other day that he was a Liberal Libertarian, I asked him “what does that mean?” He had no reasonable answer other than “I am for freedom” and its sounds neutral and good. Again, then what?

    Although the article points out that there is NO philosophy in the Libertarian type belief system, I say that no practical real world philosophy IS the philosophy. First there are our freedoms and then there is governance and the degree of governance that is “reasonable” in the real world is the issue. And we certainly overwhelmingly agree that the nature of government is to abuse its power and push too far. We can however also certainly agree that individual freedom in what ever form is in general a good thing.

    http://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2013/11/07/the-problem-with-libertarians-n1740075/page/full

    And although I have not read that you classify yourself as a Libertarian I must assume that you and Edward are by your “stubbornness” on this particular issue. This conversation will continue and we may hammer out some kind of compromise in the future, or not. But it will continue.

    PS: Sorry about the word “petulance” it was focused more in Edwards direction, just couldn’t think of a better one at the moment.

  • Edward

    Cotour,
    You have been very persistent at arguing details, but you have avoided arguing the big picture. It is as though you keep pointing out the daisy in the corner, here, and the squirrel in the tree, there, oh! look, it’s Bambi — aw, how cute — however, you have missed that the rest of the picture is of Godzilla wreaking havoc through the valley, burning down the entire forest, and is just about to stomp the life out of poor little freedom-loving Bambi.

    The bigger picture is that an oversized, overregulating, tyrannical government is stomping out the freedom of We the People, burning down our rights as it goes. That the government doesn’t own many of the businesses that it tells how to operate is only a small part of the picture.

    Welcome to Obama’s America, land of the formerly free.

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