I don't think anyone should ever be compelled to do anything they don't want to do for anyone.
As a business owner, if you're smart you'd want to serve as wide a base as you can, for capital gains. But if this particular business wants to limit his client base, for whatever reason, it's entirely up to him.
Originally posted by gauntlet o doom
^ Wouldn't the outcome still be the same? The transgender and the gay couple would simply be denied membership and sue the baker for being discriminated against.
No, because private clubs are permitted to discriminate, public accommodations are not.
This has been the contention the entire time. If he wants to impose a stringent criteria on whom he will serve, he needs to have a private club like Costco.
Instead, he has a business that is open to the public, but he does not want to abide by the public accommodation laws. He wants to . . . have his cake and eat it too.
Transactions of property/labor should be consensual both ways IMO.
It wouldn't be proper for a baker to thrust a cake upon someone and take their money from them if the person didn't agree to buy the cake from them. I don't think it's proper in that same light for someone to thrust their money upon a baker and take their labor/cake if that person didn't agree to sell them their cake/labor.
The conception of the negative right to liberty that I hold as a classical liberal, and others hold as libertarians, is that liberty doesn't mean other people are required to fulfill your wishes so that you can get the outcome you want, but rather it is defined on the basis of consent.
Originally posted by Adam_PoE
No, because private clubs are permitted to discriminate, public accommodations are not.This has been the contention the entire time. If he wants to impose a stringent criteria on whom he will serve, he needs to have a private club like Costco.
Instead, he has a business that is open to the public, but he does not want to abide by the public accommodation laws. He wants to . . . have his cake and eat it too.
Exactly. 👆
He'd probably make less money that way, but hey, if money was an issue, he'd bake people whatever the heck they wanted.
Originally posted by ImpedimentSee this is a tricky subject to me cause my first impulse is to agree that you have to respect people's right to be married but you don't have to participate in the wedding. That being said, there are interesting hypothetical counter examples that support both sides of this argument.
I'm not anti-trans/transphobic, but I do believe that this baker has the right to a refusal, even if it is a shitty reason. You have to take the bad with the good when it comes to freedom of religion and speech.
One such example would be if a Republican candidate wants you to bake a cake for a political event and you are fiercely opposed to said candidate. Wouldn't it be within your rights to refuse service?
Another example on the other side of the argument is a cake for a black or interracial marriage if you are a racist. In this case it would seem that the precedent is that you aren't allowed to discriminate along racial lines, thanks to the civil Rights movement in the 50s and 60s.
So the important question at the root of this is do you support these anti discrimination laws brought by the civil rights movement, and if so which groups should this protected status be extended to? In which case I am inclined to extend them to include gays and trans.