Thoughts on the gay cake case

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Bradski said:
We have to in all aspects of life. We couldn’t function as a society if we didn’t. We all make allowances. OK, there are some aspects of immorality that we shouldn’t accept - I wouldn’t invite the neighbor around for drinks if he was a known paedophile for example.

So are people justified in not baking a cake for a SSM? In my mind, absolutely not. But are people justified in making a stand for something in which they really believe? Most definitely yes.

Which means that I’ll give you a different answer to the problem depending on how the question is asked. Kinda frustrating…
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I would agree with you Bradski. We live in a diverse society and it is becoming increasing diverse. Some may be uncomfortable with that but things are as they are. In a diverse society we cannot insist and legislate for universal adherence to one religious tenet irrespective of what that tenet is. Such a society could only function as a dictatorship with no separation of Church and State. Thus, we make allowances.

As you rightly say there are some aspect of morality we should not accept. There are few who would invite a known paedophile to their home. In fact, there are many people we would not invite to our home and that is our right. Refusing to serve them in shop would be a different matter. The rational and compassionate would not wish to live in society where individuals are free to refuse to enter into a contract on the ground of race, gender, political opinion, hair colour, weight, height…I could go on.

The courts are not the makers and breakers of contracts and the law does not compel us to enter into contracts with individuals against our will, but neither does the law compel us to write a statement, sign a document or in fact sign a petition supporting a cause we do not agree with. Thus, what if a known paedophile requested we bake a cake comprising a slogan supporting abolishing the age of consent and a figures of an adult with a child?

lifesitenews.com/news/normalizing-pedophilia-abolishing-the-age-of-consent

I stress I am not making a comparison between paedophilia and same sex marriage. I am using this scenario to demonstrate using contract law covertly to promote a political issue.
 
minkymurph said:
…Thus, what if a known paedophile requested we bake a cake comprising a slogan supporting abolishing the age of consent and a figures of an adult with a child?

lifesitenews.com/news/normalizing-pedophilia-abolishing-the-age-of-consent

I stress I am not making a comparison between paedophilia and same sex marriage. I am using this scenario to demonstrate using contract law covertly to promote a political issue.
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Interesting link. Reading it, and some of its sources, leads one to discover the basis on which the APA classify various things as “disorders” various “orientations”.

Apparently the DSM-5 had described pedophilia as a "…sexual orientation or profession of sexual preference devoid of consummation, whereas pedophilic disorder was defined as a compulsion and is used in reference to individuals who act on their sexuality.”

Describing pedophilia as a “sexual orientation” suited the crazies who seek to do away with age of consent restrictions, but got the APA into some hot-water with others. The APA has now retracted their description and pedophiles are now said to be suffering pedophilic disorder, described as a ‘paraphilia’, which lumps it with such things as: exhibitionistic disorder, fetishistic disorder, frotteuristic disorder, sexual masochism disorder, sexual sadism disorder, transvestic disorder, voyeuristic disorder etc. What makes these things “disorders” is fascinating: it is that they (the sufferer) “feels personal distress or have a desire or behaviour that harms another person or involves unwilling persons or persons unable to give legal consent”.

So the thing that makes Pedophilia a disorder, rather than orientation, relates to whether the sufferer is distressed, or the “other party” could be harmed or can’t legally consent. It isn’t about the “nature” of the actual thing. I guess this can be, to an extent, explained by the fact that the state of understanding of these conditions and their cause is so poor. But it seems fragile. Sexual attraction to a person a little older than the age of consent is an orientation, and to a person a little younger is a disorder. And which it is would vary with a change of law as to the age of consent. 🤷

PS: Apologies for somewhat off-topic digression.
 
ThinkingSapien said:
I think those statements were being made to highlight a conflict that isn’t easily reconciled. People generally seem to express that the sentiment “stand up for what you believe” as being something positive. But thoughts on that seemed to be more mixed when people that are doing that have views that conflict with each other. IF a person is convinced that there is a moral problem with refusing to sell cakes for gay weddings then is such a person not acting in accordance with their convictions when taking an opposing position to those that refuse to sale?
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Actually, this issue might be more easily addressed when one considers the concept of Separation of Church and State. When there is separation by secular law, then all citizens are required to obey the secular law…or get it changed.

One cannot disobey the secular law for reasons of religious objections, with the exception of where the secular law allows for specific objections.

Thus, any business entity obtaining license to operate in the secular society, is obligated to follow the law as noted above.

This takes us to that old “gray area” of the dialog. Certainly, an individual business or citizen can choose to take on the secular law by petitioning for another acceptable religious objection to be added to the law. That business also takes on all the secular risk, including incarceration if the secular leaders decide against them.

In that case, the business or citizen has the choice to discontinue its business or engagement in that commercial activity to “honor” their religious objections.

That’s where we are today. It is a constant struggle because the term objection is very subjective in nature, or perhaps more correctly stated, is not agreed upon by the majority of the population.
 
Rau said:
Interesting link. Reading it, and some of its sources, leads one to discover the basis on which the APA classify various things as “disorders” various “orientations”.

Apparently the DSM-5 had described pedophilia as a "…sexual orientation or profession of sexual preference devoid of consummation, whereas pedophilic disorder was defined as a compulsion and is used in reference to individuals who act on their sexuality.”

Describing pedophilia as a “sexual orientation” suited the crazies who seek to do away with age of consent restrictions, but got the APA into some hot-water with others. The APA has now retracted their description and pedophiles are now said to be suffering pedophilic disorder, described as a ‘paraphilia’, which lumps it with such things as: exhibitionistic disorder, fetishistic disorder, frotteuristic disorder, sexual masochism disorder, sexual sadism disorder, transvestic disorder, voyeuristic disorder etc. What makes these things “disorders” is fascinating: it is that they (the sufferer) “feels personal distress or have a desire or behaviour that harms another person or involves unwilling persons or persons unable to give legal consent”.

So the thing that makes Pedophilia a disorder, rather than orientation, relates to whether the sufferer is distressed, or the “other party” could be harmed or can’t legally consent. It isn’t about the “nature” of the actual thing. I guess this can be, to an extent, explained by the fact that the state of understanding of these conditions and their cause is so poor. But it seems fragile. Sexual attraction to a person a little older than the age of consent is an orientation, and to a person a little younger is a disorder. And which it is would vary with a change of law as to the age of consent. 🤷

PS: Apologies for somewhat off-topic digression.
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Thanks for the analogy Rau. It is important to distinguish between a ‘disorder’ and an ‘orientation.’ Not to go too much off topic, but in my view the distinction between someone who is gay and the pedophile is those who are gay accept refusal and desire a consensual relationship. Pedophiles argue it is consensual when there is no evidence it is, and I would further argue they know it is not consensual.

To tie it in with the thread, refusing to enter into a contract with an individual on the ground they have an ‘orientation’ or a ‘disorder’ should not be lawful. Domestic violence is repugnant but it is not lawful to refuse to enter into a contract with perpetrators of domestic violence. Doing so does not constitute condoning domestic violence. Baking a cake with the words, ‘Support giving your partner a slap’ and figures depicting such a scenario would be a different matter.

Saying all this I think the McArthur’s were naive and should have played with the head. Had Gareth Lee ordered a cake absent of the characters and the slogan I would say they would have found it very difficult to refuse. As he ordered a cake with characters and slogan that he did, they could have offered to make him the cake but without the characters and slogan on the ground they don’t put slogans supporting any highly politicized issue on cakes.
 
One thing we have not yet discussed is the repercussion had Asher’s baked the cake. They would likely have found themselves equally embroiled in controversy. Knowing people in this part of the world as I do, they would probably have been ostracized by their own faith community, and called hypocrites by those outside in taking money for something they claim not to agree with.
 
minkymurph said:
Thanks for the analogy Rau. It is important to distinguish between a ‘disorder’ and an ‘orientation.’ Not to go too much off topic, but in my view the distinction between someone who is gay and the pedophile is those who are gay accept refusal and desire a consensual relationship. Pedophiles argue it is consensual when there is no evidence it is, and I would further argue they know it is not consensual.

To tie it in with the thread, refusing to enter into a contract with an individual on the ground they have an ‘orientation’ or a ‘disorder’ should not be lawful. Domestic violence is repugnant but it is not lawful to refuse to enter into a contract with perpetrators of domestic violence. Doing so does not constitute condoning domestic violence. Baking a cake with the words, ‘Support giving your partner a slap’ and figures depicting such a scenario would be a different matter.

Saying all this I think the McArthur’s were naive and should have played with the head. Had Gareth Lee ordered a cake absent of the characters and the slogan I would say they would have found it very difficult to refuse. As he ordered a cake with characters and slogan that he did, they could have offered to make him the cake but without the characters and slogan on the ground they don’t put slogans supporting any highly politicized issue on cakes.
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It may be important for the medical profession to distinguish between disorder and orientation, but the basis provided by the APA seems entirely utilitarian, much like the difference you describe. I don’t think the crossing of a criminal line, or not, is central to a medical assessment. But as I said, perhaps their distinction is the best they can do given nil understanding of what gives rise to these conditions.

I concur that commercial enterprises ought not be able to refuse service to customers without reasonable cause. Married, fornicating, pedophile or gay is not sufficient cause to refuse to take their money and handover product from the shelf. But, I can understand a videographer not wanting to take a job to produce a beautiful video memento for a gay wedding. I can understand that, but I accept that others do not. And on a balance of considerations basis, I think the law might reasonably grant the videographer that freedom. I can also understand why others feel he ought to be obliged to perform.
 
bjryman said:
This takes us to that old “gray area” of the dialog. Certainly, an individual business or citizen can choose to take on the secular law by petitioning for another acceptable religious objection to be added to the law.
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Or one could propose a secularized version of a religious law, or secular laws that make it more difficult to not adhere to some religious law, as was the case for the Blue laws. Not that I’m objecting to your suggestion, but mentioning that people have worked around similar systems before. My father complained about when I was a toddler he needed to purchase cough medicine but he could not; there was a law against selling any but certain types of goods on Sunday. This seemed to have been a law that was put in place to keep people from working on Sunday in accordance with the rules labeled as “The 10 Commandments.” Though if someone read the word of the law there’s no mention of the commandments. It’s not hard to come up with a secularized rule to enforce a religious restriction.
 
minkymurph said:
…they could have offered to make him the cake but without the characters and slogan on the ground they don’t put slogans supporting any highly politicized issue on cakes.
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Why would the fact that the issue is “highly politicized” be a legitimate ground for refusing to make the cake, but that doing so opposes individual conscience rights not be?

Isn’t this just political correctness surreptitiously weaseling in but wearing a slightly less obvious guise?
 
Peter_Plato said:
Why would the fact that the issue is “highly politicized” be a legitimate ground for refusing to make the cake, but that doing so opposes individual conscience rights not be?

Isn’t this just political correctness surreptitiously weaseling in but wearing a slightly less obvious guise?
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Not when you consider the political landscape of Northern Ireland, and the gay cake case must be considered against that backdrop.

To illustrate, I don’t know where you live but a lot of posters come from the USA. If you wore a Stars and Strips T-shirt, lapel badge etc. to work in America, I would guess it would not be an issue? In Northern Ireland Flags and Emblems are a highly politicized and highly contentious issue, and the Flags and Emblems Act does not permit wearing T-shirts, lapel badges etc. in the form of a flag or national emblem in the workplace. Political slogans would fall under the same category. Thus a bakery could quite lawfully refuse to bake a cake with a flag or political slogan on the ground it would be construed as support for a specific political ideologies, and they do not want that association to be made.

Certainly you can say it would be weaseling out of it, but there are times when discretion is the better part of valour.
 
minkymurph said:
Not when you consider the political landscape of Northern Ireland, and the gay cake case must be considered against that backdrop.

To illustrate, I don’t know where you live but a lot of posters come from the USA. If you wore a Stars and Strips T-shirt, lapel badge etc. to work in America, I would guess it would not be an issue? In Northern Ireland Flags and Emblems are a highly politicized and highly contentious issue, and the Flags and Emblems Act does not permit wearing T-shirts, lapel badges etc. in the form of a flag or national emblem in the workplace. Political slogans would fall under the same category. Thus a bakery could quite lawfully refuse to bake a cake with a flag or political slogan on the ground it would be construed as support for a specific political ideologies, and they do not want that association to be made.

Certainly you can say it would be weaseling out of it, but there are times when discretion is the better part of valour.
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I see. Northern Ireland seems a unique case, then.

On other hand, gay couples could show equal discretion and valor when going into bakeries, no?
 
Peter_Plato said:
I see. Northern Ireland seems a unique case, then.

On other hand, gay couples could show equal discretion and valor when going into bakeries, no?
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They could. They could have ordered a cake without the slogan and Bert and Ernie characters.
 
In relation to the above, this is what makes me think the bakery were set up. No doubt I will here through the grapevine if this was the case.

Think I’ll ask a taxi driver. They’re usually an authority on such matters. 😃
 
minkymurph said:
In relation to the above, this is what makes me think the bakery were set up. No doubt I will here through the grapevine if this was the case.

Think I’ll ask a taxi driver. They’re usually an authority on such matters. 😃
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It was made clear in court this was not the case. It was not a couple that ordered the cake but a man on his own who was a regular customer who was ordering the cake for an event (not a marriage)
 
minkymurph said:
Not when you consider the political landscape of Northern Ireland, and the gay cake case must be considered against that backdrop.

To illustrate, I don’t know where you live but a lot of posters come from the USA. If you wore a Stars and Strips T-shirt, lapel badge etc. to work in America, I would guess it would not be an issue?
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Actually, it could be somewhat of an issue but not likely to the extent it apparently is in Northern Ireland.
 
Benjamin12 said:
It was made clear in court this was not the case. It was not a couple that ordered the cake but a man on his own who was a regular customer who was ordering the cake for an event (not a marriage)
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Sorry I don’t understand.
 
minkymurph said:
Certainly the reasons why it may be an issue would be considerably different.
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Yes, the reasons would be quite different. But perhaps the gay cake case is not so different from what has occured in the U.S. The outcome of it might be of interest.

In the U.S. at least, one might have thought this issue was settled by the concept of “public accommodation” as it is understood in historic civil rights legislation. But it wasn’t. Both state and federal legislation prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. However, sexual orientation and gender identity were typically not addressed. Much later, certain local governments would pass legislation prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and in some instances gender identity.

During the spring of 2015, the issue became the subject of a much heated debate when the state of Indiana’s legislature passed what it called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. There was a history to this legislation, and many believed the law was primarily aimed at protecting businesses against lawsuits resulting from a refusal to accommodate gays. The basic argument was that such actions were protected by the Constitutional right of “freedom of religion.”

Maybe so. And if so, that is the difficulty for its seems the two basic rights have come in conflict. The issue first arose in Indiana several years ago when an Indianapolis baker refused to bake and sell cupcakes to a gay student group. The baker said homosexuality violated his religious beliefs and he could not in good conscience have any role in a gay-supported event. And he prevailed, since there was no local ordinance prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. But the issue did not go away. There was later a similar issue involving a caterer, and there were at least threats of lawsuits. Thus, last winter the state’s RFRA legislation was passed to protect such business owners. It is important to note that the legislation also had strong support from prominent religious leaders. When a national uproar ensued, the state maintained this was not the intent of the law at all. It then back-pedaled and passed legislation that supposedly clarified this, but it only provided that local ordinances prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation would prevail in any such disputes. The city of Indianapolis, however, has no such legislation. No matter–the controversy quickly faded anyway, or at least it did in the media. It had to. The Super Bowl would be held downtown the following week. Ironically, it was the larger business community, with the strong backing of the city mayor, that would prevail, and this was largely on the basis of “trust us”, we are not going to refuse to accommodate gays. And this was indeed the case. Small wonder–had the thinking been that hoards of homosexuals were going to descend on restaurant and bars, and perhaps bakeries too, wearing signs proclaiming their sexual orientation? But there was plenty of evidence that absent some remedy the RFRA would otherwise have had a very strong negative impact on local businesses.

Nevertheless, the legislation stands, and in Indianapolis there is no still no local ordinance prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. It doesn’t seem to matter and appears to be only a fringe issue. But it’s likely only a matter of time before some group develops the mysterious hunger for both politics and cupcakes. And it seems as though in a capitalist society, in the long-term, the larger business community rather than the rights of the individual (and indeed the rights of religious organizations as well), is destined to prevail.
 
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