Homosexuality and Evo, Creo, and ID

Then you go on to misinterpret the point about the wedding cake. It really shouldn't be that hard to figure out. A wedding cake is a specially ordered service that is specific to the celebration of a wedding. That's what makes it a problem for a Christian baker who has been asked to make such a cake for a gay wedding. As I've also said over and over there would be no problem for the baker with any other kind of bakery goods a gay person wanted for any other kind of celebration or any other reason.

It actually wouldn't surprise me if you wanted to prevent someone celebrating a "Gay Birthday" or something, after all, it's your duty not to support their sinful lifestyle.
How about a Christening cake for a child of a gay couple? I suppose the christening is something to be supported, but it's not a "Gay christening" is it? so i guess you'd have no issue with that?

But, I am interested to hear your views on supplying a cake for a catholic wedding or a jewish wedding or a muslim, hindu or non-protestant reformist wedding.
according to your beliefs these weddings should not be recognised and as such should not be supported by god fearing christians.

I've said all there is to say on the subject, I disagree with you about all the rest, take it or leave it.

frako writes: so why not go the Jesus way: ah you gay couple here be your cake for your wedding....

Jesus wuld have turned the water into cake.

Faith writes: It really shouldn't be that hard to figure out. A wedding cake is a specially ordered service that is specific to the celebration of a wedding. That's what makes it a problem for a Christian baker who has been asked to make such a cake for a gay wedding. As I've also said over and over there would be no problem for the baker with any other kind of bakery goods a gay person wanted for any other kind of celebration or any other reason.

Here's the problem I have with your reasoning, Faith:

As I understand it, your position is that the Christian baker should not have to sell the wedding cake for a gay wedding, because it makes him or her complicit in the celebration of an explicit and unrepentant act of sin. In fact, as Christians, they have a religious duty to not knowingly do so.

It's seems fair to expect the Christian baker to know some basic facts about the human condition--to know that some kids' birthday cakes are sold to pedophile parents, anniversary cakes sold to adulterers, and tray of pastries sold to rapists and thieves who curry favor with or lure their victims using those sweet temptations. Whenever one decides to provide services and/or goods to the public, one must know those goods and services serve the actions and intentions of both angels and devils.

So when you object to a particular sale and tell me that the baker cannot knowingly cater to unrepentant sinners, I think, well, the baker decided to do that when they opened the business. I guarantee that baker sells something to unrepentant sinners every day, and on at least some occasions, that sale becomes part of the enabling context of that sin, if not a direct furtherance of it.

It seems to me that Christians are comfortable selling their goods to unrepentant sinners unless they cannot pretend to be ignorant of the fact--even though they cannot possibly be ignorant of that fact. But that fact is a predictable, widely known part of the human condition. Like a government seeking plausible deniability, the baker wants to profit from a moral blind eye 99.9% of the time, but to open that eye when the rest of the world can see.

I don't think the "Christian bakers" are concerned about doing business with sinners of any stripe: I think they are concerned about their own self-righteousness and their social status (and continued prosperity) within their church community. That stance seems hypocritical in the extreme.

Edited by Omnivorous, : No reason given.

Edited by Omnivorous, : keep those typos rollin', rawhide

ringo writes: Jesus wuld have turned the water into cake.

Chocolate cake.

You seem to be missing the point, Omni.

The wedding cake scenario is a very specific situation, where the baker's conscience is actively engaged: he's told it's for a gay wedding and in fact I suppose the figures on the cake make that clear.

As I've tried to say over and over here, this is not about selling anything else to gays or to any other "unrepentant sinners," this is specifically about the situation where the baker, or any other Christian business owner, has been baited into making a conscience-based decision. And these situations are in fact set up by provocateurs. Clearly they don't have to go to a Christian baker for their wedding cake, there are plenty of other bakeries around. This is all to force the baker to refuse them so they can sue him and get judges to decide for their rights over the Christian's rights.

I also gave other examples back there somewhere that should require you to wonder whether, in the same position, you would be willing to make a cake for a Nazi celebration or something that required you to put an inscription on the cake extolling white supremacy or, I don't know, you pick the situation. There must be some situations where you too would find your morality compromised and feel obliged to refuse.

And just as with the Christian baker I would assume you would know the people with the views you hate most are out there in the public and probably going to be requiring your services along with everybody else, and it wouldn't make any difference to you just as it doesn't to the Christian.

Maybe they should have followed their consciences then.

And these situations are in fact set up by provocateurs.

Evidence?

Excuse me? The point is they did.

Evidence is that they didn't need to go to a Christian baker and they could also not have sued. That's good enough evidence for me.

quote:

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Excuse me? The point is they did.

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It seems pretty obvious to me that they didn't, and that's the problem.

what's obvious to you is a total mystery to me but I guess you hsave no interest in making sense.

Evidence is that they didn't need to go to a Christian baker ...

But in order to be provocateurs, they'd need to know beforehand that the baker's views were such as to refuse the cake. By telepathy or something. Now so far as I know, they just walked into a bakery, asked for a wedding cake, and were refused.

This has not been followed by thousands of other gay couples demanding cakes from the same bakery, has it? Such people would be provocateurs. Also, they don't exist.

Well let's try this. Their action was in a purely secular arena with no religious component. According to the Bible, Christians are supposed to follow the secular law in such cases, are they not ?

Christians are not commanded to avoid associating with sinners, so that is not an issue either.

Work done for hire does not exactly involve approving of the event - and the event itself is not significantly against Christian morality anyway. From a Christian point of view, demonstrating love for the outcast would seem clearly preferable to contributing to the attempts to cast them out.

Finally, any objection to the law very much needs to understand the origin and purpose of the anti-discrimination laws.

So it seems to me that their behaviour was clearly wrong and unChristian and therefore should be against their conscience. If they were really Christian.

I'm sure we mutually feel our respective points are being missed; I don't feel that mine is even being addressed.

To answer your question, I'd say I would refuse to decorate a cake with a white supremacist slogan, but I wouldn't refuse to sell a cake to a white supremacist, who could take the "25 Wonderful Years!" cake to the party celebrating an anniversary of his particular pocket of nasty--just as I supported the ACLU when they defended the rights of American Nazis to march.

For me, it boils down to the Christian baker claiming the right to refuse anyone service on the grounds of the baker's religious beliefs about the buyer's personal beliefs or practices.

As I've demonstrated, the baker is perfectly content to sell cakes to persons whose practices are repellent to his religious beliefs, even if they further or celebrate those repellent practices, as long as the baker can claim the cloak of ignorance in that specific case.

That still seems like hypocritical nonsense to me, a distinction made to avoid financial loss (drawing a line where it isn't too dear, for that very reason), and I'm glad we have laws for businesses who serve the public which prevent it. This supposedly principled stand is honored more often in the breach than the observance; the genuinely principled stand would be to avoid the open marketplace, where compromise and tolerance are mandated by secular law. But that stand isn't profitable.

Edited by Omnivorous, : No reason given.