A recent law passed in Indiana has put the state in an unusual spotlight. Proponents claim that their law uses essentially the same language as the 1993 federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) that passed with near unanimous support. However, one thing Indiana has done that the federal statute did not is expand the reach of the religious protections to include private companies and cases where the government is not involved. This has led some to claim that people can use religion to discriminate against gays and lesbians.
My sister recently sent me a link to a video and article in which a group went to a Muslim bakery and asked them to make a gay wedding cake. On hidden camera, the bakers refused, and told the person that a nearby grocery store would be willing to provide them service. The authors noted that this isn’t just a Christian issue.
My concern is that people can use religion to discriminate against others. For example, an Evangelical could refuse to make a cake for a Mormon couple on the grounds that Mormonism is not a Christian church, and they only provide services to Christians. Think this is far-fetched? Well, Jana Reiss noted in a recent post that she had been scheduled to speak on the topic of “Sabbath-keeping and gratitude”, two seemingly comfortable topics between Mormons and Evangelicals, but they group canceled because they learned she was a Mormon. Jana asked, “how could they not know from a two-second Google search that I am Mormon? It’s not like I’ve tried to be stealthy about my faith. I co-wrote Mormonism for Dummies, for heaven’s sake.”
I don’t think such discrimination is Christlike, and certainly doesn’t follow the Golden Rule. My sister, in defense of the Muslim bakers mentioned above, came back with a political, rather than a spiritual argument, saying
“we certainly can’t force evangelicals to “assemble” with a Mormon. (Freedom of Assembly). I also think that we shouldn’t force Christians or Muslims to make a cake for someone if the reason for the cake violates their religious conscience. As he stated in the video, they were willing to sell them other goods, just not a wedding cake. If someone wanted him to write something vulgar, he should be able to refuse to do so, without legal retribution. So, though it’s annoying that the evangelicals cancelled the event because of a Mormon, it is within their constitutional rights to do so and no one is suing anyone over it or trying to put the Mormon or the Evangelicals out of business.”
But using religion to discriminate is certainly going to be put to the test. As mentioned in this CNN article, “Bill Levin, founder of The First Church Of Cannabis, who argued on CNN that the law should protect his right to smoke pot.” Of course smoking pot is illegal in Indiana, and the reason RFRA was established in 1993 was because some Native Americans sued because they were fired from their jobs for smoking the drug peyote during a religious ceremony. Courts ruled against the Native Americans, arguing that religion wasn’t a good enough reason to smoke illegal drugs. RFRA was passed to protect religious rights of people like these Native Americans, as well as Muslim prisoners who want to wear beards while incarcerated because beards are a religious issue to them.
The irony here is this: “The federal law was written by two Democrats, Schumer and the late Sen. Edward Kennedy. Today, it is being championed by Republicans.” But Republicans are now split on the issue, and even Indiana Governor Pence is backpedaling, after initially defending the law. “Caught off guard by the intensity of the criticism, Pence on Tuesday called on state lawmakers to amend the Indiana law by the end of the week to clarify that it does not discriminate against gays. Conservative bloggers and religious conservatives across the country who last week praised Pence’s leadership on the issue lashed out at the governor for bowing to pressure.”
What is to be done to balance these issues? Some are pointing to Utah as a solution!
University of Illinois law professor Robin Fretwell Wilson loves the approach taken by Utah and thinks it can be a model for other states. Utah’s new law bans discrimination against gays and lesbians, while also providing exemptions for religious groups.
“The Christian ice cream shop is not going to turn away a gay couple,” he said. “A Christian car dealer is still going to sell cars to gay people. But baking a wedding cake, where you may have to take part in the ceremony or event, is something different.”
Is it? Many think Utah’s law will be the subject of a discrimination lawsuit, but it is nice to hear that it is certainly an improvement over Indiana’s law. Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, thinks that Utah’s approach is doomed to fail.
“I am afraid that there all kinds of unforeseen consequences for religious liberty,” he said. “I hope I am wrong.”
In an op-ed for USA Today, Boston University professor Stephen Prothero said. “I support gay marriage,” he wrote. “I support anti-discrimination laws protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) citizens. But I also support religious liberty. These commitments sometimes conflict. But it is a sad day when there is so little support for the liberties of US citizens, especially among liberals who should be their staunchest defenders.”
How should religion handle these issues? Someone on Facebook wrote “Jesus ate regularly with thieves and whores, and your telling me it’s against your religion to bake a cake for a gay person?” When the person received some pushback, she said “All I’m saying is that I believe that Jesus would make the damn cake.”
What are your thoughts?
Wheat & Tares 
A business serves the public–all the public. It’s different from a religion which serves a select group of people. I don’t think a baker has the right to deny anyone a cake that he makes available to everyone else. An Evangelical baker may not think Mormons are Christians and he isn’t comfortable making a wedding cake for Mormons–that’s discrimination. But it isn’t discrimination if an LDS person wants to marry a Catholic in an LDS temple and is told only Mormons are allowed to marry there.
The idea that you must check your morality if you want to do business quickly falls apart when it’s YOUR morality that is expected to disappear.
Such an argument supports the removal of all morality from the public sphere. If a Christian can’t say no to a gay cake, then neither can gays say no to producing anti-gay t-shirts, not can anyone refuse to cater a KKK party.
Is that really where we want society to go? In order to support yourself, you have to be a slave to someone else’s idea of what is right?
I sure recognize the conflicts in how I think and feel about this. I believe that a business owner has rights to serve the customer base he or she wants to. I also feel that the business owner’s morals would not be compromised, should they make a cake. I think I should be able to turn down jobs and not be compelled to do a job. I think everyone else thinks that too, really. People will use other excuses, I guess, like “my schedule won’t allow it.”
At the same time, I worked as a waiter and served alcohol. I take no credit for others drinking. I work with men and women who have sinned and I take no credit for that. I think mostly these business owners are taking a stand against something they are against. The funny thing is that their opposition is doing the same. Can’t we just allow for a disagreement and liberties for all, instead of trying to trounce on each other?
The more we lean on government to solve our problems things like this will invariably arise.
Heres a good example of where its headed given enough time.
I think harvards tuition is too expensive at 50k a year and the sat-act is very discriminatory. My religious beliefs are to have no money or brains and now they need to let me in so im gonna sue them…
I know its a far fetched and silly example but this is what happens when we want the government to solve our problems.
Christ was quite discriminatory in his sermons but universal in his service. Almost all of his parables described one group that got less blessings than the other like the 10 virgins, the man that hid his masters talent and so forth.
what harm is being done if a bakery refuses to bake a cake? If there is no harm being done, no one should be punished.
It’s important to note that the Utah anti-discrimination law does NOT address public accommodations (e.g., wedding cakes). It’s limited to housing and employment (both further limited by plenty of exceptions).
Public accommodations encompasses a huge range of activities. People seem to want to divide them into those that are too close for comfort and those that are impersonal. The more impersonal the service, the more likely people will support anti-discrimination laws. The more personal, the more angst and opposition.
The trick, of course, is that one person’s “impersonal” is another’s “personal.” I think making a cake that tastes yummy and is decorated with flowers, dots, etc. and either no words or just generic phrases (e.g., congratulations) is impersonal enough that a baker who offers these cakes to straight couples should also be required to offer them to gay couples. It has honestly never occurred to me that a commercial baker actually celebrates my birthday when they make a “Happy Birthday” cake. Why would the baker celebrate my wedding when they make a wedding cake?
I really am torn on this issue. I do think Jesus would have just baked the damn cake, but I don’t think he would have constrained all of his followers to do likewise. (Counseled, yes. Ordered, upon threat of fine or imprisonment, no.)
I tend to take the radical libertarian view on this one – a private business-owner should be free to be as big a damn fool as his/her conscience can stand.
A business is only a “public accommodation” because the law has defined it as such; the only reason the law was written that way was to give the government a lever to disallow discrimination by private businesses. This is circular and fundamentally specious, and it makes it ludicrous to hang one’s hat on the “public accommodation” definition. Changing something’s name to give you the “right” to order it around doesn’t change the nature of the thing. A business-owner chooses to “serve the public” because the public has money to spend, pure and simple.
Note that a private company is quite different from a government entity. A government baker, if such a thing should exist, should bake a cake for any comer – gay couple, Kluxxer, even a member of Congress or other unindicted criminal.
Whether or not a given individual’s actions are stupid or shortsighted or wrong or even counter to her own interests is not at all the same as saying they should be illegal. Ultimately, we’re never going to agree on what constitutes “moral” or “immoral,” and so those decisions, if they become law, will be imposed upon the politically weak by the politically strong, at gunpoint. Fine if you’re the top rail; not so nice once the tables are turned.
#7 – Icon, you hit the nail squarely. Government has, for all practical purposes, abrogated private property rights in the name of ‘equality’ or ‘fairness’, though it beggars credulity to believe that it’s consistent. Not that I believe it’d ever happen, but if a horde of bikers stomped into a notoriously gay bar and demanded service, and were refused, I somehow doubt they’d have many touted their ‘right’ to get plowed in such a prissy establishment. Now, if they went into the “Blue Oyster” (of the Police Academy films)…
Establishments that are truly ‘public’, for example, a courthouse, have to provide accommodations consistent with their function, since they are public facilities. Unlike in the erstwhile Soviet Union, however, which all too many in this forum old enough to know better so easily forget, not only so many of life’s ‘necessities’ but also its luxuries are provided in the private sector, on the basis of supply and demand. While we might debate all the livelong day about the ability of a gay couple to have their union given the same legal standing as the ‘traditional’ heterosexual couple, I see NOTHING, nothing, whatsoever, that the respective local, state, and the federal governments have any duty to ensure that gay couples are accommodated in their discretionary desires (e.g., have a grand wedding and a well-decorated cake to commemorate same) by whomsoever said couple calls upon. The free market works its magic in matters like these. In the case of the gay folks of Indiana, I’m sure they can readily find a pizzeria that will cater their social functions. The converse is also true. Said “Christian” pizza shop owners can, and likely do, have a issue with “Mormonism”, and if they feel uneasy or offended by LDS patronage, they should be able to decline same. Again, I’m sure there are a number of pizzerias that will gladly fulfill an LDS customer’s order upon payment. Folks, this is about as silly as one of Gloria Allred’s ‘windmill-tilting’ exercises, suing a Los Angeles men’s club to force admittance of women. Hello? By definition, what is it? A FREE association of males, for males ONLY. Ms. Allred was perfectly able to find a social club that didn’t discriminate by gender. Instead, the fools in my late, great state of Californi(cate), deemed to give this imbecile with a law degree time in court, and look at the result.
The issue should not be to balance ‘gay rights’ versus ‘religious rights’, or decide what is a bona fide expression of either. To do same is to commit the ultimate act of un-American servility…to beg of our ‘betters’ to rectify that which we don’t achieve satisfaction with in the free market place. Nice when we’re favored, not so nice when we’re not…hmm, seems we fought a HOT war (WWII) and the following ‘Cold’ one to prevail against powers that worked in that fashion.
AuntM—if you are talking about an out-of-the-box, grocery-store-style, generic birthday cake, the baker’s not. But wedding cakes are generally more artistic than that.
Speaking as an artist-for-hire, I get it.
Mem
there are some businesses where you have to sit down and agree to do business or not
SilverRain – I think you have illustrated my point. I was in fact thinking of custom cakes for both birthdays and weddings. Nevertheless, you too draw the line between something less personal (out-of-the-box cake) and something more personal (a custom cake).
You and I draw the line in different places because of our different experiences and beliefs. My main point is that we are both drawing the line across a continuum rather than between discrete categories.
I would also note that those with a more libertarian bent tend to believe no line should be drawn for private businesses and individuals either because they believe the market will take care of the issue (a naive and ahistorical position in my mind) or that the value of private party as a construct is too important to society that to sacrifice it for any anti-discrimination laws isn’t worth the cost (something I find hard to swallow).
I know very few hardcore libertarians, so the disagreements I face focus more on the issue of where to draw the line and the continuum vs. categories issue.
My description of libertarian positions in #11 are more general and not specifically in response to SilverRain.
And #11 should say, “the value of private property,” not party.
“I tend to take the radical libertarian view on this one – a private business-owner should be free to be as big a damn fool as his/her conscience can stand.”
I am in agreement with this idea as the free market is really in charge in spite of what government tries to do to change that reality.
The market will naturally gravitate to the most qualified or cost effective individual regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation. Wise employers will hire the best qualified individual regardless. Those that are not wise and hire based on arbitrary attributes will quickly chase themselves out of business.
The moral of the story is to make yourself valuable to any potential employer and quit fretting about these other issues.
Soon this will be a moot point, after the Supreme Court legalizes gay marriage and recognizes sexual orientation as a protected class. At this point the discussion is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
SilverRain #2 – I don’t think that people should have to “check your morality if you want to do business.” However, people’s morals differ and sometimes conflict. When it comes to businesses and individuals offering goods and services to the public, such conflicts are bound to happen. The question is how do we balance people’s different moral views in a common public sphere?
I don’t support anti-discrimination laws that would require anyone to speak or write words they don’t agree with. A baker who opposes gay marriage shouldn’t have to decorate a cake with “Hurray for Gay Marriage.” A baker opposed to the racist ideology of the hate group KKK shouldn’t have to decorate a cake with “Aryans Unite!”
I do think the baker should have to bake the same type of cake with the same type of decorations that they would create for and sell to others. If a baker sells cakes with generic phrases such as “Congratulations, [name]” or “Happy Birthday” or “Thank You,” then the baker should sell those same designs to gay people. straight people, racist people, sexist people, tall people, short people, people using wheel chairs…
I think this position balances free speech rights (a good thing) with anti-discrimination (another good thing).
Again, this doesn’t address the libertarian view that anti-discrimination protections are not actually good or at least aren’t as good as private property rights.
Legally speaking, I agree with brjones. The Titanic is sinking. Soon, those in the LGBT community will be a protected class.
Putting aside legal arguments, what is right here, and what is wrong?
I agree with those who pointed out that there is a difference between being asked to decorate a cake with a specific message on it and simply baking a cake. I would be happy to bake a cake that says “Gay Marriage Rules!” but I can respect a baker’s right to not make that cake. No one should be required to create an artistic message if the sentiment of that message bothers them. However, I think it is wrong for a baker to refuse to make a cake that doesn’t have any message on it, just because the person buying it is gay.
I personally like this articulate analysis of the cake issue. http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/03/critics-of-indianas-religious-freedom-law-are-trying-to-have-their-cake-and-eat-it-too/
What I don’t get is when did being gay become the worst sin? Would a Christian baker make a wedding cake for a couple who had been living together, or more extreme, a cake for a child molester? Just because they can hide it doesn’t mean you aren’t supporting a horrible sinner! If you won’t sell goods to sinners you’ll go out of business pretty quick.
I agree with your sentiment, Jayjay, with the caveat that I don’t think being gay is a sin at all.
I don’t either. I was speaking to that assumption most Christians have that is fueling this debate.
I figured that 🙂
@SilverRain:
Conversely, if people should be allowed free exercise of ‘their morality’, where does it end? THAT could be a pretty slippery slope. HOW are everyone’s rights to their morality balanced and WHO gets to decide where the lines is drawn?
What you allow for one, you must then justly allow for all. All of a sudden, we need more rules, more laws, more policies, more statutes outlining just how this is all going to do down, and I highly doubt everyone is going to be happy – especially the people wanting less government interference.
As for public vs. private… If you are a private person or business owner, but operating in the PUBLIC sphere, well, to me, that’s pretty ‘public’. And the thing is, this whole thing isn’t really JUST an issue as far as businesses are concerned. It’s also an issue when it comes to religious employers and health coverage, as well as health care providers having ‘religious conscience’. This whole religious liberty thing is far reaching and has some seroius consequences.
There’s no question this is tricky stuff and there is much to be said from either perspective that has to be considered. In the end, for me, it all comes down to reducing actual people and complex human lives to a single dimension. There’s no way that can be productive or constructive.
Why are we willing to be manipulated into taking “sides” on one question or another instead of finding our humanity and operating as members of a community? Who is pushing us all around by these “wedge issues”? And why are we willing to be so narrow minded anyway?
There was a time when people managed to get along without dissecting one another’s beliefs, morality and lifestyles. I am, more and more and more, preferring that to religion and politics.
“What you allow for one, you must then justly allow for all. All of a sudden, we need more rules, more laws, more policies, more statutes outlining just how this is all going to do down, and I highly doubt everyone is going to be happy – especially the people wanting less government interference.”
I think, actually, the opposite is true. We end up with reams of legislation when we start trying to legislate people’s behavior on a micro scale. Look at what happened with a stupid cake. First we get legislation/statutes requiring buinesses and individuals to adopt certain behaviors that they find objectionable. Then we get new legislation in response to the oroginal legislation exempting some, but not all, from engaging in objectionable behavior. Then we get MORE legislation clarifying THAT legislation. On and on and on it goes.
Or, we could just allow people to live their lives as they see fit. Afterall, a baker’s unwillingness to publicly support a cause or behavior with which he disagrees does not in anyway negate your right to support or engage in that cause. One baker refusing to bake a cake does not prevent a couple, whether gay or straight, from marrying. A lack of a cake from that specific bakery does not reduce the legitimacy of your union in the eyes of the law (assuming your marriage is recognized to begin with-another issue entirely). Cake or no cake, you still get all the same protections and rights as any other legally married couple. On balance, it would seem the only one whose rights have been violated in this case is the baker.
This has become an issue primarily because the Alliance Defending Freedom, a group of lawyers from the late Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, desperately wants to establish case law to circumvent marriage equality by allowing businesses AND government to disregard the marriages of same sex couples. Just to give you an idea, ADF lawyers have circulated memos to southern state court clerks, telling them it’s their “Constitutional right” to refuse to issue a marriage license to same sex couples, no matter what the actual law of the state is on that subject.
The ADF has been stirring up Christian small business owners with the idea that they can become martyrs for Jesus by refusing to serve gay or lesbian customers. They tell undereducated individuals that they will defend them in court for free, and then they milk the case for every bit of publicity they can. Never mind the fact that the ADF has a perfect record in winning such cases—perfect as in ZERO.
To give you an idea just how credulous these “poor victims of the gays” are, a local newspaper began contacting two Oregon bakeries which had denied service to gay couples, asking for price quotes on other types of cakes—-cakes such as one to celebrate a divorce, one to celebrate a second child born out of wedlock, one to celebrate the award of a grant to fund stem cell research for human cloning, and one with a big green pentagram for a pagan solstice celebration. In each case, the same bakeries who had declared themselves too pious to serve gays gladly began planning and price-quoting for these other “sinful” cakes. It’s a propaganda game, pure and simple.
By the way—I’ll believe that a Christian is “supporting” or “contributing to” homosexual behavior by baking a cake, as soon as everyone admits that a firearms dealer is “supporting” and “contributing to” murder when they sell a gun that is subsequently used in a homicide. (In other words, when Hell freezes over.)
The question is and will remain, “Where does one draw the line?” All of a sudden the self-righteous draw a line in the sand regarding the unwillingness to make a cake for a SSM they consider sinful when they probably never refused a cake for any other “sinful” occasion, as Nick has pointed out. There is no test for legitimate baby shower, virginal wedding receptions, honest birthday celebrations, or other occasions. So why SSM?
Well, you know why.
Some of my friends, who are in business take the attitude, “What, their money is no good? I am in business to make money, not judge people’s morality or preferences.”
Whether I support it or not is not the issue. Heck, I’d never sell a cake to a Tea Party member or a gun owner. 🙂
Nick, though I have precious little sympathy for the so-called “Liberty” University (is there a “Tyranny” U?) with their peculiar Evangelical Christian agenda, their cause for freedom is just (if not their tactics).
As I’ve pointed out numerous times in this and other blogs, getting Government involved in what ought to remain private consensual decisions (gays to live together as a ‘married’ couple, bakers to serve them or not, etc.) is the greased chute to tyranny, with various groups either agitating for favor or resisting oppression.
An interesting commentary on ‘equality’ comes from Rush’s “The Trees” and pay particular attention to the ending verse.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trees_(Rush_song)
Artists should be able to refuse a commission. This includes photographers, cake decorators, and the like.
Also, there is a conspicuous difference between refusing to serve an entire class of people, and refusing to participate in certain events.
While I couldn’t say whether or not Jesus would bake a cake for LGBT, based on my reading of the Gospels, I expect he would refuse to bake a cake for Gentiles, unless they showed sufficient faith in him first.
I am quite certain, given that Jesus was a peasant carpenter, that he often made things for gentile Roman citizens with whom he had major theological differences To argue otherwise is to completely misunderstand the world in which Jesus lived.
#32 – Since he commended the faith of a Roman Centurion (who otherwise wouldn’t likely be popular in Judea), the Savior was not adverse to dealing with Gentiles. But He also taught not to give ‘that which is holy’ to ‘dogs’ (unbelievers).
It’s still not the same as whether a cake decorator should apply his or her talents to a wedding cake(s) for a gay ceremony. If the decorator, being somewhat of an artist (hopefully not the BS kind), feels uneasy or that (s)he could sincerely not render the best effort; (s)he ought to be able to decline.
In re. #32, in which MH says rightly I am quite certain, given that Jesus was a peasant carpenter, that he often made things for gentile Roman citizens with whom he had major theological differences To argue otherwise is to completely misunderstand the world in which Jesus lived.:
Yes, true. And I may be splitting hairs, but liberty is a matter of splitting hairs. There is a world of difference between what Jesus, Inc., Messianic Carpenter, might have actually done “of his own free will and choice” vs. what he was legally compelled to do.
I think Jesus would bake the cake. I would bake the cake. I think those who wouldn’t are a little silly, and certainly poor businesspeople. But I defend their right to be that way. I would not coerce them to act correctly; I would convince them to feel and believe correctly – “by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; by kindness, and pure knowledge, without hypocrisy, and without guile.” I trust that will drive their actions.
If it does not, I will recall that I am in the business of winning souls, not compelling behavior.
#29:
As I’ve pointed out numerous times in this and other blogs, getting Government involved in what ought to remain private consensual decisions (gays to live together as a ‘married’ couple, bakers to serve them or not, etc.) is the greased chute to tyranny, with various groups either agitating for favor or resisting oppression.
I fully understand that there is, in our current political climate, a certain strain of thought wherein alleged property rights trump all else—where individuals and businesses should be heartily supported in their efforts to discriminate against others on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, or gender identity. Such theorists are, of course, welcome to their opinions. I personally cannot support such a position, since I consider it incompatible with my basic sense of justice and humanity.
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