Where should there be "The right to refuse service"?

How odd. Here I'd gone all these years thinking that one of the rationales for not having government censorship was that ideas should battle it out in the intellectual marketplace. That bad ideas would be argued against, scorned, laughed at, and be left to wither and die on the vine. But now, apparently, when an idiotic idea is in danger of dying I have to water it, and nurse it, and help it survive?Once again, I am pretty sure you are equivocating or misunderstanding the concept of "protect" as it applies to other people's speech. In another post you mentioned control of media and the news by larger interests. If someone is pushing a hateful idea that is propagating through the concerted efforts by just such forces, how would your stepping up to facilitate its spread be advancing the cause of free speech?

Coercion is not free speech.Sorry but the two words are not synonyms. And I have never denied that corporations are controlled by moneyed groups of people or that they are not capable of coercion.

If I am a printer then I see my duty to be printing what the client wants.What is so difficult about that?

True. Very sad IMHO but true.Further, I really don't see much hope of that position getting reversed at least in the US as it exists today.

Any message anyone wants to get out is speech and absent some qualifiers related to content, there is no reason for classifying it as un-free speech. If a corporation pays its employees to deliver such speech, absent criminality, there would not seem to be any freedom issue with them doing so. In fact the pay to print idea is no different from what happens to you when you own a print shop. Your claim of coercion is just a smoke screen to cover the fact that you don't like the results of corporate free speech. In fact, it seems you would prefer that the corporations be denied the right to speak.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Corporations have always had the power to use threats to get what they want. They can as they did in Indiana use that power.Free Speech does not involve coercion. When speech includes threats (kill someone, take jobs away) then it really is coercion and not just free speech.I know of no way to prevent corporate coercion other than by State Criminal charges but that alone seems to indicate that there is a difference between coercion and free speech.And yes, I freely admit I would certainly prefer to limit businesses rights to speak.

The 'I was only doing my job' defence sounds vaguely familiar.Oh yes, 'I was only following orders.' That situation ended well didn't it?

So do unions, large groups of consumers, and individual wealthy folks and in some cases even small groups of purchasers at a local business. None of that gives the rest of us the right to tell those groups to shut up when they speak freely. Would your position be that the Montgomery bus boycott was a threat that deprived the perpetrators their right to free speech? I suppose you would have to hold that position to be consistent.A threat not to buy from Indiana or not to spend money in Indiana or not to locate your business there is effective, and that effectiveness comes from promises that are entirely legal and above board.In short, your support for free speech is easily seen to be a sham. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : "purchasers"

You're talking about baking cakes n'shit.

I think that it would be great if hate speech and the hatred and bigotry that generates it. died out.

I'd wondered what would happen if someone asked a Muslim bakery to make a wedding cake for a gay wedding, and someone did. Guy pretends to be gay asks for cake at Muslim bakery:

I think some interesting points are raised by that video.Anyone who has read the Multiculturalism thread knows that I am in favor of people adopting the superior values of western secular society, but I am not in favor of forcing people to adopt these values unless there is some good reason to do so (such as it being a matter of public safety, etc.).It's possible that laws requiring a baker to bake a cake for a gay wedding forces on them certain cultural values which they do not approve.On the flipside of this, a business opening its doors to the public (with all the economic/business benefits that provides) perhaps also opens themselves up to regulation by the public (i.e., the government).There's a middle ground somewhere. But I think there is too much scowling coming from both sides of for anyone to find it.I raised some of these issues in Message 376.

Really!? Of course a muslim could have a problem with making a gay-wedding cake! What this video shows me is that those muslims are way smarter than you are, as well as the christians involved in this mess. It fully supports the points I've been making on this topic and doesn't contradict any of them either.Both of you groups, the christians involved in this mess and the muslims in the video, don't want to make gay-wedding cakes, but the mulslims in that video realize that they "cannot descriminate against a protected class", which includes the gays by law. So instead of saying that they don't want to make the cake because he is gay, they just say that they don't want to. They are even so kind as to point him to another bakery that is willing to make his cake for him.Now, that is a big hole in the opposition's argument that this is some kind of pro-discrimination law, as the host of the video points out.He makes some other decent points that I don't disagree with, but I will point out where you are wrong about this and support it with your own video. Here's a breakdown:Within the first 8 seconds, the host asks if he can make a cake that has no picture but says "Ben loves Stephen forever" and the baker is going "yeah, yeah, yeah", but then the hosts asks about "having their hands holding" and the baker immediately says "No." He has a clear line drawn in the sand that he is not willing to cross. More on that later.Within 30 secs in, the host is explaining that these new laws simply allow the businesses to retain their right of refusal, which I agree with having.Before 40 secs in he points out that some muslims are willing to kill you for being gay.He acknowledges that you would bake a gay person a birthday cake, and makes the point that you are not just discriminating against gay people in general, which I also agree with.Then he goes on that you also have the right to not make a cake for a gay-wedding, as I've continued to argue in this thread. See Message 105 from almost a year ago. You just tell them that you don't feel like it.He makes this same point, by saying how its not about civil rights, just before 1:30, he even mentions telling them about another shop down the street (like the muslims in the video did).He says that the laws are not about the right to discriminate against people, but instead are about the right of the business to choose its customers.I've always supported that, as evidenced by my posts in this thread. If you don't want to perform the service of your business then don't. What I've disagreed with is breaking the law by saying that you aren't going to perform it because the customer belongs to a protected class. "I won't do it, because you're gay." That's where the line is drawn in the law.If you can just not do that, then you can run your business like anyone else. The problem with you, as well as the christians involved in this mess, is that you can't keep your mouth shut about why you are discriminating. Its not the discrimination itself, per se (especially if there's an alternative down the street), its about you proclaiming that you won't serve the gays.Anyways, this is where he goes on to fulfill your "what would a muslim do" fantasy.The first response shown in the video is the mulsim saying that he can go to Kroger to get his cake. That's an honerable response to not wanting to make a gay-wedding cake. A dishonerable response would be announcing to the world that you don't make cakes for gay-weddings.The second muslim in the video also informs him that he can just "go across the street".It goes back to the first baker and he just sais: "No, I don't want it." That's reasonable and acceptable in my opinion. Again, if he'd said: "I don't want it, because you are gay." then he would have crossed that legal line. Notice how none of the muslims in the video never do that.Then, at 2:43, he asks him: "How about no picture, but it says Ben loves Stephen forever" and the muslim baker is going "yeah, yeah, yeah", and then it is only when he asks about having their hands holding and that's when the muslim baker says no. Again, he has a clear line that he is not willing to cross.And its not a bad line... he doesn't seem to have a problem with making a cake about two men loving each other, he has a problem with depicting it. That's actually consistent with mulsim views on art and depictions, in general.At 2:57, the same guy even says "yeah" to having the writing of two grooms.At around 3:15 he does seem to finally deny just make the writing of two grooms forever, but I hope you can be honest that he was being pretty nice about the whole thing?Then the host goes on to talk about how it only took "one lawsuit" for the christians to get in trouble despite all the muslims also not want to make gay-wedding cakes, and tries to act like the christians are getting disriminated against as well.He talks about the Left over-arching and over-reacting, which you also won't get disagreement from me about.Then he agrees that the muslims weren't even wrong in the first place (which I agree with), and claims that THAT is the issue.Obviously, the argument at 4:40 that "the photographer should not go into business" is wrong if we're just talking about not performing the service, but he clarifies that its about "if you cannot treat people in the same way". (The difference, that the muslims were smarted enough not to cross, is the difference because "I don'want to" and "I don't want to because you are gay") Treat everyone in the same way like if you don't want to then you just say you don't want to, you don't tell them that you don't want to because they are X.Then the host makes the mistake if thinking that just not performing the service is the issue and that it is about agreeing with the opposition in every way, i.e. "100%", and therefore you don't have the ability to do business.But that is where you and he go wrong. You are free to not bake cakes like the mulsims wouldn't, what you aren't allowed to do, as the proprietor of a public business, is refuse service based on a protected class.Can you understand that difference? I've explained it over and over in this thread, look at my message history.As far as "only being allowed to speak how "we" allow you to speak", yes, that is one of the limitations of running a business.What this video showed is that the muslims get it, and will talk the talk (all the while still technically discriminating), but the christains don't get it and cannot keep their mouths shut.You can discriminate all you want, you just can't tell people that you are discriminating against them because they belong to a protected class.Its not that complicated. Get with the program like the muslims in that video did. Stop making christians look so stupid.It doesn't matter if you can't serve gays, you just can't get loud about it.

You could be right. Maybe all the Christian businesses need to do is say they don't want to do it, no explanations needed. I doubt it but it's worth a try.

Didn't anyone listen to the gay guy when asking for the cake? Was he there to get some generic wedding cake with silver wreaths and silver bells or whatever they put on wedding cakes these days?No.He asked, specifically, for a gay theme, for gay decorations. He was asking for the baker to "speak" (through the art the baker would create with the frosting) a specific political view.Does no one understand this?If you refuse service cuz you don't like fags then you are not just wrong, you are going to get your bakery sued right out from underneath you. And so you should.If you refuse service cuz the customer wants you to speak against your conscience then your refusal is not just right, you can flip him the bird as he walks out the door.There is the dividing line.What the video did was not proper. In this controversy this was a set up. Entrapment. A lie.It was not a gay being refused a cake. It was a baker refusing to speak against his conscience.