(07-01-2016, 07:37 AM)Anthony Wrote: "Force those beliefs"?
If a baker goes to jail because s/he won't bake a cake for a same-sex wedding, who's forcing what beliefs on whom?
Yet this opens the door for the compromise that will end this battle in the Culture Wars once and for all: Pass ENDA, which would ban job, housing etc. discrimination against gays nationwide - but in return allow people of faith to opt out of aiding and abetting same-sex weddings, and also defund Planned Parenthood so that people of faith don't have to subsidize, with their tax money, something their beliefs teach is murder (and not for nothing, but did Exodus International ever receive government funding?).
...and what if that baker refuses to make a cake that depicts a mixed (black and white) couple getting married?
If I own that bakery the only compromise that I might make is putting the candles or plastic objects depicting the mixed-race or same-sex couple on the cake myself, or squeeze out the names "Adam and Steve" on the cake myself, if necessary. But as the owner of that bakery, I would fire a a baker or froster who does a bigoted stunt that can cost me some income or put my shop at the risk of some legal sanction for discrimination. It is my belief that I can do any business that I can do that is legal and profitable is my right.
And, yes, if the customers for that cake so insist, then the cake will be kosher. Obviously, such would preclude the use of pork lard in making the cake.
The baker would not have to go to jail. He simply would never work for me again. It is not up to my employee to choose how I deal with race, religion, or homosexuality.
...Now if the celebration is about some underage girl having a two-year anniversary as a prostitute of some pimp, I have the right to report the request to the local police. I might make the cake and arrange for the pimp to pay for and pick up the cake, and arrange for a police officer to arrest the pimp and rescue the girl. But that reflects my values -- I have a legitimate contempt for underage prostitution, which is part of a criminal activity. I will allow a little insult to my sensibilities to aid in the suppression of a horrible crime. I doubt that any pimp would be that stupid as to trust me... but I do not own a bakery anyway.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.