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Post by ken on May 23, 2015 18:26:47 GMT -6
You are innocent until proven guilty. Didn't they, by their acts, also discriminate?
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Post by stevec on May 23, 2015 22:45:08 GMT -6
You are innocent until proven guilty. Didn't they, by their acts, also discriminate? Ken, How is baking and selling cakes in a commercial setting a religious practice? Be that as it may, the answer to your question is - No. Sweet Cakes by Melissa was proven guilty according to Oregon law, so GoFundMe was helping subsidizing an illegal act if they allowed people to continue donating money to the cause.
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Post by ken on May 24, 2015 18:59:57 GMT -6
You are innocent until proven guilty. Didn't they, by their acts, also discriminate? Ken, How is baking and selling cakes in a commercial setting a religious practice? Be that as it may, the answer to your question is - No. Sweet Cakes by Melissa was proven guilty according to Oregon law, so GoFundMe was helping subsidizing an illegal act if they allowed people to continue donating money to the cause. Personally, I would have sold the cookies and cakes.
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Post by stevec on May 24, 2015 22:32:29 GMT -6
Ken, How is baking and selling cakes in a commercial setting a religious practice? Be that as it may, the answer to your question is - No. Sweet Cakes by Melissa was proven guilty according to Oregon law, so GoFundMe was helping subsidizing an illegal act if they allowed people to continue donating money to the cause. Personally, I would have sold the cookies and cakes. I proud of you. There's a practical side of you that knows that god doesn't want you to ruin your life and your family's life over a situation that he created. A smart business person would have taken the cake order and contracted it out to another bakery to be picked up at the original bakery. I'm sure some fundamentalists would say that would be skirting scripture or tricking god, but isnt that what religious types have been doing since god was invented?
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Post by ken on May 25, 2015 10:03:58 GMT -6
Personally, I would have sold the cookies and cakes. There's a practical side of you that knows that god doesn't want you to ruin your life and your family's life over a situation that he created. LOL -- I don't think so. That's a victim's mentality. "MOM, IT'S YOUR FAULT THAT I HAVE TO CLEAN MY ROOM... YOU MADE ME THAT WAY". ROFL... I don't think so.
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Post by stevec on May 26, 2015 16:02:03 GMT -6
There's a practical side of you that knows that god doesn't want you to ruin your life and your family's life over a situation that he created. LOL -- I don't think so. That's a victim's mentality. "MOM, IT'S YOUR FAULT THAT I HAVE TO CLEAN MY ROOM... YOU MADE ME THAT WAY". ROFL... I don't think so. Seriously, if you owned a bakery, would you make a wedding cake to a gay couple?
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Post by ken on May 27, 2015 9:06:53 GMT -6
LOL -- I don't think so. That's a victim's mentality. "MOM, IT'S YOUR FAULT THAT I HAVE TO CLEAN MY ROOM... YOU MADE ME THAT WAY". ROFL... I don't think so. Seriously, if you owned a bakery, would you make a wedding cake to a gay couple? I wouldn't have a problem with doing it. However, the Biblical principle is to understand that different people are at different maturity levels. One person will have a point that violates his/her conscience whereas another won't.
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Post by stevec on May 27, 2015 9:28:01 GMT -6
Seriously, if you owned a bakery, would you make a wedding cake to a gay couple? I wouldn't have a problem with doing it. However, the Biblical principle is to understand that different people are at different maturity levels. One person will have a point that violates his/her conscience whereas another won't. That's nice to read. Would you consider the conscientious anti-SSM bakers at a lower maturity level than bakers who have no problem with performing SSM services? After all, "different maturity levels" can only be perceived as being either higher or lower. Being the same/equal is not being different.
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Post by ken on May 29, 2015 5:49:45 GMT -6
I wouldn't have a problem with doing it. However, the Biblical principle is to understand that different people are at different maturity levels. One person will have a point that violates his/her conscience whereas another won't. That's nice to read. Would you consider the conscientious anti-SSM bakers at a lower maturity level than bakers who have no problem with performing SSM services? After all, "different maturity levels" can only be perceived as being either higher or lower. Being the same/equal is not being different. LOL... Let me quote a wise persons statement: And I would respect the baker... it's the mature thing to do.
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Post by stevec on Jun 4, 2015 12:21:11 GMT -6
That's nice to read. Would you consider the conscientious anti-SSM bakers at a lower maturity level than bakers who have no problem with performing SSM services? After all, "different maturity levels" can only be perceived as being either higher or lower. Being the same/equal is not being different. LOL... Let me quote a wise persons statement: And I would respect the baker... it's the mature thing to do. You introduced the maturity factor, so I was just trying to interpret what you meant. If you are suggesting that I showed a certain level of maturity my allowing gay bias in a church setting, that may be so, but I'm completely against gay bias in a public/commercial environment. The baker loses all right to apply his/her bias in the latter, imho. You stated that you would provide a wedding cake to the gay couple if you were the baker, and I considered that a mature perspective and you implied that it was. If the bakers were following "biblical principles" at "different maturity levels", at what level are the bakers compared to you? Or me?
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Post by Jim on Jun 4, 2015 15:32:56 GMT -6
I'm completely against gay bias in a public/commercial environment. The baker loses all right to apply his/her bias in the latter, imho. Hi Steve: On A-Mart, a few months ago, during another SSM cake conversation, Jim M. told us about a call he had from recent immigrants asking him to butcher a dog in his public butcher shop. Jim M. (whom you might recall) is a nice guy, a liberal and not particularly prejudiced. He said "no." the callers accused him of racism or anti-religious bias or maybe both. In my view, Jim M. made the right call, he is not a racist or an anti-religious bigot. He is a North American butcher though, and he has the normal North American bias against butchering and eating dogs. Almost all of us would agree with Jim and the law of course is not going to penalize the butcher in this case even though his shop is open to the public. My point is that permissible bias (no dog butchering) vs. impermissible bias (refusing to bake SSM cakes) is a moving target. Some of society gets to the point of acceptance sooner and some later. At a certain point which has now occurring in SSM, much of society, like you, feels strongly that it is not OK for the baker to deny a cake to a gay couple. I personally would bake the cake, but, I am not at all happy with the faction of society (mostly the press, not you) that also condemns the hesitant baker as a bigot because he has not adopted the evolving view of acceptance. This baker is not necessarily a bigot, he is just holding on to views that society is in the process of letting go. How can the hesitant baker be deemed a bigot when the vast majority would have supported the baker only a few years ago? These things take time. Nobody will give anything time anymore it seems. If the baker refused a black or mixed couple a cake, I, you, the law and most every one else would say that he was a bigot - enough time has passed that the views of the distant past can no longer be tolerated in polite discourse or commerce. Who knows, maybe some day the vast majority will fully support those who want to eat a dog on some type of special occasion. Maybe those who oppose this will be deemed ethnic bigots by the vast majority. That time (if it ever occurs) is a long way off though. At this juncture, you are probably saying get to the point. My point is that the passage of time and evolving values are all that stand between widely accepted points of view and later charges of bigotry. I find it distressing that a generic SSM baker will be publicly slammed as a bigot by the press when the acceptance of SSM is just now becoming the majority view. If the baker's religious objection to baking a cake for a SSM is sincere, I am troubled by the state fining him or otherwise sanctioning him at this transitional point in time. Jim
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Post by stevec on Jun 5, 2015 19:47:28 GMT -6
Jim, In the dog butchering vs. cake debate, there is a difference between denial of services. You are right, the time has come for SSM acceptance and not dog butchering, but here's the rub - some people have to be pushed kicking and screaming into modernity. These early cases, photographers, bakers, etc, must be made examples for everyone to see and learn from. Being called bigots and being heavily fined is exactly what in needed. Gays have been making sacrifices and have been tormented for hundreds of years, to say the least, by both religious and non-religious folks, so I can't pity the handful of religious zealots who will be sacrificed in a short period of time, relatively speaking, compared to generations of gays. Civil rights would not be where it is now if it weren't for the bigot labels, court decision, fines, jail time, and National Guard being called in to deal with those who refused to accept a change in values. If someone wants to eat dog, they can butcher and eat it privately on their own, no help needed. Gays, on the other hand, need help in righting a persistent wrong in our society.
I'm not distressed in the least by the public humiliation and government fines. These are not generic bakers and photographers, these are people who would prefer that gays remain segregated, make sacrifices, and live with the pain. Generic implies that a majority of people share the same biases towards gays, I'd like to believe that most genetic people know and believe better. Bigotry should not die a noble death. The time for negotiation and patience ended a long time ago, the religious right has seen to that with its decades long public humiliation of gays. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
I understand your compassion for religious conservatives and I wish it wasn't necessary that they suffer also, but if it's a choice between gays and religion, it's religion's time to suffer. Don't forget, it was the evangelicals that made this a winner take all contest, ie, their nasty campaign in the CA referendum, and their continued harassment of gays long after. They set themselves up for a humilating defeat.
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