Should a religious baker have to create a cake for a same-sex wedding? Imagine a Jewish baker being required to put a swastika on a cake. https://t.co/v9nnD7Vyye pic.twitter.com/fXuJbcmFXW— Tribune Edit Board (@Trib_ed_board) December 7, 2017
Counterpoint: imagine a Christian Nazi baker refusing to serve a Jewish wedding. https://t.co/xSyolgMMh7— Jack Jenkins (@jackmjenkins) December 8, 2017
"Wedding cakes and conscience," Chicago Tribune Editorial:
The lawyers for the couple claimed that allowing the bakery to refuse them would be akin to letting a business bar black customers. But race has an exceptional status in anti-discrimination law, supported by constitutional amendments. And the places once closed to blacks — restaurants, motels, bathrooms — served more urgent needs than those at stake here. Blacks traveling in the South during the Jim Crow era might be unable to find any place to attend to basic bodily functions. A lawyer for Phillips argued that if a merchant refuses service to a black person, the merchant’s objection clearly is to the person, not to expressing a message.
Gay couples in Colorado have far more options for their wedding confections. Mullins and Craig could have easily gotten what they wanted without forcing a baker to swallow his objections. There are plenty of other Colorado bakers who would be happy to design a wedding cake for a same-sex ceremony.
Phillips is in dwindling company in objecting to gay marriage. But it’s not too much to ask that he be granted the freedom not to play a part in it.
I grew up in the U.S. South during the Civil Rights period. I saw first-hand what damage it does to a society to allow ANYONE to refuse goods and services to targeted groups of others, while claiming religious warrants (or other) for such discrimination. 1)— Bill Lindsey (@wdlindsy) December 8, 2017
The argument of the Chicago Tribune that it's "only" a cake being denied to same-sex couples, and this is no big deal: it's stinky and dangerous. 2)— Bill Lindsey (@wdlindsy) December 8, 2017
There's no such thing as only a little discrimination, only a little prejudice, that should be tolerated/permitted in a society seeking to be decent and fair. 3)— Bill Lindsey (@wdlindsy) December 8, 2017
Allowing ANYONE to single out a targeted minority group for "acceptable" discrimination — regardless of the religious grounds that anyone claims — impairs an entire society. It inevitably opens the door to MORE acts of discrimination. 4)— Bill Lindsey (@wdlindsy) December 8, 2017
We already live in a society in which it's altogether too easy for those with wealth and power to discriminate at will, solely because of their wealth and power. We live in a society in which discrmination against LGBTQ folks is already permitted in most states. 5)— Bill Lindsey (@wdlindsy) December 8, 2017
In a society seeking decency and fairness across the board, the weight of law should be pitched against the strong tendency of those with power and money to trample on the rights of those without power and money. 6)— Bill Lindsey (@wdlindsy) December 8, 2017
What the Tribune is arguing for here is in line with the logic of the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling: a ruling that places heavy weight on the stronger free-speech "rights" of those with wealth & power. 7)— Bill Lindsey (@wdlindsy) December 8, 2017
And it's right in line with the logic of the Hobby Lobby decision, which allows businesses to pretend that they are persons with consciences and religious convictions, and gives a pass to those convictions even when they are counterfactual. 8)— Bill Lindsey (@wdlindsy) December 8, 2017
No good comes of any of these decisions, for ordinary citizens, let alone those on the margins of society already struggling with oppression. 9)— Bill Lindsey (@wdlindsy) December 8, 2017
These decisions accelerate the trend to allow the powerful and wealthy to trample on the humanity of the vulnerable; they accelerate the fragmentation of our democratic society and the chipping away at civil rights. They harm the whole society in the process. 10)— Bill Lindsey (@wdlindsy) December 8, 2017
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