Does anybody want to make the following argument: “If you really want to avoid seeing nude adult penises, then you should just stay out of women’s bathrooms and locker rooms.” That seems a bit odd to me.
It is not a better argment in that it is not limited to speech, as several rights are involved.
As someone here who has turned down several groups from servicing events with specialty items, my reasoning was not limited to speech: 1) the messaging they were promoting was not something I believed in religiously and would not personally promote. 2) I did not want anyone to think we were associated with or supported this group by creating something special for them - free to buy off-the-shelf stuff that anyone could purchase. 3) Any special messaging that I disagreed with forced to print would violate my freedom of speech.
Thus, I turned down things based on my freedom of religion, association, and speech.
It seems odd to me for large decision not to say “I want to get to X, so how can we do it without making the situation worse?”
I agree, @sly123 , but that’s not the only situation in which you should be entitled to use the baker you want. If ABC Bakery is known as the best in town for wedding cakes, you should be able to use it – even if there’s another bakery literally next door. Or if your friend raved about EFG Bakery, or if yelp raved about it, you should be able to use it. Or if LMN Bakery has the lowest prices and that’s important to you, you should be able to use it. Or if you like just the font on the front door of XYZ Bakery, or if it simply popped up first on Google, you should be able to use it. You shouldn’t have to justify using the baker you want, no matter what the reason is. And if you can’t use the baker you want while everyone else can, that’s the definition of discrimination.
“A baker could certainly make it a policy not to inscribe any political messages on cakes.”
Why do I have to, though? Why can’t I pick and choose the political messages I put on my cakes - just like the bookstore owner can choose the political leanings of the books/magazines he chooses to sell? I mean, he can choose to sell The National Review but not The New Republic, or vice versa. He is not obligated to “give equal time.”
Why couldn’t I refuse to put Trump 2016 or Sanders 2016 on a cake? I’m not discriminating against a person, am I? Being a Trump or Sanders supporter isn’t a protected class. Certainly you’d agree if either campaign asked me for marketing advice, I could turn one down without having to explain or justify myself.
I think that if females with penises becomes an issue in locker rooms, showers, saunas, etc for women, women will vote with their feet and not use them anymore. (From a recent survey of why public transportation ridership was going down in LA, lots of riders had been subjected to men displaying their junk and this made women riders extremely uncomfortable to say the least). The situations are not entirely analogous but if a trans man is using a women’s locker room, women will vacate.
Unless the reason you can’t use that baker while everyone else can has nothing to do with who you are.
The baker is an Orthodox Jew and doesn’t do Friday night weddings. The baker only accepts the American Express card for payment and you don’t have one. The baker only does five cakes a week (I know small artisans who limit their output to specific numbers) and you are number 8. The question is whether your right not to have hurt feelings trumps the baker’s right to not be forced to do something he doesn’t want to. I’ve posted before that my church marries anyone who complies with the rules set forth (accept that Jesus died and resurrected for your sins, the triune God, attend premarital counseling, be entering sincerely into a Christian marriage) and some people here said that there should never be a right to refuse a same sex couple even if the reason had nothing to do with that. I’m comfortable with my church refusing to marry anyone who doesn’t meet the criteria set out for everyone, whether they are gay or straight.
But remember, when rights are in conflict, one thing courts will look at is the level of burden imposed on others by giving protection to the right. This is common in cases about “reasonable accommodation” of religious practices. Letting somebody decline to work on the Sabbath may be a reasonable accommodation for some employers, but not for others, depending on the burden. If there are ten bakers willing to do the work, and only one who is asserting some reasonable objection based on speech rights or religion rights, the burden on the potential customer is small. If there is no other baker willing to do the work, the burden is much greater. That can matter in real cases.
So you think that the reason someone born male/identify female is going through all this troublesome transition business is so that they can display their junk to women who don’t want to see it?
Nope. As I said earlier, it’s not the transgender people. It’s the pervs leeching onto them. But it’s an unintended consequence that can be remedied if everyone stops digging in their heels.
"If ABC Bakery is known as the best in town for wedding cakes, you should be able to use it – even if there’s another bakery literally next door. "
ABC bakery is the best bakery in my town, owned by a gay couple. I am hypothetically appalled by gay marriage and want a cake that says “Down with Proposition 123 - keep Smallville pure and free of evil.” Should ABC be forced to make my cake? I want a really tasty cake.
You keep forgetting that the govt that can compel the cake baker to “speak” a message he doesn’t agree with can force you, too, to say all kinds of things you don’t agree with.
The cake situation is muddied because a bakery sells non-custom and custom items. Think instead of a ghostwriter for hire. I’m hired to write advertisements, or to write magazine articles, or public telations pieces, or books. Certainly you understand and agree that I can pick and choose the subjects/clients I will take on, no? Certainly you agree that just because I’m an ad agency or PR guy, I am not obligated to take on Black Lives Matter or Trump 2016 or a defense of straight marriage or Philip Morris. Some of you seem to have no problem compelling private actors to “speak” things they don’t agree with. That is a very slippery slope. And this is very different from anti-discrimination laws.
No. I don’t think trans females are going through the ‘change’ just to expose their junk. But I also think that if women are uncomfortable sharing a locker room with a trans female, they won’t use it, which could affect a club, gym, etc. if women move their membership to a club without a trans member.
No church is being, or will be, forced to marry gay couples if they don’t want to.
But for commercial businesses, your point is correct. As you said, if I don’t bake cakes for anyone on Fridays, then it’s fine to turn away a gay couple’s Friday request. What’s not OK is to bake a Friday cake for Susie and Steve, and then refuse to bake one for Susie and Stephanie.
So our rights should be determined by other peoples’ comfort level with them, and/or the commercial implications. Substitute “black” for “trans.” Still OK?
And BTW, who ARE these women? In the locker room at my gym, no one is checking out other womens’ genitalia. When someone starts to get naked, I turn away, which I think is standard locker room etiquette. For all I know there may already be trans women in my gym. I don’t check. Who does? :-S
But it is not the PERSON I am turning down. Like I said, Mary’s straight sister Mimi can come in my bakery with the request and I will turn her down too (hypothetically of course). Some of you keep saying PERSON. Now, if I refuse to let Mary buy the cookies on the shelf, I’m discriminating against her and that’s not kosher.
Look, I’m all in favor of gay marriage and I’m all in favor of bakeries who support gay marriage and I likely wouldn’t patronize a bakery I knew had turned a gay couple down. But we have to be careful about the basis for legislation and the basis for why things should be done.
Give it time. Those lawsuits will come. I am a decades-long supporter of gay marriage, but even I can see the progression from just wanting to be free to marry as one chooses to imposing his or her will on others.
Hold on here @Hunt Its not fair to say anything is fair game on cakes under free speech… We have limitations on speech
Freedom of speech in the United States is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and by many state constitutions and state and federal laws. The freedom of speech is not absolute; the Supreme Court of the United States has recognized several categories of speech that are excluded from the freedom, and it has recognized that governments may enact reasonable time, place, or manner restrictions on speech.
Criticism of the government and advocacy of unpopular ideas that people may find distasteful or against public policy are almost always permitted. There are exceptions to these general protections, including the Miller test for obscenity, child pornography laws, speech that incites imminent lawless action, and regulation of commercial speech such as advertising. Within these limited areas, other limitations on free speech balance rights to free speech and other rights, such as rights for authors over their works (copyright), protection from imminent or potential violence against particular persons, and restrictions on the use of untruths to harm others (slander). Distinctions are often made between speech and other acts which may have symbolic significance.
SO FAR THE COURTS HAVE RULED THAT YOU DONT HAVE TO PRINT DEROGATORY THINGS ON CAKES and fyi no one has found or ruled that congratulations Mary and Jill is derogatory!!!
No. Because no rabbi has ever been forced to marry a Jew to a non-Jew. The govt is not in the business of crafting religious restrictions. This is a canard that has been used to whip up anti-gay marriage sentiment - “they’ll force your priest/minister to do so” but it’s already quite clear and settled.
To some extent, yes. For example, housing discrimination laws generally don’t reach into who you must accept as your own roommate. Your right of association trumps the other person’s right to be free of discrimination in that situation–although the reverse is true if you are a landlord with 20 rental units. The bathroom example is an interesting one because, in my opinion, if features a clash of different versions of the same right, the right to privacy. What is a reasonable expectation of privacy in this situation? I don’t know how you entirely divorce that from issues of comfort level. And substituting “black” for “trans” is not the whole story. If you substitute “seeing black skin” for “seeing a penis,” the parallels aren’t quite as clear.
I don’t think the goal of many of the lawsuits is to force a marriage or to gain the service, but to punish those who don’t immediately surrender. The process being the punishment.