I'm sorry I'm wrong. I read to fast and thought it was about the customers not the specific message on the cake... rough day.... Anyway, sure, a bakery could refuse to make a cake with a message they oppose.
Patrick Stewart Supports Bakery That Refused "Support Gay Rights" Cake
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I'm sorry I'm wrong. I read to fast and thought it was about the customers not the specific message on the cake... rough day.... Anyway, sure, a bakery could refuse to make a cake with a message they oppose.
But that's not at all what this situation is about, the bakers just refused the message requested on the cake because ideological conflicts, which many business might do, you are free to judge their ideologies, but any person who is commissioned to do work is free to reject the proposition if they don't agree with it, it's easy to forget that because this one happened to pertain to gay rights, but you don't go to a vegan restaurant and ask for fried chicken and then claim discrimination of your ideologies when they refuse to.
So Stewart is right.
I say this because i've done artwork commissions on the internet and even if i do not reject gay commissions, there is a list of things i would refuse to do because they conflict with my ideologies (like scat). So if you see it in the context that the Bakery could have refused the message for a variety of reasons, doesn't it make sense that artisians can choose to pass on commissioned work?
This.
Which is why I was confused in my first post. In the state of Oregon what Patrick is saying isn't a "right" or legal and you can not do it so long as your a public company.
CrimzonSamurai
Member
I think you're thinking of a different example. The bakery in this case didn't refuse service, they refused to write a specific message on the cake. They would have served the customer a cake, just not the specific one they requested be custom made.
Perfect Blue
Banned
My apologies, substitute black with whatever you feel comfortable with.
Fair enough, I suppose. It just doesn't feel like a compelling discussion when tackled from a strictly legal perspective is what I'm trying to say.
I know. That is why I said I was confused and later edited it out and actually championed Patrick's position on this.
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
Exactly. This wasn't a case of "no gays allowed."
Apparently it is these days.
CrimzonSamurai
Member
I think this is pretty cut and dry with Patrick being in the right. If you think a bakery should be forced to write a message they disagree with, there's nothing to stop Westboro Baptist Church going into gay-owned or gay-friendly bakeries and making them make cakes that say "God Hates
"
Fags
I agree. There's a difference between making a wedding cake for a gay couple and a cake with a pro-gay marriage message.
Ehhh, I'm iffy on that. The thing is this could easily extend to a bakery refusing to put two male or two female figure things (do they have a special name?) on a cake and then claim they're not discriminating against the customer.
CrimzonSamurai
Member
If they will sell them a cake otherwise it's still a free speech issue and they have the right not to put the two little figures up there. That still makes them jerks, but they aren't being discriminatory on the basis of the customer.
Like I said in an earlier post, if people are forced to write whatever/decorate the way the customer demands on the wedding cake there's nothing to stop people from forcing others to do stuff they find personally objectionable.
Not really. Most people can recognize that there's a difference between denying a gay couple a wedding cake based on the fact they're gay and refusing to put a pro-gay marriage message on a cake.
Eppy Thatcher
God's had his chance.
Got into a whole to do with a bunch of ladies at my work the other day over this. I was firmly in the camp from the beginning that - yes - as long as they aren't being bigots about who they are serving and are actually being bigots about what they are making I don't see how they could be sued or have any legal action taken against them imo.
They should be free to decide what they want their business to be as it reflects them and to most people that matters.
It's also perfectly fine for everyone else in the world to tell them to go fuck themselves and never buy another one of their cakes ever again, effectively murdering their business. Freedoms baby. Soak it up.
They should be free to decide what they want their business to be as it reflects them and to most people that matters.
It's also perfectly fine for everyone else in the world to tell them to go fuck themselves and never buy another one of their cakes ever again, effectively murdering their business. Freedoms baby. Soak it up.
not psycho
Member
True. Instead of "I agree" it would be "I agree, and also fuck that guy for reasons x, y and z."
Or did you mean something else?
Pretty much this.
A bakery refusing to make gay wedding cakes is the same as refusing to serve a gay couple.
You're right, but maybe not for the reasons you think.
This isn't because he's a famous person and beloved celebrity. Rather, Stewart is a well-known advocate for gay rights and has a prominent friendship a well-known and beloved actor, Ian McKellen, who is openly gay.
In other words, we know that Patrick Stewart is coming from a position of good faith and that he isn't arguing this point as a disingenuous attempt to 'score points' against a perceived 'liberal/gay agenda'.
If they refuse to sell the dollies, maybe there is more ground to say they're discriminating, but im pretty sure in the context of this, they'd just sell them two dollies and allow them to put them themselves, it all sounds like they just refused to write it themselves and otherwise didn't care what the cake was for after they exited the shop.
Living in Belfast, this has been a hot topic over the past few weeks. I get where Patrick Stewart is coming from with the freedom of speech angle, but when you have the people who own the bakery literally saying things such as "We continue to insist that we have done nothing wrong as we have discriminated against no individual but rather acted according to what the Bible teaches regarding marriage" then I sort of get the feeling that Patrick hasn't really bothered to look into it all.
He says that they have issues with what is actually stated on the cake. This is what the cake was supposed to look like:
So yeah, stuff.
I'm okay with Patrick Stewart's explanation, and agree to an extent. That cake is terribad because of another aspect though. Bert and Ernie aren't gay, and it's bothersome how their friendship has been twisted as so. Bert and Ernie are a reflection of the puppeteers Jim Henson and Frank Oz.
CrimzonSamurai
Member
It isn't though, at least legally. The only thing they aren't doing is putting the little figures on it, they still made the gay couple a wedding cake. They still accepted their business, they just refused to decorate the cake in the exact way they wanted. Which is still fucked up, but not actually being discriminatory in a legal sense.
I mean, a lawsuit might change that via precedent, considering the specific intention of those little figures, as opposed to text. As of right now though, it's not going to be considered discriminatory by any legal authority.
Discotheque
Banned
that's a damn good response. I see nothing wrong in it.
These people are so out there they are protected by the Prime Directive.
So....depends on the episode/writer.
Kai Dracon
Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
The irony here is that the christian bakers themselves may not understand the distinction based on the comments I've read.
But yes, there's a key difference between refusing a person service and refusing specific content for a custom commission. I said the same thing when this first became a news item.
It doesn't matter if one thinks the christian bakers are regressive for not agreeing with marriage equality (I'm saying this as a married gay man). They have right to refuse creation of particular messages, just as I as an artist don't have to create whatever someone walks up to me and says to make. I mean it's also blatantly obvious in this case that the cake which was requested was not even a "wedding" cake but a piece of political advertisement.
As a example, here's a actual piece of fine print from small run publisher:
"The Author or Person Presenting job for print represents that he or she is the sole author of the Work and is the owner of the copyright to all of its contents; that he or she has not engaged in plagiarism and that the Work, if fiction, represents no real event or person(s) that could in any way be deemed libelous and that, if nonfiction, does not misstate or omit any fact which would libel any person(s) or result in a person(s) being placed in a false or damaging light; and that the Work does not infringe the copyright, trademark or privacy of any third party; and that he or she is owner of any trademarks and/or trade names associated with the Work; that the Work does not constitute obscenity or hate literature and that the author has the right to enter into this Agreement."
The bolded parts demonstrate it is common practice to reserve the right to refuse orders based on content. Businesses and individual creators protect themselves all the time with such language.
But yes, there's a key difference between refusing a person service and refusing specific content for a custom commission. I said the same thing when this first became a news item.
It doesn't matter if one thinks the christian bakers are regressive for not agreeing with marriage equality (I'm saying this as a married gay man). They have right to refuse creation of particular messages, just as I as an artist don't have to create whatever someone walks up to me and says to make. I mean it's also blatantly obvious in this case that the cake which was requested was not even a "wedding" cake but a piece of political advertisement.
As a example, here's a actual piece of fine print from small run publisher:
"The Author or Person Presenting job for print represents that he or she is the sole author of the Work and is the owner of the copyright to all of its contents; that he or she has not engaged in plagiarism and that the Work, if fiction, represents no real event or person(s) that could in any way be deemed libelous and that, if nonfiction, does not misstate or omit any fact which would libel any person(s) or result in a person(s) being placed in a false or damaging light; and that the Work does not infringe the copyright, trademark or privacy of any third party; and that he or she is owner of any trademarks and/or trade names associated with the Work; that the Work does not constitute obscenity or hate literature and that the author has the right to enter into this Agreement."
The bolded parts demonstrate it is common practice to reserve the right to refuse orders based on content. Businesses and individual creators protect themselves all the time with such language.
This is also important, propaganda you agree with is still propaganda.
googleplex
Member
Yes it is wrong. The same way they couldn't just decide to not so business with black people.
Oh yeah, I know it's not considered discrimination on the legal level (yet anyway). I just feel like it's a loophole so the bakers can be discriminatory without facing legal backlash because of it. Because of this I'll always feel uneasy about topics like this.
Anyways this thread is about a specific cake and not my paranoia so I should probably stop derailing.
I don't have an issue with this. I see it the same as say a religous organization should not have to give gay people a religous ceremony, as long as gay people can legally get married elsewhere and the religous organization doesn't interfere.
I respect their right to feel it's against their religion even If I don't agree with the stance, I am a big believer that seperation of church and state goes both ways.
If they just refuse to serve gay people at all than that's wrong and I don't agree, so I have to say I was not there so I will ironically take on faith that they really just had issue with the message.
I respect their right to feel it's against their religion even If I don't agree with the stance, I am a big believer that seperation of church and state goes both ways.
If they just refuse to serve gay people at all than that's wrong and I don't agree, so I have to say I was not there so I will ironically take on faith that they really just had issue with the message.
Bingo, and Stewart excercised his right to comment on the issue.
CrimzonSamurai
Member
That's not what happened in this instance.
I don't really think it's derailing, I mean that could definitely be a court case that would refine the protections of the first amendment in this context. I think there might be a considerable difference between putting marriage dolls on a wedding cake and just writing a political statement. The right to refuse to put certain statements on the cake is what's really important here, though. If people don't have that right there's nothing to stop people from demanding other progressive bakers write bigoted or regressive statements on their cakes.
Sakura
Member
Not really. A gay couple could still get a standard or generic wedding cake. They are refusing to make a cake that literally said "Support Gay Marriage" because they do not support gay marriage.
ipukespiders
Member
I find cake offensive. Fucking carbs.
way more
Member
We had the gay couple that wanted a cake and the ones who wanted pizza that were refused and that was wrong. Then we had the anti-gay people try to get a cake with some anti-gay slogan and the gay bakers refused and that was right. The distinction between those cases is the gay people just wanted a cake/pizza without a message, had they asked for a cake of two dudes fucking each other in fondant icing I would agree with the baker saying "sorry, not our thing."
Apparently some people would have a problem with that.
Pizza is right, Cake is not, as been stated in this thread countless times and even someone posted a pic of the cake they wanted, granted it wasn't dudes fucking and all of us would find the message harmless, but you could understand why an ultra christian bakery would refuse to make it.
It wasn't a generic cake.
To Far Away Times
Member
Yeah. That's pretty much what I got from it. This is the bakery refusing to do something they don't believe in, not them excluding gay people. Apparently they were willing to make them a cake as long as it didn't have that specific message on it.
I'm okay with this.
Patrick Stewart has had a lot of experience with cakes, even REFUSING TO MAKE A GAY CAKE for a gay couple
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/sexy-cakes/n10536
What a monster.
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/sexy-cakes/n10536
What a monster.
not psycho
Member
Different cake. There was another cake in Indiana that was apparently generic, but they wouldn't make it. Cakes have been a hot topic lately.
Oh, my bad, i thought they meant the same cake case.
Yes, in this case it's definitely discrimination and im sure nobody would defend it here.
I don't get why some people are saying that they should be forced to make a cake with a message that they don't agree with.
What if the message had some foul language on it? Should they be forced to make the cake then?
Ninja Scooter
Member
Businesses simply can't discriminate their customers. In this case what is written on the cake is not an issue. If they were to refuse to make a "Support Gay Marriage" cake for a gay person, then turn around and bake a "Support Gay Marriage" cake for a straight person, then they are discriminating. You can't discriminate against a cake, it's the people that can be discriminated against.
Tallshortman
Member
I'm really not sure what the legal stance would be in the case of states where sexual orientation in a protected class. Sure they can't refuse service but forcing them to write a message they find offensive seems to go into some real sticky territory.
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