Baker denies a "wedding cake" to a same sex couple

[Nate13]

I never said I was smarter than everybody.
I simply said I do not get why it’s wrong to give a gay couple a cake!

Haha your problem revolves around thinking you can’t say anyone’s actions are a sin and that positive judging is ok, but not negative judging These things sound great at face value but when you follow them to their logical conclusions you see there is a lot more to it. Its not negative judging that is bad, its unjust negative judging that is bad. Unjust positive judging is also bad.

 

[SwissGuard25]

Your attitude says it for you. You also said much, much more than that.

Evidence please?

Do you want to learn? Yes or no.

Yes but that doesn’t mean I submit to your opinion right away.

 

[ahs]

So then…you would *not *bake the cake for the birthday party?
It would be giving the same kind of support as baking it for the wedding ceremony?

Not the same. Making the cake for the homosexual “wedding ceremony” is an act of support for the “gay marriage”, and in that act one would be actively supporting a violation of God’s Law.

Making a cake for someone’s birthday is simply celebrating a person’s birth. Even a person with a same-sex-attraction has a right to celebrate the fact that he/she was born into the world.

 

[Nate13]

So then…you would *not *bake the cake for the birthday party?
It would be giving the same kind of support as baking it for the wedding ceremony?

Haha the birthday party is a celebration of the boy/girl’s birthday. Just look at what they are called.

Birthday party = celebration of birthday
Wedding/Marriage = celebration of a couple committing all of themselves to each other for life, including themselves sexually.

If their idea of a “marriage” does not include anything that has to do with immoral sexual actions then I would gladly bake them a cake and advise them to find another word to describe their relationship.

Please explain how a birthday party for a child of a homosexual couple is a celebration of their immoral actions? If in some sick way it was and I knew about it, then I would not bake the cake.

 

[ConstantineTG]

Good for her! I’d have done the same thing!

This quote really cracks me up:

What the baker did was EXACTLY in the “greatest good of mankind”!!! Not supporting and encouraging immoral activity is just precisely that! And don’t get me started about “judging”…

~Liza

Its really funny how liberalists use the “thou shalt not judge” to means that we should accept every immorality out there blindly. Not judging doesn’t mean we should let people do whatever they want. I means that when we see other people do wrong, we shouldn’t be smug about it, and in charity and love we should correct them. You are right about “the greatest good of mankind.”

 

[Orogeny]

Yes but that doesn’t mean I submit to your opinion right away.

It is not my opinion, it has to do with moral decision making. Have you read the scripture I gave you yet?

Peace

Tim

 

[Nate13]

Its really funny how liberalists use the “thou shalt not judge” to means that we should accept every immorality out there blindly. Not judging doesn’t mean we should let people do whatever they want. I means that when we see other people do wrong, we shouldn’t be smug about it, and in charity and love we should correct them. You are right about “the greatest good of mankind.”

No no, now lets get it right. They only have a problem with “negative judging” Its perfectly fine for me to say Hitler was a great person who made Germany a world power, but if I start talking about him killing all those people and how that was wrong I’m intolerant.

 

[ConstantineTG]

Yo, Swissboy…

Going over all this back and forth, I’ve come to the conclusion that it has to do with a person’s own consciousness and how they feel and how they perceive and interpret what “the right thing to do” is…

Some Catholics who have posted here feel it would be very Christian-like to bake the cake, and show the couple by example what it means to not judge and do unto others and love thy neighbor. And they would be giving this couple a lot of love by baking the cake.

Others feel that baking the cake would be telling sinners it’s okay to sin, and it would make them feel terrible to bake this cake.

To risk sounding “relativistic” (which seems to be a sin all unto itself!)…to each his/her own.
There is a case for both. I bet even priests would argue on this one.

Being brought up Eastern Orthodox, shouldn’t you know better that morality is not a subjective thing? There is only one standard we are all judged by, and that is God’s standard. Because Christ is the judge. If our actions are not the actions of God, then its a sin, its wrong, its immoral. Read my signature, doing good is not because we are told to do good but rather we do good because God is good and we wish to be like God. Is baking the cake and letting the lesbian couple be “married” what God wants to do? No. Baking the cake for them teaches them nothing about the sin they are committing, thus it is neither charitable nor “Christian-like” to go ahead and do it. To be true Christian-like, everything we do, including the results, should always point to God and what His Will is. A lesbian wedding is certainly not God’s will.

 

[SwissGuard25]

It is not my opinion, it has to do with moral decision making. Have you read the scripture I gave you yet?

Peace

Tim

Your not really teaching anything to me all your doing is saying it is in scripture.

 

[Leegal]

Your not really teaching anything to me all your doing is saying it is in scripture.

I see a lot of names here. Are you really being open? I won’t say go back and read this poster or that one. But please examine if you are open to learning or if you just feel like being contrary today?

Actually, I am not criticizing – just wondering? I remember being 13. Some people have spent a lot of time with you; at least respect that fact.

 

[Newbie2]

There seem to be some common themes in this thread:

1)Those that support the baker and see nothing wrong with what she did.

1. Those that support the baker but would have liked her to have handled the situation differently, while still not backing down on.
2. Those who do not support what the baker did, labeling her actions as “judging”. or otherwise discriminatory (in an arbitrary sense).

This, methinks, is a different situation than another merchant or service provider who may have customers or clients who are gay. She is creating something with her cakes, not just selling something off the rack. In effect, it is her “creative stamp of approval”, perhaps, that she is refusing to give to the customer’s gay “marriage”.

Different, methinks, than a tuxedo rental company who may rent tuxes for a “gay wedding”. Different than a food caterer who prepares food for the gathering (unless it is perhaps a private chef who has specially created a unique dish for the celebration). Different than the guy who rents out the hall for the celebration.

So, I think the comparison to other businesses is a bit of an apples and oranges comparison. I have several veterinary clients who, by all appearances, are in gay relationships. (The owners are the clients, the dogs, cats, etc, are the patients. )
I don’t feel any differently towards these clients or do “business” with them any different than with my “straight” clients. However, I am not endorsing their relationships or behavior by treating, examinating, vaccinating, etc. their pets.

A good point made earlier in this thread was that this “wedding” is a very public acclaimation of this couples lifestyle and presumably ongoing homosexual activity. Participating in this acclaimation indirectly, as the baker woman would have been doing is not necessarily sinful, but her conscience certainly told her not to do so. On the other hand, another baker in the same situation might have his or her conscience tell them that while it was not necessarily a good idea, that making such a cake might not be sinful.

I think those that say that she in order to be consistant, she would have to ask about the pre-marital sexual activity of those with “hetero” cake orders go to far. Their sin, if it existed, could be confessed and removed. (So could that of the gay couple). However, the ongoing sham of a marital union and the ongoing homosexual activity is ongoing sin, which would seem to demonstrate a “married” gay couples intent to continue in sin. When the “hetero” couple gets married, it no longer continues to be sin. Big difference.

Very few businesses would seem to be involved in such a way as a baker of wedding cakes in a homosexual couples celebration of their sinful relationship.

 

[Newbie2]

Yo, Swissboy…

Going over all this back and forth, I’ve come to the conclusion that it has to do with a person’s own consciousness and how they feel and how they perceive and interpret what “the right thing to do” is…

Some Catholics who have posted here feel it would be very Christian-like to bake the cake, and show the couple by example what it means to not judge and do unto others and love thy neighbor. And they would be giving this couple a lot of love by baking the cake.

Others feel that baking the cake would be telling sinners it’s okay to sin, and it would make them feel terrible to bake this cake.

To risk sounding “relativistic” (which seems to be a sin all unto itself!)…to each his/her own.
There is a case for both. I bet even priests would argue on this one.

I’d agree that one’s conscience needs to be consulted to decide what to do in such a situation. However, we cannot always rely on our consciences to be well-formed and will always leads to an objective morally correct conclusion.

In this situation, one cannot simply say that since their conscience told them it was OK to go ahead and provide a cake for this celebration that it was a morally correct thing to do. They could be correct, however, in thinking that they did the best they could to come up with a decision and may or may not be held accountable for it possibly being the wrong choice, that decision being up to the Almighty.

But yeah, “to each his/her own” is simplifying the matter to the point of relativism. This issue has to do with discerning the remoteness of the action (baking and providing the cake) from the sin, and therein lies the “argument”.

 

[Nate13]

LOL.
It’s amazing how these emails can be a game of broken telephone so easily…

Ugh.
Okay. I think you answered the question, anyway.

But just to make sure:

Even though the kid would be the child of a married, gay couple…you wouldn’t consider baking the kid’s birthday cake:

1. supporting the gay marriage…or,
2. supporting that gay couples can/should adopt children.

You would just consider it supporting the kid’s birthday, separate from what the parents are doing.

(Right?)

Your correct, you could keep digging deeper and deeper in to all sorts of indirect and partial meanings of the celebration. I think you can acknowledge that a wedding celebration has a much more direct correlation to immoral acts than a birthday party though. You can throw a fit about “what constitutes direct enough” in order to boycott it, but I’d ask you to just use your conscience. If your idea of christian charity is “here’s your cake, have a great wedding”, there’s a problem though.

I think a good point that hasn’t been raised though is whether or not this baker would provide a cake for a heterosexual couple if one of them was on their third marriage after a couple of divorces that were not annulled by the Church? Could this not be considered supporting adultery assuming the baker knew of the circumstances? This would probably be the biggest difference in that the homosexual marriage would be much more obvious as opposed to whether either of the heterosexual couple had been married before and whether or not that marriage had been annulled. Assuming the baker had the information though they would have to not bake them a cake considering the argument against baking a cake for the homosexual couple’s wedding, correct?

 

[Nate13]

Oh, I brought up that point AGES ago…probably on page one or two. I brought it up twice, maybe three times.
Not many posters addressed it as i recall…but one person said something about how the gay-marriage one was worse because it caused “scandal” and was a “public” support…whereas, others like no-annulment (and other examples i gave)…would not be obvious to the baker, or the public, so were less bad…

But i then pointed out that, if she indeed KNEW about it, she would still have to not bake the cake…else she’s be hypocritical just picking one “sin” to not-bake for…if there are others that are comparable…

Its a valid point and any baker who felt called to not bake a cake for a homosexual wedding should not bake one for a couple going on their third marriage after a couple divorces for unjust reasons. Like I said though I think the difference in practice is that a baker would very likely not know the circumstances behind a heterosexual couple’s marriage where a homosexual marriage speaks for itself. There also might be laws in place that would protect a divorced person from being denied a service for that reason. If laws are in place with monetary consequences that would have to be weighed against the severity of what was actually being asked.

 

[Newbie2]

Perhaps, unless she was operating under the assumption or even hope that sometime in the future the couple may seek annulment(s) from previous marriage(s).

Such a condition could never apply to a homosexual “union”, “marriage”, whatever one wishes to call it.

 

[Nate13]

Perhaps, unless she was operating under the assumption or even hope that sometime in the future the couple may seek annulment(s) from previous marriage(s).

Such a condition could never apply to a homosexual “union”, “marriage”, whatever one wishes to call it.

He/she should wait to be married until the annulment is given. Until that point it would be adultery. Your point is a small difference but is inconsequential. A better point might be can a wedding cake baker survive financially if they denied cake’s to divorced people in a civilization with a divorce rate near 50%.

 

[Newbie2]

He/she should wait to be married until the annulment is given. Until that point it would be adultery. Your point is a small difference but is inconsequential.

Perhaps, in terms of the baker’s appearance of hypocrisy.

Whether or not it is sinful in either case would seem to be a matter of a discernment of conscious, the remoteness of the sin of the homosexual or heterosexual couples’s sin being the crux of the matter.

 

[Nate13]

Perhaps, in terms of the baker’s appearance of hypocrisy.

Whether or not it is sinful in either case would seem to be a matter of a discernment of conscious, the remoteness of the sin of the homosexual or heterosexual couples’s sin being the crux of the matter.

Your point is based on the fact that you could never truly 100% know whether the marriage would end up being considered null and their relations adultery. Could you ever 100% know whether or not the homosexual couple intended on committing immoral sexual acts though? Either way in both cases you would have cause of scandal. On the one-hand you have a homosexual marriage that implies immoral sexual actions, and on the other you have a marriage that supports divorce/multiple marriages and neglects the need to receive an annulment before someone is available to marry again.

 

[Elizabeth502]

Regarding the differentiation between the girl’s birthday cake & the “wedding” couple’s cake:

There may be a theoretical distinction to be made, but in point of fact, the way that Gay Retail works is by reputation. Often there’s a caution exercised as a community, characterized by keeping purchases within the community when possible (first), and only patronizing those businesses outside of the community known to be “gay-friendly.” Often there are lists of these within the community. Separately, some businesses outside of the community advertise themselves as such (regardless of the orientation of the owners), so that they will be sure to widen their market, if that is a goal.

So, as a practical matter, generally only a “first attempt” at a cake for such a couple’s child, would be the “test case.” Otherwise, any baker who, it was discovered, rejected a “gay wedding” cake, would never be patronized by the local gay community for any other purpose either – whether birthday cakes, or any non-eventful purchase.

Sometimes gays in metro areas assume a kind of universal ‘blind tolerance’ of every lifestyle because of the nature of urban areas (diverse, etc.). But naturally that is not a guarantee that all shop owners share an indiscriminate acceptance of every imaginable lifestyle.

 

[catharina]

Slight non-sequitor…but do most Christians know that the cast-the-first-stone story was not in earliest and best manuscripts found and saved of John? That it was only found in versions much, much later, and that this is one of many reasons why top biblical scholars for hundreds of years believe it was added in later by scribes?

Your source for that non-sequitor?
Document that, please.