A wedding cake itself is approval of it. And look at the guy's website:
MASTERPIECE CAKESHOP | great cakes since 1993 | 303.763.5754
masterpiececakes.com
United States Supreme Court Declines to Hear Appeal From Florist Who Refused Service Over Same-Sex Wedding
- Thread starter DarthOne
- Start date
Well you are wrong.
They wanted a custom cake, and for the baker to cater their gay wedding. He was willing to sell them a basic cake, but not make them a custom one or cater.
That is why SCOTUS sided with the baker.
Megadeath
Well-known member
And, in that case I can accept it while feeling morally ambiguous.
That's dumb. Does he therefore agree with and support every heterosexual couple he bakes a cake for? How much vetting does he do to be sure they're right for each other? Does he also refuse service to atheists or Jews?
I'm also still curious why people would say he shouldn't be compelled to provide his service to people he disagrees with, but strongly feel that Twitter, YouTube or Facebook have no right to refuse their services to people they disagree with?
Not just 'people'; SCOTUS said that.
Please stop acting like this is hard to understand, or that the courts have not already rendered judgement.
It's quite disingenuous.
First, it's not people he disagrees with, that doesn't legally matter. What matters is what the cake says. He supports heterosexual marriage, so he bakes custom cakes for it. If he doesn't support civil marriage, he shouldn't have to bake a custom cake for athiests either.
Without this, laws can make writers write romance novels they disagree with, or speeches for views they disagree with. There's nothing to stop force being applied here too.
The difference between this and Facebook is that Facebook isn't speaking when it hosts content, any more than the baker would be if he just churned out carbon copy cakes. Facebook could be turned into a common carrier, and that would be legally fine. And although I'd personally have issues with it, it doesn't violate the first amendment.
Megadeath
Well-known member
Uh... I think you've misunderstood my intent here. When I was talking about "people" at the end of my post, I specifically meant posters here. The fact that the master cake situation is legally settled has nothing to do with me not understanding what seems like cognitive dissonance in other posters.
I would suggest that as a rule of thumb you should assume a failure of communication before leaping to an assumption of disingenuous behaviour.
Megadeath
Well-known member
But, like it or not, sites are represented by and associated with what people post to them. Just ask anyone here what they think of SB, SV, or AH, or any of them what they think of the sietch. In that sense FB is speaking through their hosted content even if they don't create it themselves.
Except people here have been explaining it, often REPEATEDLY, and you just seem to come back with the same question argument against it.
You even quoted me about the catering last page, then acted like you hadn't heard that bit the second time I pointed it out to you.
You saw what I said before, even came back with a bit about subcontracting it out, then acted like this exchange never happened when I again pointed out what happened after you said:
So yes, it looks like you are either not paying attention, or are being disingenuous in your arguments and actually just trying to rile people up by feigning ignorance.
Sure, they're associated with them, but it's completely different than compelled speech. For example, a protest can happen in a mall despite the mall's wishes. The KKK can use Verizon despite Verizon's wishes. Facebook is completely free to put a disclaimer on anything they think is hate speech also (otherwise that would be a restriction on speech). But being forced to host it isn't the same as being forced to speak.
LordsFire
Internet Wizard
The issue is whether a site is a platform, or a publisher. If a site is a platform, it has extensive legal protection, because it is the speech of others, not themselves, that people can sue over. IE, if someone slanders you on facebook, you can sue them, but not facebook.
This is particularly relevant because people post a *lot* of copyrighted content on various websites, but those sites are not held accountable so long as they take it down when they are notified that someone posted that there.
If you are a platform though, you do not get to act like a publisher. Section 230 allows limited good-faith moderation for a short list of specified reasons, but specifically in section 230, is that it exists to promote free political discourse, not stifle it.
The guy at Mastepiece Cakes is, by this standard, a publisher. He himself creates the cakes, he's responsible for them. If he tries to put the copyrighted text of a novel on a cake, he's legally liable for damages there. But he also gets to retain total control. If he wanted to act as a publisher (which doesn't really make sense for a cake-maker, but that's the comparison being made), then he would not be able to refuse service, and he would have to put whatever people asked for on a cake, so long as it wasn't illegal (which in the US basically means no child porn and that's about it).
There is no dissonance here. Just a desire for tech giants to stop pretending to be one when it suits them, and the other when it suits them to be that instead.
And a desire for individuals not to be compelled to act in support of something they don't actually support.
Megadeath
Well-known member
I can understand that. The actual reason though is that I was responding to the arguments several different people made, in real time, on my phone whilst also at work. In a perfect world I'd have sat down at a computer in frozen time after each post to write something comprehensive, that accounts for the subtleties of position and the entirety of the conversation. That's not going to happen here though. I'd also say that the catering itself isn't that strong an issue. If it's regularly provided and doesn't require onerous customisation, I would expect him to be required to provide it.
Basically, I promise I'm not trying to be an asshole here and it would be just swell if I could have one conversation without having to prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt.
I'm less familiar with American law, but can a protest really be staged in a mall against their wishes? I've been given official "move along" notices just because me and a couple friends hung around outside a store too long. Didn't like it, but also wouldn't even consider it as a legal issue.
Even working just with what you've said, there are clearly plenty of posters who feel that Twitter putting disclaimers on Trump's posts was an unacceptable level of "censorship".
I'm also unclear on exactly why you think it's different in a moral sense. As a hypothetical to help me understand, if the gay couple had asked for a wedding cake, without specifying any particular customisation, do you think he should have provided it? It's still artisanal (Also, can't help but be amused by Art Is Anal under the circumstances.) but he's only being required to provide his usual service. That to me would seem to alleviate compelled speech.
There's also clearly limitations on how far you (Or at least this site.) think it should extend, since posters can be removed for expressing support for certain political or social positions. Why do you think those limits are acceptable, but not others?
Megadeath
Well-known member
That's a good answer from a legalistic perspective, but I'm looking more at the morality of the issue. I agree that it's necessary for the law to frame and define things as you've done, and I'm willing (Though not happy.) to accept the outcome it produced in the MasterCake case. However, if we instead consider it as one group of people (MasterCake) are allowed to decide who they want as customers, but not for another group, I think it's more troubling.
I don't think that they should be any more compelled to accept any given customer, just so that they can enjoy legal protection from people using their product to say bad things. To be clear, I would not want them to pick and choose acceptable customers based on bigotry anymore than I'd want a baker to be able to. I don't see a moral distinction (Again, rather than the clear legal one.) between a person signing up to FB and saying naughty things, and a person buying a MasterCake cake, and then adding to it by drawing kiddy porn in the icing. I guess in short, I don't see why a "platform" should be compelled to offer service when a "publisher" isn't.
That said, just typing this out I keep running into mental thorny walls of morality, legality and carrying one to the other. I don't think I entirely like things the way they are, but damn me if I can think of something better off the cuff whilst also working.
King Arts
Well-known member
American Christians don’t do honor killings,random homicide or that much inbreeding. They do have a weird habit of cutting their dicks though.
2/3 ain’t bad.
They asked for a custom wedding cake what do you think that entails. It will have two males in a suit on it, and the words Congratulations male name 1 and male name2 on your wedding.
That is forcing the baker to claim that two men can get married that is compelled speech and is something he disagrees with. Like if he does not have to make a cake that references homosexuality what would make it different than a generic cake that the 2 gays refused?
It's not that you have a right to everywhere, it's that the state can grant you that right, which doesn't infringe on the Mall's owner's free speech rights.
Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
And that's not right either. That's Twitter's free speech. But because twitter routinely censors, calling this censorship isn't really wrong, as it was just the clear prelude to it.
It does depend on the specifics, and it would likely hit a balancing test. But if he had a mass produced cake place, it would definitely be fine. I'm pretty sure he handmakes all his cakes though, so I'd edge towards it being still compelled speech, in this case. When it comes to art is anal products, usual service can still rise to the level of art.
Personally, I'm rarely for regulation, only when it has captured way too much of the market. I'd generally argue against common carrier status, but as Facebook becomes increasingly authoritarian (they just banned criticizing governments basically), what produces maximal liberty shifts in my mind. As for the site, or any non-enormous site, I'm entirely in favor of allowing them to ban view points or do what they want, because if I don't like a site, I can move to another one that more matches my preferences.
As for my positions, morally, I'm an Ancap. Obviously, that practically doesn't work, so in practical terms I'm something of a utilitarian maximizing individual freedom instead of pleasure, or a minarchist.
Megadeath
Well-known member
Ech! At this point I'm responding to four different people on overlapping issues, whilst also trying to do my actual job, and reconsidering my stance as I go in response to some of the better arguments and information that's new to me.
At this point I'm just going to drop it as way too much effort, and say that whilst I don't agree with @Abhorsen on everything he does sound fairly reasonable and sensible, and I'd probably have voted for him over any of the three candidates in the last couple American elections if I lived there. Anyone who wishes to continue the debate further should direct their posts to him, as he now most closely represents my position.
At this point I'm just going to drop it as way too much effort, and say that whilst I don't agree with @Abhorsen on everything he does sound fairly reasonable and sensible, and I'd probably have voted for him over any of the three candidates in the last couple American elections if I lived there. Anyone who wishes to continue the debate further should direct their posts to him, as he now most closely represents my position.
Goddamn it I was trying to sleep! Haha, no problem. Get to work you commieEch! At this point I'm responding to four different people on overlapping issues, whilst also trying to do my actual job, and reconsidering my stance as I go in response to some of the better arguments and information that's new to me.
At this point I'm just going to drop it as way too much effort, and say that whilst I don't agree with @Abhorsen on everything he does sound fairly reasonable and sensible, and I'd probably have voted for him over any of the three candidates in the last couple American elections if I lived there. Anyone who wishes to continue the debate further should direct their posts to him, as he now most closely represents my position.
ShieldWife
Marchioness
As others have said, that isn’t the law at all. The law is that you can refuse service to whoever you like, aside from certain demographics who are favored by the left, which people from unfavored demographics are forced to accommodate.
The architect shouldn’t have to come up with excuses, he should just be allowed to say no.
If what you said was the law, why is nearly every big business systematically discriminating against conservatives and getting away with it?
Wait a minute, “never intended”? Are you suggesting that the Founding Fathers would have intended that it be illegal for a business to not participate in a gay wedding? Or, for that matter, that they would have intended that businesses not be allowed to discriminate based on race? They would have thought it absurd to even need to appeal to the 1st Amendment to allow such things.
If you don’t care about the Founding Fathers’ actual intentions, don’t pretend to.
What the Bible says is irrelevant in this context, people don’t need Biblical support for their preferences.
Big tech is really close to doing basically just that.
Edit: Oops, ninja’d by Megadeath saying he was leaving the thread. Feel free to disregard.
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While mega has dropped out, I'd just like to clarify on this point and another. You are allowed to scream fire in a theatre, and I really wish people would stop saying you're not, because the circumstances of where that phrase comes from, the SC case Schenck vs United States, was a blatantly wrong and later overturned decision based more in the Wilson administration's immoral persecution of pacifists and anti-war activists then any legal principles.
Likewise to the third point. The SC has shot down laws attempting to criminalize false claims of military service, you have every right to make up stories about your brave military service.
The only legitimate pointers is the illegality of impersonating a police officer (or a medical professional or similar profession), a legal restriction that exists because unlike the prior cases, impersonating a police officer places you in a position to cause great harm to people.
Facebook, Twitter, etc have no moral right to deny service to disagreeable people for two reasons:
1. Big tech firms are so vast and influential that denial of their services to people is a significant deprivation of resources to those people, resources they cannot obtain elsewhere, and those resources are otf substantial, meaningful importance.
2. Big tech firms cannot deny service to people they disagree with, because big tech firms have no opinions or will of thier own with which thry could form such a disagreement. Corporations are legal entities that represent the will and opinions of many, many shareholders and owners, who hold a massive range of opinions.
Neither applies to this case.
Phillips is a singular person with his own genuine beliefs that he has duty to act on as a human being with moral agency.
Phillips is not the only source of cakes in his city, cakes that possess only symbolic value and will not result in any great material harm if one is deprived of them.
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That's the kind of shit, Joe Biden says as he's getting ready to try passing hate speech laws. Free speech is free speech. Just as the government cannot punish someone for speech they have said, neither can they punish someone for not saying something. This line of argument will get you exactly nowhere.I'll remind you that the same crowd that's whining about cakes and flowers for their gay weddings are also insisting that they have every right to do just this, because "private business" only applies when it's something they agree with. Freedom of association for me but not for thee.
The speech is not the problem there, those would all fall under different crimes, so such an argument is intellectually dishonest.
The military thing.
It is illegal to have stolen Valor, as there is a whole act on it.
One can not say they earned certain decorations and use it for personal gain. I added that last part because no one will give a shit if you are telling a story that is not true, the second you try to make money for it, you will go into said category..
Parts of the original act were deemed unconstitutional but nothing done about it.