Quote:
Originally Posted by Nebe
If the baker wants to be left alone, the baker should not run a business that is open to the public.
You've expanded the perception of being "left alone" to ridiculous widths. If the baker ran a business that was only open to those of his religion, he still wouldn't be left alone. If your definition of being "left alone" is not to be impinged upon by anyone who might disagree with you in any way, you would have to be a hermit. But then you would have to accept the intrusions of distasteful weather, and creepy beasties. It is impossible to be "left alone" if by that is meant not to be affected by that outside of yourself. I think what is generally meant in this context is to be allowed your personal beliefs so long as you do not deprive others of theirs. If you are forced to relinquish your beliefs to the satisfactions of anyone else's beliefs, you have none. That would work in a world where no-one believes anything.
So can the baker refuse to sell to whoever he does not feel that his religion agrees with??
What if he refused service to blacks??
What if he refused service to Muslims???
As far as I can tell from this story is that the baker didn't refuse to sell to the gays (or blacks or Muslims), but he refused to sell something he did not have. Nor, because of his beliefs, would ever have.
Jim, the thing you are not grasping is that he is forcing his religion on the gays.. Because he is telling them he won't sell them a cake because his religion does not agree with it.
In this manner of thought, your mere presence is "forcing" it on someone else. If your presence annoys me, I can leave and force you to be deprived of my presence. If you speak to me you are forcing your words on me. Actually, I don't have to listen. And by not listening I am forcing you not to be heard. If I preach my religion to you through my presence and my words, you may choose to not listen to my words, or to leave my presence. If you force your presence and words on me by demanding I make something that I don't make nor choose to make, should I not be free to repel your force with my own? Should not my reaction be equal to your action?
The baker was not FORCING his religion on the gays. They were in no way compelled to be part of his religion. They had every right and means to reject his religion. Their imposition of personal behavior on him should in no way compel him to abandon his own. He was not refusing to give them service. He was refusing to give them a service he did not provide--making something that was intended for a behavior which his religion condemned.
I don't know if I have said this yet, but the biggest homophobes are always the ones who fight a constant struggle to repress their own gay urges.. I mean really... What kind of Colorado cowboy decides he is going to make pretty cakes with little roses all over them??
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So, are you forcing your peculiar notion on the rest of us? We can reject it, and force you to have no effect.
And if the gays had asked merely as customers, not by imposing their presence as gays, the baker to bake a pretty cake with little roses, he may have done it. But if he didn't want to, should he have been forced to?