Just a question: do you think that a business owner should be able to refuse service for any reason or no reason at all? Could that person decline to provide a cake for someone who came in and was such a bridezilla that he didn’t want to deal with her whether her intended was male or female? Just “I hate you and I don’t want to make your cake?” and if not stated explicitly, how could a couple know the reason? There is a very popular bakery in my neighborhood that is frequently on the food network and has great cakes, but they have a policy of limiting the number of occasion cakes they make every weekend, and the number varies based on the time of the year. The baker is dictatorial in the extreme (think Soup Man from Seinfeld) and actually does turn away potential purchasers if he has too many orders for a particular weekend or even if he doesn’t like the flavor choices, and I know for a fact that he doesn’t explain his reasons.
I’m comfortable with the current law that the business owner can refuse to serve bridezillas, but can’t refuse to serve a bride because she is black, or a bride because she has cerebral palsy.
From CF’s link:
Good freaking grief.
Don’t know. Thus a lawsuit.
I was the woman of honor for the gay couple who would have raised my children if I had died when they were minors, and as a matter of personal choice (which I don’t expect anyone else to share), I’d rather have known that our business wasn’t welcome so I could shop somewhere else than have a company provide me a service begrudgingly and with less than the best effort. For me, if I knew that gay weddings weren’t welcome, I wouldn’t shop there and I would tell everyone I know about this, which I think is a logical consequence. But obviously other people have different views.
Someone in the Yelp comments for Bigots Pizza pointed out that choosing to be straight = closet case. That sounds right to me. Most of us didn’t make any choice about our sexual orientation.
A bakery can refuse to make a cake that it believes is offensive. That isn’t religious freedom or whatever. They don’t have to put curse words on a cake. They don’t have to show a murder on a cake. They don’t have to show anything they don’t want to show. But they can’t refuse to make a cake with regular frosting and/or decorations to anyone just because they don’t want to serve Catholic Priests. Oh wait, I meant gay people.
Don’t know. Thus the lawsuit.
I was the woman of honor for the gay couple who would have raised my kids if I had died while they were minors, and I would very much have preferred to know if a business didn’t want to serve us so I could take my business elsewhere and not worry about someone spitting in our cake or doing a less than fabulous job. I think the market does a much better job of dealing with this stuff, but that’s just me.
^Did that market thingy work during Jim Crow, zoosermom?
ETA: Do Hoosiers commonly get Pizza shops to cater their weddings?
Memories Pizza in Walkerton IN proudly states that the will serve gays who walk into their shop but not cater a gay wedding.and can’t understand how the IN law endorses anything but THEIR freedom (not gay people’s or others freedoms).
I guess anyone hosting any kind of gathering and would like to serve pizza will have to answer questions. Is this a baby shower for a married mother or a single one? Conceived the usual way or IVF? Is the baby going to be circumcised if it is male? Baptized as an infant, or dedicated until old enough for believer’s baptism? Breast or bottle fed?
That is a very silly comment. Perhaps you should do a little research and learn what Jim Crow was actually about.
^You’re serving Pizza for your Boy Scout meeting, you say? Have you got any of those gays in your troop?
Being low class that I am, I have never had a menu consultation for pizza. We do, however, have the local pizzeria on speed dial and just call for the number of pies we want. We do not discuss the reason for the need for pizza.
I passed an old barber shop one day that had a sign in the window that said - No New Customers.
Hahaha, maybe they could be sued for age discrimination.
Discrimination is apparently never a problem. If your business discriminates against someone, they will be caused to go out of business. That’s why we’ve never had any problems with things like this in our country.
Those Bigot Pizza people want to have their cake and eat it too. Sure, they’ll serve gay people and take their money on an ordinary day. Of course they wouldn’t trouble themselves to ask and wouldn’t be able to tell anyway. But if they DARE to flout their gayness by getting married, oh no.
They’re not even proper bigots, they’re just total hypocrites.
Discrimination is a problem, as is hysteria. I’ve supported and marched for gay marriage for 30 years and have had the great good fortune to attend a handful of gay marriages of close and closest friends since it became legal in my state. The reason this law doesn’t make me nuts is because it only allows the defense to be raised, nothing more. It is still now up to a judge to decide individual cases.
“The reason this law doesn’t make me nuts is because it only allows the defense to be raised, nothing more. It is still now up to a judge to decide individual cases.”
There shouldn’t be any reason for gay people to have to go before a court of law to buy a wedding cake, or a slice of pizza, or anything else.
There are some religions that adamantly oppose gay marriage. Mine is not one, but I’m sure many of you know that the largest bloc of opposition comes from black Christian churches whose members also have historical cause to feel put upon and need to be treated with respect, as well.
^ What does that have to do with anything? I don’t care if people oppose gay marriage. No one is forcing them to be gay married. But, what they cannot do is to refuse to provide a service to anyone because they are gay.
It has to do with the religious aspect of the law. You can agree, you can disagree, but there are people whose religions forbid gay marriage. And remember, the issue here is not refusing to serve someone who is gay, it is the specific issue of providing service to a gay marriage. Do I agree? No. Does my denomination hold this position? Nope. But fact is it’s a deeply held religious view for some people and to be totally cynical, it pits two important parts of the democratic coalition against each other.