Gay Marriage as an attack on Christianity

I QUOTED you: "Love does not lie about sin, pretend sin is not sin, pretend sin doesn't take people to Hell, pretend marriage can apply to anyone other than male and female.." Message 671How is that not talking about sin? I'm not accusing you of anything. I'm just pointing out how the Bible disagrees with you.If I've misapplied the Bible, show us where.

The principle isn't the conscience. The principle is that one's conscience should override other people's freedoms. If you establish this, it can easily turn against you.As an example see the Christian displays in government buildings controversies. The principle set by allowing these displays tends towards allowing Satanists the same. Likewise, Christians being allowed to hand out Bibles in school sets a principle which allows Satanists and atheists to do likewise. If a further principle of 'Only the majority religious view gets these privileges' then a shift in demographics could leave the Christians disenfranchised.And I'll leave it at pointing out that survey results show that younger people are increasingly irreligious, and the younger Christians are increasingly in disagreement with your view of the religion. So said demographic shifts are a distinct likelihood.

It's a good thing that the Right never moralize. Why, I've never heard a Christian conservative moralize at all.

The law was passed before she opened her shop as far as I can tell. The law was passed in March 2007. She opened shop in the summer of 2007. Then you are basically saying no compromise is possible. Because the only compromise you'll accept is one where you 'win'. As long as someone considers what the gays are doing a wedding the bakers won't want to have anything to do with it, even if they aren't being asked to validate it as a marriage. Which seems to scream animus to me. If Christians {and others} weren't systematically being prejudiced towards homosexuals there'd have been nothing for the gay rights people to make anything of. And let me remind you that I'm arguing that that the subject is so often about what the gays are doing, how the gays are sinful etc., and seldom on other sins. Which is strongly suggestive that gays are being singled out and that animus is at play rather than the pretence about 'sin' and 'conscience'. Well its also to avoid the sin of fornication according to the Bible.So it isn't about the fact that gays are sinning, its because you disagree that what they are doing is marriage, but you won't be happy with simply not being mandated to call it a marriage, or acknowledge it as a marriage - you will only be content when you can impose your beliefs on others through acts of discrimination. Look you can call it what you want. If you want to think the gays are mistaken in thinking it is a marriage go for it. If you want to think the government is mistaken in calling it a marriage you are free to do so. If you think the gays are engaged in a secular partnership ceremony not a marriage that's absolutely fine.

And there Faith goes, complaining about people being kind to her.

Faith, you never disappoint.

Once the Supreme Court rules on something, then it is reasonable to incorporate that into the calculation. But when you just make up hypotheticals you are on your own.The Supreme Court at some future point could rule for or against any particular action being speech. In some cases the rulings about what is speech and what is not speech, (for example flag burning) are controversial. At this point, there is no ruling that baking a wedding cake is speech.

I think you need to drop this line. A small town baker would have absolutely no idea that his cake business would become part of all this. Now they might be more aware, but not then.

The argument was that the law came out of nowhere. The counter-argument that it did not seems perfectly valid to me.Further to this, the Klein's discussed the Masterpiece Bakeries cake a year earlier (the bakery that made a cake for a dog wedding, but refused the cake for a gay wedding in 2012) and had already decided they would act in contravention to the laws should the issue come to them, so even the argument that a business owner being ignorant of business laws applicable in their area at the time they were setting up their business ultimately falls over anyway.

There are two problems with this.1. You are not a small town baker emebedded in a fundamental Christian culture.2. You are sensitised to such matters and embedded in your LGBT culture. You know the law on this stuff, there's no reason they should. Particularly then.What seems perfectly valid to you is not necessaily perfectly valid to them. If it was there would not be this clash of cultures. If you're saying that the people involved in the original case knew before they set up their business that all this was going to be a problem and that they did it anyway, Then fuck 'em, sue their arses. But is that what you're saying?

I'm an English employee.
They were Oregonian business owners.They have much more reason to know what the laws and statutes with regards to conducting business in Oregon. This was an Oregon law on how a business should operate its trade in Oregon. They not only had a reason to know, they had a legal and ethical duty to know.Their response to learning a complaint was being raised, and the appropriate legislation under which they were running afoul to post the names and address of the couple on Facebook and talk about their 'brave stand' to Conservative media, proudly proclaim they would continue to refuse to serve same-sex couples and put up a sign in their window asserting this.

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(1) Except as provided in subsection (2) of this section, all persons within the jurisdiction of this state are entitled to the full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities and privileges of any place of public accommodation, without any distinction, discrimination or restriction on account of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, marital status or age if the individual is of age, as described in this section, or older.... It is an unlawful practice for any person to deny full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities and privileges of any place of public accommodation in violation of this section..

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Notice that discrimination will be made in place of public accommodation prohibited; age exceptions. Except as provided by laws governing the consumption of alcoholic beverages by minors, the use of marijuana items, as defined in ORS 475B.015,by persons under 21 years of age, the frequenting by minors of places of public accommodation where alcoholic beverages are served and the frequenting by persons under 21 years of age of places of public accommodation where marijuana items are sold, and except for special rates or services offered to persons 50 years of age or older, it is an unlawful practice for any person acting on behalf of any place of public accommodation as defined in ORS 659A.400 to publish, circulate, issue or display, or cause to be published, circulated, issued or displayed, any communication, notice, advertisement or sign of any kind to the effect that any of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, services or privileges of the place of public accommodation will be refused, withheld from or denied to, or that any discrimination will be made against, any person on account of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, marital status or age if the individual is of age, as described in this section, or older.

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When I worked in a bar I had to know a variety of laws related to the industry: weights and measures, age restrictions, prostitution laws and other things.When I worked in insurance I had to know a lot of random laws, but also Data Protection and consumer rights laws.Where I work now I have a bunch of other laws I need to be aware of.If you can't keep track of the laws that are relevant to your business, then running a business is probably not for you. My counter argument was to Faith. My point that I feel the counterargument is a valid one was to you. I think pointing out that the law did not come out of nowhere while they were operating their business as they had always done is a valid counterargument to the argument that the law came out of nowhere while they were operating their business as they had always done. I don't think the Kleins ever made the argument that it was a surprise.In addition, if food hygiene regulations changed while they were operating a business they have a duty to know them and if necessary, change their procedures. The Kleins - Sweet Cakes by Melissa - were in 2013, they were hit with a six figure compensation order due to the egregious nature of their behaviour, and their repeated verbal and written commitment to continuing to break the law after being informed of it.The Masterpiece cakeshop case was 2012, they weren't sued per se - in that there was no money or damages at stake Masterpiece was merely ordered to comply with the law, retrain their staff and provide reports tp demonstrate their compliance with the law. The Kleins were aware of this case before they made their refusal. They were, in effect, acting as Christian activists trying to win a case for religious rights of Christians to discriminate in public business operations - seeking media attention for their cause, fund raising on GoFundMe etc.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Oh get down off your horse - small retail businesses know the law on barely nothing outside stuff that directly affects them. And I'd worry about even that. They're running these little shops because they left school at 16 and believe the simple-minded nonsense they're taught in church.Even after all the fuss about bakers and gays, I'm prepared to bet that there are many businesses that still don't know that they can't refuse to sell something if it's discriminatory. I agree that this is an argument to continue calling them out on it. Well they would wouldn't they? they're believe dumb and bigotted stuff. The point where they put up signs like No blacks, no Irish, No gays etc is the point when it's pretty fair to say they know what they're doing and they need to be shown how wrong they are.Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

Once you remove the mote from thine eye. I'm pretty sure Oregon "Trade Practices, Labor and Employment" statutes directly effect an Oregonian business. BOLI seemed to agree. If they don't understand their duties as an operator of a business they should have hired someone who does. Or just worked in a bakery where the owners/managers there would teach them these things. Had they merely refused they would probably been simply told to comply with the law and maybe faced some nominal costs or fines. That's what happened to Masterpiece Cakes, and they were a bigger operation than the Kleins, and the Kleins were aware of the Masterpeice Cakes case - so again, they weren't even ignorant if you wanted to play the 'ignorance of the law is understandable' card. Because it's mean and unlawful. It's possible to believe dumb and bigoted stuff and not be mean and do unlawful things. However, another reason why they might not do it is that they were fined $135,000 and raised over $400,000 in donations and became 'Conservative Christian heroes'. Yeah, though I'd say it was quite a bit before that, like in 2012 when they agreed to take a stand for Christian values over the law of man if it ever came to them as it had for Masterpiece Bakery, and definitely they knew that publishing complainants names and addresses they knew what they were doing - and going on Conservative Radio .

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You know, it was something i had a feeling as going to come an issue and I discussed it with my wife when the state of Washington, which right across the river from us legalized gay marriage and we watched Masterpiece Bakery going through the same issue that we ended up going through. But, you know, it was one of those situations where we said 'well I can see it is going to become an issue but we have to stand firm. It's our belief and we have a right to it, you know'.

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I'm glad you seem to be agreeing with my earlier comment than their actions , and presumably the consequences of them, were not trivial. Such that the 'fuck you' comment doesn't apparently apply to you after all.The consequences to them were also not trivial. Though they made more money from it than they had to pay, so there is that.The consequences to Masterpiece and Ashers was a slap on the wrist and an order to comply with the law. A proportional response, I feel. Likewise with the token fine imposed on Stutzman - the florist who refused services for a gay wedding. Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

PaulK responds to me:

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The only viable alternative is to stop talking and have you accuse me of running away.

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You were running away already. By avoiding your own argument, you run away.

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Outright lying is hardly productive.

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So why do you do it?Or are you suggesting that when I quoted you directly and provided links back to the original posts so that people could see what you wrote to ensure that I was quoting you accurately, it was all made up? You didn't write what you were quoted as having written? That the links were not to the posts where you were quoted?You keep using that word, "lying." I do not think it means what you think it means.

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Except of course that you did not provide the context in that case.

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Except, of course, I did. That's why I included the link back to the original post so that it could be checked.I don't think you understand what the word "context" means, either.See, pointing out your exact words and providing the links back to them is not "missing the context" or "misinterpreting your words" no matter how much you stamp your little foot. So it would seem that even when you run away from your argument, you will continue to brazenly lie even when it is obvious for everyone to see.It is like arguing against Faith. See, I can sling the insults, too.

It is hard to respond to such stupid arguments.Faith responds to me:

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I put up a post showing that wedding cakes are usually very comp0licated affairs

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And I put up a post showing that birthday cakes are also very complicated affairs.And also pointed out that one of the pictures you put up as a "wedding" cake was actually a birthday cake.You argued that selling a birthday cake to a gay person wouldn't be a problem but that selling a wedding cake would be because of the complexity of making the cake...that somehow a birthday cake was a simple thing that didn't require any real effort on the part of the baker while a wedding cake required something more.But that is factually incorrect. Remember, Faith: I used to decorate cakes. I know exactly what is involved.There is no difference between a birthday cake and a wedding cake.

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because people were referring to them as if they were just ordinary cakes like one might make in your own kitchen.

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They are. You can make a wedding cake as fancy as any you have seen in your own kitchen. That's how a large number of bakers do it: They are contractors working out of their own kitchen. You've heard of Martha Stewart, yes? She's pretty famous for her lifestyle company. She got started doing catering, but her schtick was that she made it look like you did the cooking yourself. The company was called "The Uncatered Affair." What they would do is come to your house and collect your serving dishes. She would cook the food in her own kitchen, put it on your dishes, and bring it to you to serve to your guests.It was nothing you couldn't do for yourself...if only you had the time and skill to do it. Yeah, there is such a thing as industrial cooking equipment, but it's simply for volume and speed. There's nothing in an industrial kitchen that is beyond what you can do in your own home.A wedding cake is just an ordinary cake like one you might make in your own kitchen if only you knew how.

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This was to demonstrate that a custom wedding cake can involve a lot of time and skill on the baker's part.

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Just like a birthday cake. The fact that you are content with an 8" round, two-layer cake with hand-spread frosting doesn't mean everybody else is. The fact that many people decide to have a multi-tier cake with fancy decoration for a wedding doesn't mean everybody else does.A cake is a cake is a cake.

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So you come along objecting on such grounds as that wedding cakes can indeed be made in someone's kitchen. Oy.

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Yep. Your argument is predicated on the claim that there is something special about a wedding cake that makes it different from a birthday cake. Thus, if it can be shown that no, there is nothing special bout a wedding cake that makes it different from a birthday cake, then your argument fails.And, sure enough, there is nothing special about a wedding cake. You can make a cake as complicated as you might desire in your own kitchen. The only limiting factor is your knowledge of how to do it.Do you know how to roll out fondant? It's not hard but if you've never done it before, you'll need to be shown how. Do you know how to pipe a rose on a nail? Do you even know that you need a nail? Or do you? Do you really need something special to do it?

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Or that they CAN be found on a supermarket shelf or in the display case.

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Of course. A cake is a cake is a cake. The only limiting factor is what you're willing to put up with. After all, if there's only going to be 10 of you at the reception, what on earth do you need a four-tier monstrosity for? If you're saving your money, why spend hundreds of dollars on a cake?If your argument is that there is something about a wedding cake that no other cake can equal, that no wedding ever has a cake that is "lesser" than, then any evidence that points to the contrary disproves your assertion. And, indeed, that is precisely the case. There is nothing about a wedding cake that isn't matched by any other type of cake. And weddings don't require the fanciest of cakes.So we are left wondering why you claim that a birthday cake isn't a problem but a wedding cake is.

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Well I've never seen them treated so cavalierly but if they are then they don't engage the baker's conscience

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Well, here's a birthday cake: Why would replacing the "50" at the top with a wedding topper "engage the baker's conscience" such that a baker has the right to refuse to sell to someone? And if you were told that the "50" meant a wedding anniversary rather than a birthday, would that suddenly make it problematic?

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they can just be taken off the shelf to the checkstand without any to-do about what they are for.

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That's how many cakes are sold, yes. Why does that matter?

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And you go on about how birthday cakes can be just as elaborate as wedding cakes, which is utterly irrelevant

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You just said: That's the exact same situation as a birthday cake. You just argued that a wedding cake is different from a birthday cake because it "involves a lot of time and skill on the baker's part." So how does that mean a baker can refuse to sell a wedding cake but not a birthday cake when a birthday cake is the same?A cake is a cake is a cake.

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since birthdays aren't a problem for the baker's conscience and I already said gays can have elaborate birthday caies without a problem.

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Precisely. Thus, my repeated question which you have yet to answer:Here's a birthday cake: Why would replacing the "50" at the top with a wedding topper "engage the baker's conscience" such that a baker has the right to refuse to sell to someone? And if you were told that the "50" meant a wedding anniversary rather than a birthday, would that suddenly make it problematic?So what's the deal?

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You also brought up how easy it could be to change a birthday cake into a wedding cake by substituting a small ornament, failing to grasp the most minimal point that this is about the baker's conscience.

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Incorrect. I directly asked you what is it about the ornament that suddenly "engages the baker's conscience." It's the identical cake. What is it about the piece of plastic on top that "engages the baker's conscience"?

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As I thought about it I realized that such a minor change COULD be a problem for a Christian's conscience because the problem is about doing anything that supports a gay wedding.

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But why? What is it about that piece of plastic that makes it a problem? It's the same cake.

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It isn't about the cake

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Then why did you make all that fuss about the complexity of the cake? Why go on and on about whether or not the cake was pre-made or custom?

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it's about the baker's conscience which is engaged by his sense of personal involvement in it and by knowing the cake is for a gay wedding.

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And you aren't being hired for your conscience. You are being hired for your cake.Is a grocer allowed to deny selling food to a gay person if they know that it's going to be used for an anniversary dinner? Can they deny selling it to a caterer if they know the caterer is going to use the food for the reception of a gay wedding?

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I still think that's a pretty good way of understanding the principle here.

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But you haven't explained why. It all comes back to the question you refuse to answer:How does one "validate" a marriage? After all, you're not the one getting married nor are you the officiant performing the ceremony. You're just a salesman being asked to do your job just as you would for any other customer. If you open your business to the public, you don't get to complain when the public shows up. If you want to pick and choose your clients, then you need to establish your business as a private contractor, not as a public accommodation.Back to the race, question, Faith: Would a business be able to claim a "religious freedom" exemption from anti-discrimination laws on the basis of race? If an interracial couple came in asking for a wedding cake, would the proprietor be allowed to say, "No. God says the races shouldn't mix and I wouldn't want to 'validate' your marriage"?If that's a bogus argument when applied to race, why does it suddenly become legitimate when applied to sexual orientation?Or what about religion? Would a business be able to claim a "religious freedom" exemption from anti-discrimination laws on the basis of religion? If a Jewish couple came in asking for a wedding cake, would the proprietor be allowed to say, "No. God says Jews killed Jesus and I wouldn't want to 'validate' your marriage"?If that's a bogus argument when applied to religion, why does it suddenly become legitimate when applied to sexual orientation?

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I forget what all else you keep trying to make into an argument. It's all irrelevant.

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It's a simple question. The same one I've been asking since the beginning:How does one "validate" a marriage?

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All you are doing by now is harassing me with your irrelevant arguments.

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I don't think you understand what the word "harass" means. When you post in a public form that invites response, you aren't being "harassed" by having people respond to you.How does one "validate" a marriage, Faith?