Oh here we go – “they are persecuting me because of my faaaaaaaaith when I all I want to do is say God hates everyone I disapprove of.”
A Colorado bakery is under investigation for religious discrimination after a baker refused to write anti-gay words on a cake.
In March of 2014, a customer named Bill Jack requested several cakes in the shapes of Bibles from the Azucar Bakery in Denver, Colo., according to the bakery owner, Marjorie Silva.
Silva says Jack pulled out a piece of paper with phrases like “God hates gays” and requested her to write them on his cakes.
A Fred Phelps wannabe; just what this world needs.
“After I read it, I was like ‘No way,'” Silva said. “‘We’re not doing this. This is just very discriminatory and hateful.'”
In a statement to 9NEWS Jack said, “I believe I was discriminated against by the bakery based on my creed.”
As a result, Jack filed a complaint with the Civil Rights division of the Department of Regulatory Agencies.
I’m betting that’s what he did it for. I’m betting it wasn’t his little nephew’s birthday, I’m betting he didn’t order that cake for his little nephew’s birthday, I’m betting he ordered the cake in hopes of being refused so that he could make a stink and get attention. Ok, Bill Jack, we see you. You’re an odious little turd.
Jack is a founder of Worldview Academy, which is a “non-denominational organization dedicated to helping Christians think and live in accord with a Biblical worldview,” according to the organization’s website.
Jack’s biography on the website says he is currently an educator who used to teach in public schools in the past, adding that he has appeared on numerous national radio and TV programs.
An educator? I seriously doubt that. I seriously doubt that he ever educated anyone.
Gotta take a look at that “academy”…
The guy was clearly trolling for a lawsuit.
Legally speaking, it’s not so cut and dry, but the bakery in this case still stands a good chance of prevailing.
@1: Yes, I have a bit of an argument going on at Deacon Duncan’s. I’m not clear on what the law says. Can a customer demand any old thing that’s within a business’ normal line of work, and if they refuse that’s discrimination? So legally speaking “God Hates Gays” has the same status as “Best Wishes On Your Wedding Day John and Mark” has the same status as “Happy Birthday”? Or what?
I’d say it’s pretty straightforward. There’s no religious discrimination going on. I don’t think the baker cares about Jack’s religion. I’m sure they can easily get a list of dozens or hundreds of christian customers that they have happily served in the past, and possibly examples of cakes that explicitly mention religion. They wouldn’t have made an anti-gay cake with or without the reference to god, and if they didn’t know the religion of the customer.
So let’s see. The bakery refused to commit a hate crime. How is THAT a crime??
@3: I assume Mr. Jack-Ass (yeah, I’m going there) is trying to make an equivalence with the cases of bakers/photographers/planners/etc. getting in trouble for refusing to service same-sex weddings. My understanding (which may be wrong — I am, after all, not a USAian. Not that those who are are universally clued in either) is that the laws being invoked goes back to the days of “Yes actually, you do have to serve blacks at your lunch counter, asshole”, which established that businesses are not allowed to discriminate among classes of customer. So gays, blacks, Jews, Christians, Muslims — everyone gets their wedding cake. But that law says nothing about the baker being required to make any particular kind of cake, with any old message on top. So Mr. Jack-Ass can have his Bible-shaped cake — but not necessarily with bigotry on top.
Am I on the right track?
Eamon,
I don’t know the law, either, but if the business undertook to write customers’ messages upon cakes without further disclaimer, I think there should be a case to answer — but nothing to do with religiosity.
But even then John, most businesses running a service or making a product to customer specification – T-shirt printing being a commonly used example – have final say over the resulting product.
This guy makes James O’Keefe seem honest and forthright.
I’m guessing the non-discrimination law doesn’t mean a provider of goods or services is obliged to produce, say, pornography or graphic images of dead (etc.) bodies to order … and might that also cover hate speech like this?
I had to deal with this when I worked briefly in a print shop. The owner was a nasty sort who printed up all the flyers for the local neo-Nazi hate groups. I asked him whether he was obliged to print flyers for anyone who asked, even if they were, say, a Jewish organization. He shrugged and said that he supposed he could, but he didn’t want to alienate his steady business by doing so. I only stayed there after that until I found another job.
“adding that he has appeared on numerous national radio and TV programs.”
I wonder if that means in the context of “Today, a protester identified as Bill Jack disrupted a local funeral service…”
I’m confused. What possible use would the phrase “God hates gays” be on a birthday cake for a little boy?
One wonders how many bakers he went to before finding this lady to victimize – and it is rank victimization. I see two issues here: one is that she did not refuse to bake him a cake or cakes. Public accommodation law requires her to bake him a cake regardless of his race, religion, height etc etc. However she would not put a homophobic message on any of her cakes for anybody, again regardless of race, religion, height etc etc. There is NO discrimination here against Jack. As he will find out the law requires the baker to bake a cake for anybody who orders one but does NOT require the baker to put messages, pictures, ideograms, reproductions of cave and cliff paintings, pietas, ‘fuck you’ messages or anything else on it, no matter what teh cusrtomer wants. I’ll see if I can find the precedent which IIRC was from Colorado too.
The question to be answered (by a judge in this case) is, is refusing to put on the cake the same as refusing to make the cake. If the answer is no then the case ends there. My tealeaves seem to say that the answer will be yes. This still doesn’t mean that the baker has to make the cake, it just means that a set of followup questions will be asked.
It would be interesting to see who owns the cake until Jack collects is and if that means that certain actions done to the cake can be refused.
Sailor your argument reminds me a bit of the following: “There is no discrimination here no one is allowed to marry outside their race”, so I expect there to be more to that case then you remember (but that I expect will apply here as well).
I am not a lawyer (as we used to say on Usenet), but what it looks like from here is that it might be illegal discrimination if the bakery was willing to write “God hates breeders” or “God hates the English” but not “God hates gays.” Ditto if a business was willing to make “God hates gays” cakes but not ones that said “God hates Methodists” or “God loves gays.”
“Best wishes on your wedding day, Mark and John” isn’t parallel to those hate messages, it’s parallel to “Best wishes on your wedding day, Mary and John.”
@Who Cares: suggest you read my post again then; you didn’t get the point at all.
BTW:http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/baker-faces-complaint-refusing-anti-gay-message-cake-28394429?page=2
It is the same Judge Spencer who found against another bakery for refusing to make a cake for two men who wanted to celebrate their wedding.
They’ve got to be carefully taught.
Are publishers required by law to publish any book brought to them by an author?
I’m afraid this asshole has made an important point. The nondiscrimination principle has to work both ways. If we want to demand that a cake-decorator make cakes expressing beliefs she finds offensive, then we must also demand that a cake-decorator make cakes for expressing beliefs she finds offensive. In a society where thoughts are supposed to be free, how can we legislate what is offensive and compel people to publish what is defined not to be?
Snark: I think the answer to this conundrum has been made plain by states such as Utah, Oklahoma, an Florida. To prevent some people with the wrong political agenda obtaining benefits, we must eliminate the benefits for all people. Rather than let some gay coupes or some homophobes order custom cakes, we should immediately ban all cake-decorating services. Problem solved.
“…non-denominational organization dedicated to helping Christians think and live in accord with a Biblical worldview…”
Someone doesn’t understand what words mean.