that's not really answering the question...

you make things from glass...he makes things from flour etc...he might make cookies for the show case every day as you make ornaments for the window ....

should you, in your business have the right/ability to refuse the request to make something (I doubt he makes cakes for weddings every day, usually special order I think) that you feel represents something that you disagree with ethically, politically or otherwise ...or...might be used at an event that celebrates something that you disagree with on the same grounds? remember, you are an artisan, if they request that you make something "that you make every day" for an event, by making items for that event you are putting your signature on the event, if you decide that you do not want your work associated with that event or group or cause....should a judge then be able to force you to provide the product/service or face a fine or worse?

I can offer some obvious example but that would be me assuming a bias on your part

I have said no when kids ask me to make them bongs... But let's be clear here.. I would never in a million years say no to someone because they were gay, a different race or religion than me.
And while I have said no to bongs/pipes to kids.. I do make them for MMJ card holders. Even though I am slightly opposed to it.
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I think the basic argument here isn't "Why he said No" but "Does he have the Right to say No"

I mentioned a Glass Swastika earlier...if a Group of White Supremists came in and asked you to make one for them....would you?...knowing full well that your name will be attached to it as soon as it leaves your door.

You have the right to say No...just like the baker has the right to say No.

And the Gay couple has the right to let their friends know this guy wouldn't do it for them....he may lose business because of his decision...but thats his choice and if he can live with whatever repercussions come from it....So Be It.

Simply not a matter for the courts to decide...

Like I said...."We Reserve the Right to Refuse Service"

I'd charge a lot and I wouldn't sign it. ;)
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But.. Just like Jim had to make the stretch all the way to the westboro baptists, you are making the stretch all the way to a white supremacist group. Both groups represent hate and intolerance.

A couple who want to be together and have a piece of paper that entitles them to the same legal rights as a man and woman who are married I a threat to no one.
Last I heard, there hasn't been and gay supremacist groups or gays out picketing funerals of fallen vets.

The baker is probably dealing with some seriously strong gay genetics and has had to go to god to help repress them.. The biggest homophobes I know would probably love to soak the cork given the chance.
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Technically the West Baptist Church isn't a threat to anybody....they are just a bunch of Misguided A-Holes out picketing....But you don't like what they stand for....just like the baker doesn't like what Gay Marriage stands for.

....and its not a stretch to use the WBC or the KKK....if the court rules that the baker doesn't have a right to refuse their business....then people can't refuse the WBC's business under the same ruling...

If the court rules that he has to make a cake for a gay wedding...then in the same vein he would have to make a Cake for the WBC that says something hateful about fallen vets....there is absolutely no difference, as there shouldn't be, in the eyes of the court.

I have no issue with Gay Marriage....but some do.

Again...its not Why he says no....just should he have the right to say no...

Anti descrimination laws are in place for these types of things. :$)
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It seems like the problem with the discussion between Nebe and others is an argument between opinion and principle.

Can you explain on what principle those laws are made?

"Jim had to make the stretch all the way to the westboro baptists, you are making the stretch all the way to a white supremacist group. Both groups represent hate and intolerance. "

I agree, Westboro represents hate, in fact, that was my point. Because in this case, the judge said that the baker doesn't have the right to hurt the feelings of the happy couple. My response, and I think it's valid, is this...if the Westboro Baptist Chruch has the right to hurt people's feelings during the course of practicing their religion, so does the baker.

How is that wrong? That fact that Westboro Baptist are a reprhehensible bunch of jerks does not refute my point, it strengthens my point. Because why do they have freedom of religion, but not the baker?

Your response?

You're claiming that I am equating a homosexual couple with the Westboro baptists, and that's not even close to what I'm doing. I'm saying the baker has as much right to practice his religion, even if it hurts someone's feelings, as Westboro Baptist.

"The biggest homophobes I know would probably love to soak the cork given the chance."

This from the guy who recently said we need to be tolerant of those who disagree with us. Here's a tip, start with yourself.

I think "why he says so" is crucial. If he says so because of his religion, then how does the constitution not guarantee him that right?

Courts have said that Westboro Baptist Chruch can spew their hate for one reason, and one reason only...they are doing so in the course of practicing their religion, and hurtful as it may be, the freedom of religion gives them that right.

Why doesn't the baker have as much right to practice his religion, as WBC?

I think WBC gets away with what they do under Freedom of Speech, not Freedom of Religion. You don't need to base what they do on religion...anybody thats non-affiliated can do it under freedom of speech....just like burning the flag.

I would like to know what religion the baker is, plenty of religions are against Gay Marriage but they will still be accepting of Gays. Even the Pope just recently came out and said "Who are we to Judge". Be interesting to A) See where this Goes and B) see what kind of can of worms it opens up.

You made a good point about freedom of speech. I looked it up...the ACLU, of course, has defended the Westboro Baptists on both freedon of speech grounds and freedom of religion grounds...

"I would like to know what religion the baker is"

Some kind of Christianity...

"plenty of religions are against Gay Marriage but they will still be accepting of Gays"

Very true.

"interesting to A) See where this Goes and B) see what kind of can of worms it opens up"

The baker, who can get free representation if he chooses, has not yet decided (last I checked) whether o rnot he will appeal.

I wonder if ACLU will defend his right to freedom of religion, as they did for Westboro Baprist? Not likely!

Yes, the court decided their right was under Freedom of Speech. I would think the same applies to the baker vs. the gays issue. But, unless the case is appealed and gets up to the SCOTUS, it remains a State issue and the gays win.

Im pretty much done with this topic, but heres the deal.. What if someone went into his shop and asked for a Job.. and let him know that they were gay….. He then says sorry.. I don't hire gays..

That is discrimination and very much on the same grounds as him saying ' sorry no cake for you gay boys'…

Not the same as there are specific laws in place for Employment Descrimination.

Here is what you are not grasping...this baker's religion, presumably, does not say that homosexuals do not have the right to be employed. His religion does say they don't have the right to marry.

Look at it this way...Catholic hospitals cannot refuse to hire homosexual doctors, but they can absolutely refuse to let that homosexual doctor get married in the hospital chapel.

You may well have a point about discrimination. However, you never, not once, addressed the baker's right to fredom of religion.

Exactly.

There are also specific laws in place that guarantee the right to practice your religion as you see fit.

As TDF says, employment laws do not apply to refusal to provide service. Even more, I believe at the Federal level, businesses with less than 15 employees don't have to abide by sexual orientation discrimination law. State laws differ in many ways. Depends on Colorado's discrimination laws.

The problem with anti-discrimination laws is that they discriminate. They are on shaky philosophical grounds and definitely on our Federal Constitution grounds. The Constitution does not prohibit individuals from discriminating. It prohibits government from doing so. So when government creates laws which discriminate in favor of one party over another, it does that which it prohibits against and does so against that which it is prohibited.

Your right to discriminate, so long as it does not deny someone else their right to life, liberty and PURSUIT of happiness, is one of those unalienable rights not specified but inherent in the understood VAST RESIDUUM of rights not given to government but retained by the individual.

In an aside but much related topic:

Can't stand bishop Tobin or the church he represents but he had the RIGHT to say what he said about Mandela,its guaranteed under the 1st Amendment.And yet there's a grassroots effort to force him to apologize.

I can see it already "I apologize for using my 1st Amendment right to an opinion".

Be careful Jim. the First Amendment says that Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion. But if the free exercise of your religion, AS YOU SEE FIT, conflicts with laws that pertain to other people's rights, then those laws can supersede your practice. Most religious practices don't go that far, but there are some far out ones that encroach on the rights to life, liberty, pursuit of happiness (a.k.a. right to property) of others. So the practice of religion is not seen as a right to do so in all your interactions with the rest of society. It is more normally seen as practiced in your strictly personal or religious settings.

What is so interesting to me in the discussion of this case is how we have so narrowed the scope of rights we retained by the Constitution's limitation of government that they are minimized into a small scope of a few amendments. Madison didn't originally want to include a Bill of Rights for that very reason. The VAST RESIDUUM of rights that were ours in Madison's unamended version did not require a Bill of Rights. He feared that they would become the list of only those rights we posses. That is basically what has happened. We should not have to be pointing to the first amendment to be allowed to speak freely or to be free to practice our religion, or other amendments to bear arms, or the whole limited laundry list of amended guaranteed rights. EVERYTHING that was not given to the limited power of government, before the Bill of Rights was included, was retained by the people and the States. Almost all of that has been vanquished, and we cling to a few of the remaining Bill of Rights.

That we are having a discussion of what is or isn't discrimination, or whether we should be allowed to say no, or that we must bake a cake for anybody who asks us is so far from our founding principles that we are like a foreign country compared to the original U.S.A.

Discrimination in its broadest sense is a process that delineates who we are as individuals. It is a primary facet of freedom. Ownership of property and how it is disposed is also a primary facet of freedom and was bound with the pursuit of happiness in the eyes of the Founders. The debate should not be if we have those rights, but how little the government can intrude on them. Without those rights what are we but minions of the State? And more than half of our people accept that.

:claps::thanks:

laudable

you are "slightly opposed" to adult pot smoking?...what other things are you "slightly opposed" to?...just curious

Stop it.You either make bongs or you don't.Card holders don't need bongs to smoke when they can go into Fall Riv and buy a pack a papers for .50 cents.You make bongs because it makes you $$$.

Sorry guys, I had a quick jump to San Francisco late last week immediately followed by an interview in Detroit yesterday.

TDF Not sure that's a good analogy.

A wedding cake for the most part is a commodity item. Sure there are basic ones and fancy ones but it's a generally accepted service that vendors provide to the community. I'm not aware of any provision that you actually have to be getting married to order a wedding cake.

A glass swastika would be a one off special request and an odd one at that. I've been to Nebe's shop recently and while there are various vases, bowls, ornaments, paperweights and other non-functional yet beautiful things they all have a generally accepted artistic or functional purpose and are standard offerings of his business or any other glass makers business.

It's not the same thing.

And all the talk about Federal Constitutional stuff here needs to be put in context of Colorado law, which specifically prohibits a place of public accommodation (i.e. a bakery) from selectively denying service based on sexual orientation.

So I'd think that if the cake they were ordering was a somewhat standard cake the vendor would be violating state law.

-spence

For many card holders the very act of medication is a ritual. That they may want to do it in style is up to them...I think Nebe's point is that they're not engaging in illegal activity as they deal with their illness, so it's not up to him to judge. Different from someone who just wants to get stoned.

-spence

It has already been accepted in the discussion here that it was Colorado law which was violated. Federal Constitutional stuff can come into play if there are appeals. And intelligent people, especially those who are aware of the problems which various laws create when they contradict fundamental principals on which a society is founded, should debate those contradictions and question on what principles such laws are based. If laws are passed on the wave of perceived injustice but eventually are discovered to violate the will of majorities and create more injustice, and further, violate founding principles, they most certainly should be discussed. If we simply accept, without question any law that a State creates, we abandon that "eternal vigilance" which is required to preserve liberty. And if we just stick our heads in the sand while new laws and regulations are concocted at all levels at the current record speed and quantity, we don't deserve nor really want liberty.

the left does seem to operate on the notion that once they've instituted a law or layer of bureaucracy by any means possible, society is then expected to live with the law/mess and it's unintended/negative consequences for eternity....

it would be quite a spectacle, would it not to, have this judge ordering the bigot wedding cake baker and the bigot photographer and the bigot caterer and the bigot priest/jop/reverend and the bigot limo driver and the bigot florist and the bigot DJ to all show up at the hall/room owned by the bigot function hall owner to participate in or face a fine or worse to celebrate a wedding/mariage that the State itself does not/ will not recognize.....

I guess to REALLY make a point you might shop around for bigot vendors and keep filing suits..but do you really want these people at your wedding???...even more so....do you want them touching your food???.....would you eat the cake???:rotf2:

it's exactly the same thing....he makes a number of items that he stocks his shelves and show cases with, they could just as easily be cookies and crumpets(standard offerings) as they are ornaments and paperweights...pretty sure bakers consider themselves to be artistic as well and wedding cakes are not things they make and stick in the show case hoping someone comes by ...I'm not aware of any provision that you actually have to have a wedding cake to get married either, but you do need a marriage license and apparently, for now, if you are a gay couple you can't get one of those in bigoted Colorado, weddings cakes are a traditional wedding/marriage accompaniment, not sure if they are a traditional civil union ceremony feature......

from what I can decipher from Eben's posts, put in a similar position...he'd either lie to them and say he can't make the item in question....or charge them double for the item and disclaim any responsibility for the creation of the object.....good to have options;)

the symbol might be a bad analogy because it would likely not be a denial based on the race, gender or orientation of the requester but there are other examples that would provide better analogies which go to the argument, which is whether he, as the business owner, has the right to refuse to make something and if a judge may compel him to make something that he might disagree with... and if his right to refuse to make something or be compelled to make something that he disagrees with by the Judge supersedes the right of the couple and Judge to force him to make it when...honestly...they could and should go somewhere else...they are perfectly entitled to make their experience public and let the bigot baker's business suffer whatever losses of business it might incur as a result...

the story has almost nothing to do with a wedding cake

I think its a perfect analogy...someone walks into yor place of Business and asks you to make something that represents something you are morally against....Whether it be a Nazi symbol to Nebe or a Gay Wedding Cake to the baker.

Not sure what your argument is here...Custom Cake or Custom Glass....only difference is the Medium used.

May the first glass blower who has NOT made a bong please stand up. If I were to attempt to replace my fish pipe who would I go to with no mmj card? hmmmm

i like 2" Bamboo way better :)

"if the free exercise of your religion, AS YOU SEE FIT, conflicts with laws that pertain to other people's rights, then those laws can supersede your practice"

Correct. To the extreme, I cannot perform human sacrifices on religious grounds. And this conflict (the baker's right to freedom of religion, versus the couple's right to avoid discrimination) is what makes this interesting to me.

The judge, in this case, said that the couple has the right to not "be hurt for who they are". That's absurd. There is no right to not have your feelings hurt. Teasing is not against the law. WHat the Westboro Baptist Cjurch does, is at least as hurtful, but courts have said that's protected.

"Colorado law, which specifically prohibits a place of public accommodation (i.e. a bakery) from selectively denying service based on sexual orientation. "

Is there such a law? I'm not doubting you, but from what I saw, the judge did not cite a specific state law that the baker was violating. What I saw (and I may well have missed the law you are referring to) was the judge saying that the couple has the right to not be hurt for who they are. That concept seems to be at odds with the right of the Westboro Baptist Church to celebrate the death of military KIA's at their funerals. That is hurtful to the families, but judges have said that despite the hurt inflicted, they have the right to express their religious beliefs in that manner.

And if there is such a state law, one might argue that it violates the freedom of religion guaranteed to the baker by the Bill Of Rights. When there is a conflict, the United States Constitution trumps state laws.

It violates more than that. To begin with, as ScottW has pointed out, Colorado does not recognize same sex marriage, not even if it is performed in another State. So there would be an apparent conflict between the two laws. If same sex marriage is not accepted as valid in the State, how can a baker be prosecuted for not accommodating such a marriage? The judge should have recognized that the two laws could apply to the baker only in respect to baked goods that he makes and are in stock at the time of purchase. If he does not make same-sex wedding cakes, and there are no wedding cakes in stock at the time of request he cannot, even under the anti-discrimination law, be forced to make one, just as he cannot be forced to make jelly donuts for someone if they are not in stock. The baker can perfectly accommodate the gay couple by selling them those goods that he has produced and are available for sale, but they cannot compel him to make something he otherwise would not nor does not wish to do.

Furthermore, the anti-discrimination law has a fundamental problem with equal protection as provided in the Constitution. Anti-discrimination laws as they are written prohibit discrimination against "protected" classes. But they do not prohibit discrimination against those class of people that do not fall into the protected areas (i.e. sexual orientation, religion, race, gender, etc.) If the baker simply didn't like me for some undecipherable "vibes" he detected, not for any of the protected classifications, the laws would not prohibit him from not selling his wares to me. I would not have the equal protection that the laws provide to others. Of course, the obvious unequal application of such laws is the ensuing discrimination against the baker. Anti-discrimination laws are by nature discriminatory. To be truly anti-discrimination, there should be no protected class of people, everybody should be protected, including the baker. That is asking the impossible. Which may be why the Constitution only prohibits the government from discriminating

Who the hell cares about opinion and principle?

Clearly they don't like making money, or they knew there would be backlash that would get them publicity.

And publicity good OR bad is ALWAYS good.

Remember, every time Howard or Imus say something dumb on the radio, listener-ship goes through the roof.

Yes, especially with Obamacare (sorry, is that racist?), the left likes to beat the drum "it was signed into law, upheld by the Supreme Court, so stop complaining and accept it".

This assumes there is no such thing as a bad law. I remind the lefties of another law which was upheld by the Supreme Court, one which the democrats wanted to hear no more opposition to - slavery. Once again, it was the Republicans who refused to be silenced in their opposition, despite the fact that slavery laws were duly constituted and upheld by the Supreme Court.

What this boils down to is that I make certain things.. Vases, Bowls, Etc… The baker makes Cakes. I would never in a million years deny a piece to that i make or have in stock to a gay couple… Custom orders are a slippery slope no matter who is ordering it and I should have been more clear on that. I charge more for any custom order as opposed to a piece that i make repetitively.. there is time to design the piece, i might have to make 2 or 3 to get a good one, etc….. so no matter what, no matter who or what the person wants, the moment you put the words 'special order', 'custom commission', etc… in front of me, i am going to sing a different tune……Any artist would say the same answer, unless they only do custom work, then their price structure is geared for that all the time.

My business is so complex, sometimes i don't even know how to describe what i do to people. One day i am making lighting parts for a lamp company, the next i am making huge works for architects, the other day i am teaching 8 year old kids how to make christmas ornaments…. so yes… it is nice to have options :)

Never in a million years would i turn someone away from my studio who came in and pointed at something on my shelves that I make because of race, sexual preference or religious beliefs… In fact, i even taught your daughters a class last year, so that says a lot…. :rotf2::rotf2::rotf2::rotf2:

We'll I think we need something to put this discussion in perspective.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niCiKpgeRYo

DZ

Some people aren't willing to violate their beliefs for a few bucks...

Ya think the judge was in on it? Maybe the gays were in on the scam too? Lotsa money to go around for everyone. Gives me a new outlook on all the discrimination suits that have been filed. And hear tell there are tons more coming down the pike. OOOOhWOW! the underground wealth index is about to spike up big. Too bad the governments can't get a tax or regulatory cut. Detroit could sure use some. Maybe they're in on it too.