
Re: Colorado Baker Targeted Again
Well, I mainly only read the New York Times, but it is considered left wing by most conservatives, and it was pretty fulsome about explaining both the stupid things the commissioners said and the SCOTUS response to that.
I certainly take the commission's point. Equal protection of the laws means people don't get to use their prejudices to discriminate against others, even if those prejudices are religiously based. That is pretty clear about discrimination against Jews and Muslims, for example, and I don't have a big problem with applying it to LGBTQ individuals as well. On the other hand, their job is to balance, as fairly as possible, the interests of the various groups in the society and the requirements of non-establishment of particular religious views (including "none"). Since we are talking about wedding cakes, not, for example, a place to sleep for the night, I think they not only did a poor job of that balancing but went overboard in lumping the case in with slavery and the Holocaust.
I think it almost rises to the level of harassment. The people seeking to test the limits of the law are honest believers in equal protection applying to anyone who serves the public. They feel that equal treatment is their right. They just have trouble seeing the question through any other lens, and therefore have trouble seeing the other principles that are also at stake.
Well, I am not sure this is equivalent, because the implied disparagement of other marriages has no equivalent in the case of someone who "just wants to be treated equally to others." But I do think these limit-testers have a serious empathy problem, perhaps born of the lack of empathy shown them for lo, these many decades.
But let's try this on. A gay-owned bakery is asked to help celebrate the occasion of a person "liberated" from the "sin" of homosexuality, through conversion therapy, by remembering the sixth anniversary of their liberation. Does anybody seriously think it would be wrong of the gay baker to say, "I can't do this!" ? Then why not cut the same slack for our religious baker? I mean really, is it that important to compel people to go against their convictions in this matter?