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The problem is that there isn't a legal framework for "things tied specifically to LGBTQ" and "things that aren't".

So the hill-being-died-upon isn't the cake or website, but the more general distinction of whether anybody can just make up a reason to discriminate. In this particular case, they went out of their way to fabricate an instance, specifically for the purpose of drawing a distinction where previously there was none -- with the intention of expanding that distinction.

That is, of course, a slippery slope argument, except for the fact that it is a conspicuous and deliberate plan to head down that slope. The Court could, theoretically, interrupt that descent. But this decision is a signal that they will not.

And yes, that's precisely going backwards on things that actually matter. It sends signals that the courts will also back all of the crap going on in Florida, using similar reasoning.

Even if this particular instance is fabricated, to my knowledge the past cake battles were not. Or the photographer.

I realize from a legal standpoint we don't have a good way to define this. My issue is also not this specific case.

But we have been talking about people providing services for gay marriages for 10 years now? Including a few court cases.

What bothers me is that those earlier things ever made it to court in the first place and it didn't just end with "well ok I will find someone else".

Like what did fighting about this minor thing get us other than making people (conservatives) angry?

Thats my problem and concern here. We spent so much time talking about this stuff that doesn't matter, while making the conservative base angry, and I can't shake this feeling that it's biting us in the ass now.

> What bothers me is that those earlier things ever made it to court in the first place and it didn't just end with "well ok I will find someone else".

What things are you willing to find someone else for? A different doctor? A different lawyer? A different water fountain?

Why didn't Rosa Parks simply start a more inclusive (business savvy) bus service and put the bigots out of business?

Whether concern troll or not, there are going to be a lot of people blaming liberals when this court overturns Obergefell.

> Like what did fighting about this minor thing get us other than making people (conservatives) angry?

"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty"

if we don't fight about "minor things" then they'll continue to strip away rights until all the "minor" things together are a major thing.

it surprises me that you have such a dismissive attitude towards the fight for equal rights since you self-identified as gay (i am also gay).

Nothing about forcing someone to bake me a wedding cake or make a website for my wedding is moving the needle at all for equal rights when I could just as easily go to someone who would happily take my money.

It never has. Maybe in 10-20 years when people stop giving a shit than sure, we can say they are clearly in the minority and we can have a different discussion. But we are not there.

At best talking about this stuff is a distraction at worst it is actively moving us backwards.

And I fear that we are on the worst side of things considering how drastically things have changed in the other direction in the last few years.

The fact is we have to look at why after making so much progress we are regressing and I refuse to put all of that blame on the opposition when we picked the stupid battles like cakes.

Frankly at this point in time I don't give a rats ass about someone baking a cake or making a website when trans kids can't get the healthcare that they need and we have schools across this country trying to erase queer identities. Also the issues with many of the racial books being removed from school.

This is not the issue we should be talking about and never was.

Except you're missing the forest for the trees. These cases are used to deny rights to trans people as well as gay people. The religious right to discriminate is used to hammer down all minorities.

The fact that you're blaming the victim of the case is really quite absurd. You can't fathom that each of these smaller actions comes together to make a body of argument against the rights of minorities to exist. They're already doing this to excise transgender healthcare by claiming that they have a free speech right to not treat them.

And again I encourage you to actually read this case before you respond, though I doubt you will. The people that brought this case forward literally made up a gay couple so they could have an argument against needing to serve them [1]. This isn't us picking a bad argument, this is systematic dismantling of our rights by bad faith actors.

[1] https://newrepublic.com/article/173987/mysterious-case-fake-...

Nowhere here am I referring to this specific case and I feel like I have made it very clear that I am talking about the past.

Especially given that I mentioned cakes. The cases involving people not baking cakes or a photographer to the best my my knowledge were real cases. So while we can explain this one away we can't explain those other cases away unless you can tell me those were fake also. I can't find proof that they were.

I am simply saying that something happened. Something caused things to go so far in the other direction after a lot of progress.

We can stand up and say "trump", "desantis", or whatever else other thing that will make make us be able to point the blame somewhere else but that isn't helpful!

If we don't actually look at this and recognize possible mistakes along the way we are doomed to fail. That isn't vicim blaming.

We are in a horrible situation right now and we are continuing on a worse trend, we cannot afford to not have these hard discussions.

> These cases are used to deny rights to trans people as well as gay people.

That's not really true though, in the USA there are no rights being denied to either group. This has been the case since the Supreme Court ruled for marriage equality in 2015.

My concern is related, but separate. "Religious exceptions" are the number one excuse people are using to evade regulations around vaccinating children, and that particular hobby comes with a body count.

We need to get to a point where people citing their religion isn't an excuse to pick and choose how and which laws apply to them. Forget cakes, forget LGBT or anything else, just think about how this framework is already being abused.

Let's be specific here on what we are talking about.

We've already seen cases where county clerks have decided not to issue wedding certificates because of their religion. We've seen pharmacists refuse to issue drugs because of their religion. The slope is here and the SC is signaling "it's ok not to do your job if you're a bigot".

So what's next? Doctors that refuse to treat "gay" diseases like HIV? Where's the line? Can a school teacher refuse to teach a child how to read because it's against their religion to let women read? Should we allow biology teachers to refuse to teach evolution because that's against their religion?

This isn't just about gay rights, never was. This is about how much power saying "it's my religion" can grant you and protect you from being a bigot moron.

The doctor refusal step has already happened in Florida. They passed a very vague bill giving medical practitioners and organizations the right to refuse care based on religious belief: https://www.aclufl.org/en/press-releases/aclu-florida-statem...

So what's next? Doctors that refuse to treat "gay" diseases like HIV?

That's already in the works:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/arkansas-governor-sign...

Should we allow biology teachers to refuse to teach evolution because that's against their religion?

That too:

https://www.eenews.net/articles/okla-bill-targets-existing-s...

This is pretty important for people to see. I was not being hyperbolic.

What we've not seen is the SC case to make this a national standard rather than just a state only standard.

All it will take is someone getting fired and then suing (If that hasn't already happened, might just be making its way through the lower courts).

It's in focus because these are being used as test cases to define the boundaries of the law.

We had a similar one in the UK, which went all the way to our Supreme Court: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/oct/10/uk-supreme-c...

The judges agreed with your view too:

> The bakers could not refuse to supply their goods to Mr Lee because he was a gay man or supported gay marriage, but that is quite different from obliging them to supply a cake iced with a message with which they profoundly disagreed.

Which seems to me also a very reasonable line to draw, in terms of freedom of expression.

> I know there are a lot of people that are going to disagree with me here, but as a gay man I strongly despise all of this crap around cakes, websites, or whatever.

> We are not talking about someone serving us at a restaurant or other things that have nothing to do with our sexuality.

> Making a thing for a wedding is tied specifically to being LGBTQ. You can't ignore it while working on the service.

> I just don't understand why we decided that we need to try to force people to make things for us when there are plenty of people (including those within our own community) which will happily do it. Do you really want someone to make something they don't want to make? The quality is not going to be as good. I would much rather someone just say they don't want to do it.

Another "as a gay man" here, I fully agree. I also don't want to support them if they don't want to do the job. I'd rather take my money elsewhere to someone at least ambivalent enough to my sexual orientation / politics to not care that it's M+M rather than M+F.

I've had people make snide remarks of my sexuality before surrounding big decisions, and they basically made my mind up for me with them. (Ex: Car dealer trying to push me to a Prius on the lot because "your kind like them." I just left that dealership and shopped elsewhere.)

Yeah I have had those situations where even if they didn't say no to my face it was obvious that I should not be giving them my business.

I just honestly don't get it why this is what "we" focused on.

The case was engineered. It's fake: https://newrepublic.com/article/173987/mysterious-case-fake-...

This is the first step. This court is just getting started.

> Making a thing for a wedding is tied specifically to being LGBTQ.

Does it really stop there, though? Under this ruling, what's to stop discrimination against Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and atheists? Or Christians, for that matter. This could backfire against them.

> when there are plenty of people (including those within our own community) which will happily do it.

Will there be plenty of options in the future, though, now that discrimination is legalized?

> This could backfire against them.

Nah, don't be under this delusion. This is a "heads I win tales you lose" situation. You can pretty much predict that if someone is a minority religion all the sudden religious rights have natural bounds we need to follow. But, if they are christians, then all the sudden there are no bounds to what can be argued.

That's where we are at. Welcome to Gilead.

As a Christian I appreciate the bulk of this perspective. We can disagree (and probably do) about a lot of things all day long, but the second either of us attempts to coerce the other into doing something under threat of law (force) the line has been crossed.

I dunno. A out of people were upset when they were forced to serve black people too, but I’m pretty sure that was a good idea.

Except that there was never a Biblical reason as to not serve other races, which was the beauty of MLK's whole point.

They can just start a new religion. It's been done.

They're called cults and do not represent Christianity in any way.

> They're called cults

It doesn't matter what you call them, it just matters whether the Supreme Court protects them.

> do not represent Christianity in any way

Hence the phrase "a new religion".

Well fuck, if some old book makes the rules for who we can discriminate against, I guess that makes it okay!

I want to be very clear about my prospective here.

If I walk into your restaurant and you refuse to serve me for lunch because I was gay. That is no ok. Me being gay has nothing to do with you serving me lunch. I don't care about your beliefs.

If I were to ask you to cater my wedding, thats a different story since you are actively partaking in something. I am fine with that.

I just really want to make sure that this is not misconstrued.

I agree with you. I think that you'll find most Christian business owners will not turn away any customer based on their features or lifestyle until they are put into the position of active participation. By forcing someone to bake a cake for a gay wedding then you're asking them to participate (some may even call this "support") in a lifestyle of which they disagree. Also not okay.

> If I walk into your restaurant and you refuse to serve me for lunch because I was gay. That is no ok. Me being gay has nothing to do with you serving me lunch. I don't care about your beliefs.

Why not? Cooking is as much of an art as baking a cake and ergo they should have the right to deny serving you food under their right to free expression.

This is literally the exact argument that has been used in both of these cases. Well, except in this case the site was literally made up and the supreme court fell for a fake case with zero standing.

> Why not? Cooking is as much of an art as baking a cake and ergo they should have the right to deny serving you food under their right to free expression.

Except it wasn't.

If you know the cake case, they ruled that there was nothing wrong because they offered to sell them an off the shelf cake, they just refused to write a message they didn't support.

> Masterpiece's owner Jack Phillips, who is a Christian, declined their cake request, informing the couple that he did not create wedding cakes for marriages of gay couples owing to his Christian religious beliefs, although the couple could purchase other baked goods in the store.[0]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora...

Yes, I know. The crux of the case is that the cakeshop wanted to discriminate on basis of religious belief and attempted to argue this via a line of bullshit that the Supreme Court bought. The argument was that writing on said cake was a violation of their right to free expression.

> Yes, I know.

Then why are you making up facts of the case to try and pretend it's going to lead to restaurants banning gay people?

There's a level of nuance that some just aren't able to comprehend.

Because I was making the argument that cooking involves free expression, ergo they can kick you out if they don't want to serve you food. This isn't hard to understand and should be obvious given that the rhetoric over this line of argument has been increasingly common. See: the literal case we're discussing here which is based around made up standing.

Cooking may be an art in one sense of the word, but it generally does not communicate a message. Neither does an off-the-shelf cake from a bakery. A custom wedding cake iced with a message, however, is protected speech.

> Me being gay has nothing to do with you serving me lunch

"allowing you to dine in my restaurant is normalization and tacit support of homosexual lifestyles, so i will not serve you."

"giving you medical aid means i have to come in contact with you, so you'll need to find someone else."

what happens when your bank no longer wants to support gay communities and closes your account? when your bus driver is homophobic and doesn't want gay people on their bus?

There's a difference between artistic work and standard commerce. You can't blanket ban people from your business because of their gender identity/orientation. Just like the cake case, they couldn't deny selling a cake to them but they could deny custom designing one, or writing a message that they disagreed with.

Same situation here, they can refuse to custom design a website, but can't refuse off the shelf work because of their gender/orientation.

I'm also a christian and this whole thing is very clearly intended to enable oppression and harm to already marginalized groups. Supporting this decision is to spit in the face of christ.

> Supporting this decision is to spit in the face of christ

Please justify this claim

No thank you maybe talk to your own priest about it if you have concerns about your spiritual conduct.