Last week, fashion designer Sophie Theallet announced she would refuse to sell or donate clothes to the next first lady, Melania Trump.
Here is more from Veronique de Rugy.
Freedom of association for me but not for thee
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I used to say, “no, you can’t deny me goods and services just because I’m gay, assuming the good or service isn’t covered by the First Amendment.” But at this point it’s like, “fuck it, forget about the cake, please just don’t vote for Trump, I’m sorry I even brought it up, whatever.” So good job Trump voters, you shut me up by carrying out your threat to risk destroying the country for the sake of cake!
Let them eat gay cake! The cake is a lie, anyway.
Too little, too late.
Really? Oh well. I guess I’ll go back to arguing for my civil rights again.
I didnt realize that forcing someone to do business with you is a civil right. Maybe Trump will force you to stay at one of his hotels, its his civil right, after all.
I, for one, look forward to the return of sit-ins and bus boycotts – the Sixties produced a lot of great music.
Are you against the Civil Rights Act then?
Actually yes. It has become like Human Rights where it is used as a bludgeon to remove and deny rights from people.
It is too important of an issue to be entrusted to politicians and especially Liberals.
Are you against the Civil Rights Act then?
The initial purpose was to break a culture of insult against a poor and politically patient social stratum. It has proved metastatic. Keep in mind that the regime in the Southern United States between 1877 and 1971 was not libertarian. State law required segregation in various venues. Also, segregation was not the most problematic component of the ancien regime in the South. The condition of the police and the courts was.
“Keep in mind that the regime in the Southern United States between 1877 and 1971 was not libertarian. State law required segregation in various venues.”
Your timing is off. See Gavin Wright’s research on the topic. Excerpt: “The starting point for understanding conflict over public accommodations is the proposition that racial segregation was fundamentally a calculated business policy by profit-seeking firms. Segregation in such facilities as lunch counters, restaurants, and hotels was rarely required by law, and when statutes or municipal ordinances did exist, enforcement was generally at the discretion of proprietors. Indeed, as of the 1960s many municipal segregation laws had been repealed, since by that time federal courts firmly supported the principle that state-enforced racial discrimination was unconstitutional.” [emphasis added]
http://web.stanford.edu/~write/papers/ParadoxR.pdf
Ricardo:
I’ll check out Gavin Wright if Ricardo checks out Jennifer Roback’s discussion of the way many streetcar owners resisted segregation because it would be costly to do so. They would not segregate their streetcars voluntarily, so others who favored segregation had to force segregation on them with governmental force. See “The Political Economy of Segregation: The Case of Segregated Streetcars,” published in December, 1986, in the Journal of Economic History, Vol. XLVI, No. 4.
In South Africa, apartheid was opposed by business interests. See Merle Lipton’s fascinating Capitalism & Apartheid.
“Jennifer Roback’s discussion of the way many streetcar owners resisted segregation because it would be costly to do so.”
Certainly. For one thing, many of these laws were passed at the turn of the century in places were discrimination in public transit was a new phenomenon. Whites found it an inconvenience and black civil society groups led organized boycotts. Businesses don’t like boycotts and the same thing goes for South Africa as well. F.W. de Klerk is on record as saying a major factor leading to his decision to release Mandela and hold free elections was that international sanctions and boycotts were working and he was concerned for the future of the South African economy.
None of this suggests that when segregation and discrimination are deeply engrained in a society that markets alone will solve the problem.
Ricardo:
I don’t think you grasp the significance of the South African case. It had nothing to do with boycotts or international sanctions. The opposition of the South African business community to apartheid was far older than that.
It was South African trade unions that spearheaded apartheid. Thomas Hazlett writes: “[W]hite workers were empowered—under the guise of the Industrial Conciliation Acts of 1924, 1936, and 1956—to solely control the terms of employment via officially sanctioned union bargaining. The enormous range of the state-backed unions’ powers—setting wages, employment conditions, benefits, entry qualifications, work rules, and negotiation rights on behalf of the entire industrial economy—is staggering. But this was the level of state intervention required to supersede the profit motives of both firms and nonwhite workers. And that was the announced goal: to overrule the market forces that constantly sought to undermine ‘civilized standards for European workers.’”
Indeed, the slogan of the white miners union that led an insurrection to block black semi-skilled workers in the mines was “Workers of the world unite, and fight for a white South Africa.” http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Apartheid.html
What exactly is the streetcar business supposed to prove?I know libertarians worship the example, but what it shows is that at one time some businesses of a particular type thought segregation would harm them. OK.
But tons of other businesses in lots of places thought just the opposite, and this applied not just to dealing with customers but to employment matters as well.
In other words, when Ricardo says,
None of this suggests that when segregation and discrimination are deeply engrained in a society that markets alone will solve the problem,
he is in fact understating matters. In such a society markets will reinforce discrimination, lovely libertarian theories notwithstanding.
byomtov:
“What exactly is the streetcar business supposed to prove?”.
Well, obviously, by itself it “proves” nothing. For instance is not proof. But it illustrates why rational business people can be expected to oppose discrimination — because it is not in their rational self-interest. I am not prettifying their motives, just noting the predictable results of markets.
That is why I mentioned apartheid. If the streetcar example is not sufficient to make you reconsider, try Merle Lipton’s book.
To be sure, most business people (as Schumpeter put it) can’t say boo to a goose. So doubtless many caved in to local white supremacist protection rackets. Some of them even put their racist principles ahead of their business interests. And, in some cases, some undoubtedly found ways to turn a profit from Jim Crow.
Apropos, you might reflect on why Carlyle labeled economics the “dismal science.” He was writing about slavery in the West Indies, not about Malthus’s gloomy predictions.
“White plantation owners, he said, ought to force black plantation workers to be their servants. Economics, somewhat inconveniently for Carlyle, didn’t offer a hearty defense of slavery. Instead, the rules of supply and demand argued for “letting men alone” rather than thrashing them with whips for not being servile. Carlyle bashed political economy as “a dreary, desolate, and indeed quite abject and distressing [science]; what we might call … the dismal science.” http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/12/why-economics-is-really-called-the-dismal-science/282454/
One thing is for sure. Your claim that markets reinforce slavery is fatuous, and I notice that it isn’t supported by a shred of evidence, let alone “proved.”
Ian Maitland,
But it illustrates why rational business people can be expected to oppose discrimination — because it is not in their rational self-interest. I am not prettifying their motives, just noting the predictable results of markets.
Nonsense. What it proves is that sometimes business people find it in their interests to oppose discrimination. And sometimes they don’t, as the history of the Jim Crow South shows quite clearly to anyone with eyes to see.
doubtless many caved in to local white supremacist protection rackets.
What many “caved in to” was the fact that their businesses would be more successful if they discriminated than if they didn’t.
Some of them even put their racist principles ahead of their business interests.
This was not necessary, in most cases. Those who were not racist, however, did often cater to their customers’ and employees’ racism, as a matter of rational, if amoral, business practice.
One thing is for sure. Your claim that markets reinforce slavery is fatuous, and I notice that it isn’t supported by a shred of evidence, let alone “proved.”</i
What is for sure is that your reading skills are as seriously deficient, as your logical ones. I said nothing about slavery.
The last sentence of my previous comment was my own words, not Maitland’s. It should not have been italicized.
Yomtov:
If I understand your claim, it is that markets reinforce discrimination. The proof, you say, is the history of Jim Crow. But that assumes what you have the burden of proving, namely that Jim Crow was a result of market forces. Anyone with eyes to see knows that Jim Crow consisted of state and local laws enforcing racial segregation and curtailing market exchanges. If market forces had reinforced segregation, then segregationists would not have needed Jim Crow laws. The invisible hand would have done their work for them.
Segregation generally requires the suppression of market forces. Besides the streetcar business, I have offered evidence from apartheid-era South Africa and from the anti-slavery movement.
When men with beards are throwing you off a building or shooting up your club, perhaps you can get a few minutes to ask them about Trump.
@AlanW — Maybe you’ve missed it but there’s been a lot of very good music produces that has great social content in the past 10 – 20 years. Maybe you’re just not hearing it.
Fear the beard.
Well, the Democrat who used his state office to run an Oregon bakery out of business for refusing to make a wedding cake for a gay wedding was soundly defeated in his bid for OR Secretary of State. His opponent is the first Republican elected to statewide office in Oregon in 14 years.
Is it because of her racial identity, sexual orientation or gender?
Or must we serve any ass that walks through the door?
The idea of the law is that people should not be discriminated against for things served upon them by nature or society, not that anyone who opens a business is a slave of anyone who demands their services.
That having been said, I don’t see the value in such a statement.
And can Melania Trump be something other than Melania Trump? Isn’t she what nature and society have done to her?
A rare insightful point by Thiago.
Some are born gay, some are born Melania.
Or Society imposes it on them. I think it is a nature AND nurture thing. Wasn’t it the argument of some radicals (Tom Paine, for example) against executing Louis XVI? He became king through no fault of himself, had he been born a common citizen, he would have been harmless (with the benefit of hindsight, we know he was no Napoleon, an ambitious man able to rise through the ranks and grab absolute power after humble beginnings). Why should a man pay for deficient social institutions that were created and praised long before he himself was born? He was as much a slave of bad institutions as the lowly serf. From a liberal point of view, Melania is as much a victim of society as the most oppressed ghetto dweller: none of them had a hand in designing and enforcing the institutions and laws that created their current predicament.
Some are born Melania, some achieve Melanianess, and some have Melanianess thrust upon them. Pity them all alike.
+1 Thiago is on a roll.
Que sera, sera.
I would like to have Melania thrust upon me…
Thor crushes it, outstanding.
That’s one of the few good things about Trump as president, we will have the best looking first lady in history, by far. Shame she’s not ‘Murican
Everyone remembers her as an old lady, but Nancy Reagan was at one time a Hollywood starlet. She looks a bit old-fashioned to my modern eyes, even in her youth, but she’s clearly not plain.
@LA: sure but my point is not how good looking were some of these First Ladies in their youth, but how did they look in the actual job. Melania is still very attractive. Jackie K was too but not quite as much.
Both engage in sexual attraction that many can’t fathom.
Ha! Even better than Thor’s! Although to be honest, Melania’s attraction to Trump is easy to fathom and can even be quantified monetarily.
So it was inevitable that she married Donald Trump?
In many ways yes of course it was.
This seems like a gray area, but not much. Clearly she would never have been able to choose not to be Melania someone (fill-in-the-last-name). But at this point, whether she can choose to dissasociate from her husband’s positions and conduct, while they have a 10-year-old child to raise, is different. Nonetheless, it seems reasonable to decline participation in the very public glamorization of a regime, and its individual associates, that clearly represents a major step backward for civilization, social norms, basic human decency, etc. This refusal of service is not being done on the basis of an identity involuntarily assigned at birth, but on the basis of freely chosen positions on basic issues critical to the rights, lives and well-being of millions of people. You’ll notice the signs in small businesses stating “We reserve the right to refuse service . . . [etc.] ” are not illegal, or generally considered to be wrong or unjust. Maybe we would be better off discuss abolishing the “office” of First Lady.
Not only that, but would Zeng Fanzhi sell a painting to Melania? Or djt?
I don’t think it’s cool, but it’s definitely not illegal.
You’re allowed to refuse to work with someone because you just don’t like them. But if it becomes clear that specific types of prejudice are the cause of the discrimination, then you might find yourself in court, especially if you go around bragging about your discrimination against those people.
Not quite the right analogy, but it’s like the difference between a bar being able to ban a trouble-maker from entering the bar, but not being allowed to post “no Irish allowed” signs.
“The idea of the law is that people should not be discriminated against for things served upon them by nature or society”
But the bakers did not refuse to make the cake because the customer was gay. They would have willingly sold the same gay customer baked goods for any other occasion and would have refused to bake a cake for a gay wedding even had the customer been straight (say, a parent of one of the gay couple or a professional wedding planner). In the case of Melania Trump, it’s not personal, it’s political. Sophie Theallet is not refusing to dress Melania Trump because she dislikes her personally, but because doing so might be seen as tacit approval of the Trump administration. The same was true with the bakers — making the cake would have felt to be an expression of acceptance of gay marriage.
More seriously – yes, this is exactly it. No one is refusing to serve gays. It is simply that certain vendors do not sell certain products.
But the Tolerant Left cannot have that. Such people must be destroyed.
Now, if you want to refuse to serve a specific person out of sheer hatred, that of course is fine and dandy. In fact, it will be celebrated in the media.
Don’t forget to be thankful tomorrow that Hillary is #notanyonespresident. I know I will. Peace.
” It is simply that certain vendors do not sell certain products.”
That’s the whole point. They DO sell that product. And widely and publicly stated their violation of law in refusing to serve specific clientele on a specific basis which the law is specifically supposed to prevent from happening.
If you don’t like the law, lobby to change it. But the interpretation was spot on.
All politics is local. The personal is about as local as it gets. It is personal.
Only a tyranny (more accurately, an anarcho-tyranny) can administer such minutiae as interpersonal relations. The classical liberal solution is to allow everybody to vote with their dollars, and the wonderful thing about this is the dollars in your pocket are worth just as much as mine. If you want to vote with your dollars for or against people who will or will not cater to homosexuals, the market allows you to do so. The control freaks, reformers, activists, and assorted busybodies will just have to weep bitter tears into their ice cream. Or go form a separate country where they can regulate until every net producer has fled their obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Most of us practice blatant racial, intellectual, class, weight, and other discrimination in our choice of breeding partners. How are you proposing to rectify that personal/political problem?
A rights based society does not allow identifiable subgroups to be discriminated against..
Yes it does.
When you’re in the business of selling wedding cakes, the fact of those cakes being for a wedding is hardly a non-part of the story.
If this were a routine baker who did not normally do weddings, they could easily say “no, we don’t do weddings”, even if they actually sometimes do it on the side.
But if you have a public business, open to the public, a big sign on the front that says “wedding cakes” and part of the service involves delivering it to the wedding, then … are you IN or OUT of the business of wedding cakes?
They were in that business, that very specific type of business, and loudly and proudly proclaimed their violation of law. They could have just made some excuse like “sorry, that weekend doesn’t work, but here’s the phone numbers of some other bakers”.
Is it because of her racial identity, sexual orientation or gender?
Or must we serve any ass that walks through the door?
In your case, you’d better hope it’s the latter, yes?
Personally, I’ve never had patience for assholes, and thankfully have had management that backed up my right not to be treated like garbage just so my boss could make a few bucks off the transaction.
But I always leave it up to them to prove the case first. Prejudice, if any, should have little or no relevance.
A tow truck driver refused to service a motorist who had a Bernie Sanders bumper sticker.
So, that would be okay?
A devout Christian baker should refuse to bake a wedding cake for a gay wedding because the grooms are both Democrats. As long as it’s an issue with their political party, it’s lawful discrimination, right?
I’m not OK with that. But that’s not what the law was designed for. A person can choose to put a bumper sticker on their car, but does not choose whether their face is black.
If this election cycle has taught us anything, it’s that “who? whom?” is the only real principle in politics. All other principles can be adopted and abandoned at will depending on whether they serve the goal of acquiring power for your own team. Perhaps it’s always been this way, but it’s rarely been as crass as it is today.
But what distinguishes a team from the others if not principles?
Pretend principles and genetics.
Which kind of “genetics” unites Blacks, single women, Hispanics, Muslims, Homosexuals and White liberals (particularly the Jews and Asians) or Evangelicals, Mormons, Catholic Asians, married women, Peter Thiel and David Duke?
OK, maybe it is married White Gentiles against anyone else, but White vote is not that skewed.
Political attitudes are heritable regardless of race.
It’s not that there aren’t stated principles that set the teams apart from one another. It’s that those principles can easily be jettisoned if that is needed to raise the status of your own team.
OMG. People learn stuff from their parents. It’s not genetic.
He said “genetics”.
Point is that those principles change all the time, much faster than the team members.
Some of them for sure (if deficit is good, bad or neutral; if we are at war with the Sunni rebels or Assad — we have always been at war with the Sunnis), but at least some principles have resisted admirably the test of time. Democrats are the party of Cosmopolitanism, BlackS, sexual freedom (or license), higher taxes, Darwin (but never HBD) and abortion and gun control . Republicans are the party of insularism, strong Christian influence (token Jews can apply provided they accepted Jesus as their personal savior), gun rights, HDB (at the fringes of the fringes, but don’t talk about Darwin during the primaries in Alabama), tax cuts whatever it does with the deficit and, God willing, who knows, one of those days, any time now, if we only win just this election, making abortion illegal.
That’s fairly contingent. Bush made neocon adventurism an integral part of Republicanismo. Evangelicals have their own memeplex but a skillful operator could downplay abortion. See how Republican administrations have done little about it for decades.
Trump is going to cause a fair amount of change, and the Overton window tends to shift in autopilot once a big break has happened.
I agree Republicans have did little about abortion or, as I said, “… and, God willing, who knows, one of those days, any time now, if we only win just this election, making abortion illegal.”. But, still, they can’t just go officially for abortion or neutral to fish for soemwhat liberal votes. And, even Trump being a pragmatic, liberals are infear he will use his judge-nominating powers to send women back to the kitchen.
* have done
And well Republicans have been for a long time the party of being though on Communists, terrorists and all those miscreants. Theu were the party who said that opposing American dictatorial allies in South merica was “blaming America first”. To be frank, Bush’s frst campaign opposing Bill Clinton activist foreign policy was the outlier. With 11/9, Bush could be Bush again.
Even many of the bedrock issues you list are negotiable depending on the circumstances. Democrats claim to be all about sexual freedom while aggressively policing male sexuality, and think higher taxes are always good except when they’re imposed on anyone other than wealthy white men; meanwhile, Republicans are all about those Christian values, except the ones about mercy and compassion for sinners (which would preclude capital punishment).
“Democrats are the party of sexual freedom (or license)”. I take this as an honest mistake, that you wouldn’t do if you were more familiar of campus life and Title IX implementations.
” I take this as an honest mistake, that you wouldn’t do if you were more familiar of campus life and Title IX implementations.”
OK, fair enough, I am not very attuned to American campus’ travails. What about “the party of nothing wrong with abortion, free contraception, gays and single mothers and sex between men and women provided cis men check their privilege and don’t ruffle Feminists’ feathers?”
For the Southern Baptists, it’s still licentiousness,
” Democrats claim to be all about sexual freedom while aggressively policing male sexuality”
I guess if having to be told that “no means no” time and time again, with threat of prison, is “aggressively policing male sexuality”, then it should not be difficult to understand why there is a need for this.
You see, the other half of the population might like to choose if, when, why and where they are to be used as sexual objects (and it doesn’t even have to be that way, but for those who see them that way, I guess that’s what it would be.)
“But what distinguishes a team from the others if not principles?”
Teams claim that principles are the distinguishing characteristic, but more often it’s the Principals involved.
“Obama did it, why that’s horrible. Oh Trump is doing it, well that’s ok.” Vice versa, etc.
But why those associate themseves with Trump (or at least the Republican Party) and Obama if not for principles?
For most people a party’s principals are a basket of good. And for most people their attitudes on most things are fungible.
Obama was against Gay Marriage 6 years ago. However, he won the majority of the Gay vote in 2008.
And this is precisely why Tyler Cowen’s phrase “mood affiliation” is a perfect turn of words.
I see. Thanks. Americn politics seems too much complicated, it is like it is not really about policy.
The real quandary is that game theory suggests that tit for tat is the best strategy for compelling cooperation, not sticking to your principles.
So, if you truly support the filibuster, for example, you should want the GOP to “punish” the Democrats for Reid’s removal of it.
My suggestion was the GOP reserve the right to remove the filibuster for any issue they prefer, for the exact number of days that Reid removed it for his pet issue.
To be fair, I expect none of us has any idea — beyond the crudest of baysean priors — what Sophie Theallet thinks about the sexual politics of cake.
I’m surprised no journalist followed up with this exact question.
Tyler cowen and the rest of the alt-right: Refusing to serve gays, black people, or immigrants is the same as refusing to give free clothes to the president’s wife.
I think the current issue is narrowly concerning a niche industry servicing a niche demand. Not Jim Crow.
LOL, Tyler is now alt-right?
And this designer refuses to “sell or donate clothes” to the new first lady, after having frequently done so to Michelle Obama. In any case, having the first lady of the US wear your stuff, even for free, is hardly a financial sacrifice for a fashion designer. I don’t think Melania will have trouble finding people to dress her.
Or, to be a cynic, you could say the free publicity from the designer not selling Ms. Trump clothes has already worked.
Bingo!
I hear some men look forward to seeing her having trouble finding people to dress her.
Perfect. Please smear people more, I like winning elections.
My objection is to the the fuss that Americans make of the First Lady, an absurd Queen-consort figure. Where are you buggers’ republican principles?
As for the rag trade hissy fit, I fart in its general direction.
Yep, this would be a great time to get rid of all the ‘first lady’ nonsense:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/abolish-the-office-of-the-first-lady-214471
Never!
What interesting timing.
Politico, so principled, so consistent . They’ve been against this for years.
>”My objection is to the the fuss that Americans make of the First Lady, an absurd Queen-consort figure.”
This American says “Same here,” and guess what – you and I are in luck.
Now that the First Lady is an immigrant, the fuss is over. CNN and the rest of the Democrats will be giving her nothing but hate from here on out.
To be fair, Americans also make a big fuss over the actual queen for some reason.
Of course people fuss over her. The Queen is exquisite. Regarding the position of chief of state, we’ve had 44 usurpers since 1789.
Including Grover Cleveland as two of the usurpers
No, Trump is the 44th
Every time there is some British royal event and the US news media and seemingly huge numbers of American women (seldom men though) get entranced by it, I spend my time grumping about “didn’t we fight a war to get rid of this shit?” Of course, remembering the ludicrous publicity and cries of “American royalty” when Chelsea Clinton got married, maybe it’s just that some people (mostly liberals and progressives) want a return to royalty so that they can better influence who’s up and who’s down, since they are sure that they would be part of the nobility.
No, we didn’t fight a war to be rid of Elizabeth or anyone like her. The conflict was with parliament and the various ministries in office at that time and specific policies were at issue.
Oh there you go, being rational. Mind you, that ad man par excellence, Bad Thomas Jefferson, tried to make it all about poor old George III.
Women dream of being a princess, married to a prince. Lots of power, money, and status, with zero work.
I.e., women dream of being Melania Trump. Of course, they also dreamt of being Ivana Trump and Marla Trump.
What can I say? Men want to be him, women want to be his ex-wife.
Some status, and harassment because you have that status. No remunerative work, but a great deal of activity for a subset of the small corps of adults with a Royal style (the Queen, the Prince-Consort, their 4 children, two of their grandchildren, two of the Queen’s paternal side cousins, and 4 spouses); 250 appearances a year at philanthropic fundraisers and ceremonies is about average for that crew (most of whom are over 60 and four of whom are over 80). Four of the Queen’s six adult grandchildren have ordinary jobs, btw, as did her youngest son and his wife until it caused too many pr headaches. The Queen cannot put up her relatives and loyal staff in grace-and-favor accommodations any more; republicans in parliament have mau mau’d the government into insisting that residents of crown properties pay rent at market rates. The York princesses have workaday jobs, receive no state subsidies, and do not have a history of scandals or public confrontations with anyone, but republicans in the press track their travel schedules and write scathing commentaries about them anyway. One of the Queen’s cousins (a septuagenarian who also never had a civil list stipend), gets this treatment too (as does his wife).
This post is a post of false equivalency based on a total absence of any understanding of the US Constitution or Civil Rights laws enacted by Congress.
The US Constitution does not deal with Milania’s underwear, or whatever product she wants to sell or buy.
For Libertarians who profess to understand and protect the Constitution, this is a really sad post.
But the Constitution does deal with cake?
It’s right there in the Second Amendment: shall not be infringed means cakes for everyone. Didn’t you take Progessive Living Constitutional Law, cishetlord?
It’s not about the cake. The poster believes the constitution does not protect immigrants like Ms. Trump.
The men who wrote it would be astonished to learn that the Constitution allows the government to require you to do business with somebody.
Those same men would be astonished to learn we had a black president and almost a female one too. Why we need to run things the way 18th century people saw the world is puzzling.
Well they put it all in a binding document so we can either go along with that or formally change it
Or we could do what we do now, and use the Court created by that document to interpret it for the modern world.
“The men who wrote it would be astonished to learn that the Constitution allows the government to require you to do business with somebody.”
I believe English common law at the time required innkeepers to serve all comers. The founders would have likely understood that freedom of association is not unlimited and there are exceptions for businesses that perform important public functions.
Ricardo is exactly right, like all freedoms the freedom of association is not unlimited. You can’t yell “fire!” in a crowded theater (freedom of speech), you can’t make human sacrifices if your religion commands it (freedom of religion), and you can’t privately own a tank (freedom to bear arms). The question is where do we draw the line on association with respect to businesses. It’s tricky, and not resolvable by principle alone.
Or we could do what we do now, and use the Court created by that document to interpret it for the modern world.
Arbitrary rule based on the policy preferences of five or more federal bureaucrats. This is why elections have become winner-take-all, existential contests that are rapidly becoming insoluble.
@A-G: If you say so. Dig up the corpse of John Marshall and take it up with him.
No, the constitution does not “require people to do business with somebody”.
But if you are to open your doors as a public open to the public, then justification to refuse dong business with someone must not be related to their race, religion, gender or sexual orientation.
Because, who the hell wants to live in a world where anyone needs to cross 5 coffee shops to find one that will even let me through the door?
As Colin Powell pointed out, you’d better have a strong bladder if you are a Black under Segregation ’cause you won’t be able to stop many times to urinate between Washington, DC and Fort Benning.
Bill, you are a lawyer, right? Would you mind actually explaining why the equivalency is false?
Discriminating against a person on race or gender re purchase of a cake and someone’s decision not to sell a cake to a person you don’t like unrelated to race. Substitute dress for cake. Tyler is saying that Melania is being discriminated against for political views, and therefore those who discriminate on race are equivalent.
I don’t recall any recent cases of cake sales discrimination based on “race or gender” or even based on sexual orientation.
As I recall the people refused to sell cakes because they disagreed with same-sex marriage and therefore didn’t want to support or participate in such an event by serving it.
To me, that seems like a disagreement over views, just like this one. Why is it not?
Obviously the courts have found one to be in violation of civil rights law, but appealing to that would be question-begging, as the point is whether that was appropriate.
“As I recall the people refused to sell cakes because they disagreed with same-sex marriage and therefore didn’t want to support or participate in such an event by serving it.”
Are you unable to see this as the very same thing as not providing that service to the person? I understand that the mental contortion to arrive at your position is not that complicated, but to believe it as logically sound? Really?
But, as far as I know, *none* of these cases involved a general refusal to provide goods and services to gay customers, but rather only as part of a gay wedding. In one case, the provider was a florist dealing with a gay man who’d been a friendly customer for years before he asked her to do his wedding:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/05/12/im-a-florist-but-i-refused-to-do-flowers-for-my-gay-friends-wedding/?utm_term=.f1bb9bb2640d
These cases were treated public accommodations cases but should have been seen as free speech cases. (I say this, BTW, as a secular libertarian who voted for Gary Johnson and has been in favor of gay marriage as long as I’ve been old enough to have an opinion).
Shorter Bill: my mascots should have a franchise to sic the legal profession on people who would prefer not to be associated with them, because Special.
A tow truck driver refused service to a driver with a Bernie bumper sticker.
So, you’re saying that is perfectly legal?
Yes, unless his license requires him to be a common carrier.
This is a sad website. The posts thus far reflect no knowledge of the Constitution or existing laws and Tyler’s post is disturbing for its lack of knowledge and a placement of false equivalency.
In addition to the 4th and 14th amendment to the Constitution, we have laws which prohibit discrimination of what are called protected classes:
“In United States federal anti-discrimination law, a protected class is a characteristic of a person which cannot be targeted for discrimination.[1] The following characteristics are considered “Protected Classes” by Federal law:
Race – Civil Rights Act of 1964
Color – Civil Rights Act of 1964
Religion – Civil Rights Act of 1964
National origin – Civil Rights Act of 1964
Age (40 and over) – Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967
Sex – Equal Pay Act of 1963 and Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission includes discrimination based on gender presentation and sexual orientation as protected beneath the class of ‘sex'[2]
Pregnancy – Pregnancy Discrimination Act
Citizenship – Immigration Reform and Control Act
Familial status – Civil Rights Act of 1968 Title VIII: Housing cannot discriminate for having children, with an exception for senior housing
Disability status – Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
Veteran status – Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974 and Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act
Genetic information – Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act”
From Wiki re Protected Classes. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Protection_Clause
And yet the Christian baker repeatedly said they do serve gay customers. They objected to the government’s decision to redefine marriage.
A definition of marriage that was accepted by the president only a few years previously.
This Constitution of which you speak seems to be an awfully fickle instrument of control.
Seems like that argument runs afoul the separation of church and state clause. The law would not require any church to perform or acknowledge such a ceremony but would allow the two to enjoy the same status under a number of government laws and regulations. It’s the attempt to force the state to toe the link of the church in terms of how the state defines a secular marriage that seems to fail.
The flower lady in one of these cases loved her gay customer and cried with him about not being able to do his wedding.
That lady is full retard then. She’s not doing Christianity correctly either.
That lady is full retard then. She’s not doing Christianity correctly either.
Are you a bishop in Apostolic succession?
@A-G: yes
The 14th Amendment: there’s nothing it can’t do!
Honestly your profession is absolute garbage since you have a large number of lawyers who fail to understand what “Shall not be Infringed” means and think “interstate commerce” provisions apply to damn near under the Sun. Especially your “Progressive Living Constitutional Law” President. So don’t think your opinion counts for squat.
Regardless, Sexual Orientation is NOT a protected class under federal law, except when Progressive Liberal weenies try to unconscionably expand definitions. The actual discussions revolves around whether Sexual Orientation should be protected by statue, and whether additional statutes like Pence’s First Amendment Protection Act should carve out certain exemptions.
This has nothing to do with reinstating Jim Crow or repealing the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
In short: sod off. No one cares what you think.
This from the guy who pretends to understand how specific hedge funds generate outsized returns.
Bill — the only asshole around here with a law degree.
Fuck you, Bill, you smug shit. Your profession is garbage.
In defense of assholes with law degrees, I am one, and I also think Bill is being dumb.
I am a different Dan than the Dan who posted the 8:55 am comment below. Sorry, 8:55 am Dan.
“I am one, and I also think Bill is being dumb.”
Bill isn’t being dumb. He’s deliberately attempting to make bad argument, in an attempt to be clever. This is the wrong forum for it though.
“In defense of assholes with law degrees, I am one, and I also think Bill is being dumb.”
Seconded. Sheesh.
Dan at 10:05, Please elaborate your argument, if you can.
The 14th Amendment doesn’t apply to private vendors (and the whole mess of 14th Amendment jurisprudence is humbug in any case).
….yes, the whole problem stems from massive efforts to extend quite valid anti-discrimination restrictions upon “Government” (everyone is equal under the law)— to all “private” business & private personal interactions. It is bizarre Left-Progressive egalitarianism run wild.
“Freedom of Association” is indeed the key legal issue.
Also, the creation and interpretation of the term “Public Accommodation” is fundamentally incorrect.
Art, The 14th brings in state action; interstate commerce clause brings in statutes. Please, if you want to misstate something by omitting the other parts of statutes and the constitution that were referred to above, do so, but don’t expect it to be overlooked. Go read my comment at 8:47 for the cites and links. If you are lazy and don’t wish to read, that’s fine.
Art, The 14th brings in state action; interstate commerce clause brings in statutes.
Bill, there is no provision of the 14th Amendment which requires a private vendor to serve anyone. Mail back your law diploma. It’s worthless.
Art, You obviously keep missing the point. You responded earlier when I pointed out that the 14th and 4th amendments provide constitutional guarantees, and then I listed the statutory bases as well, including civil rights and other statutes which come under the commerce clause. Ignoring the latter, you seem to focus on the 14th, ignoring all the other that I mentioned. Please read carefully, because what you said doesn’t make sense but only if you misconstrue what someone else clearly said.
If you keep having problems with this I will direct you to some con law sites where you can read more.
Bill – Art is constitutionally unable to learn things which disagree with what he already knows. And if that is not true, he hides it very well.
Anti-discrimination laws flatly contradict freedom of association. The existence of “protected classes” flatly contradicts equal protection, and probably freedom of association as well, and the pedantic legal justifications otherwise are absurd.
As a white straight male, those laws also apply to me. But there are so many other white straight males (and females) around, it’s hardly worth the bother to care if some minority makes me feel unwelcome to the extent that my access to their service is for practical purposes not available.
But when 90+% of the population is different from you, these basic protections become very important.
No one is telling you who you must spend your personal time with. But if you are to open business to the public, open to the public it must be, and that’s both on the customer and employee side of things. At a minimum, if your prejudices and/or racism are to the extent that you truly cannot handle a day looking a brown man in the face or delivering a cake to a gay wedding, you’re not allowed to go around proudly announcing to everyone your discriminatory practices – you’ll have to make up a lame excuse and stick to it.
How can they accuse us of hypocrisy, they are entirely ignorant of the fact that we wrote our hypocrisy into the law!
It’s Trump’s job to reconcile with the majority who don’t like him, not the people’s job to reconcile themselves to his upcoming administration.
I don’t recall you saying that about Obama, funny that.
When you win an election without dividing the nation you don’t have to do that.
I see you are assuming that Obama winning did not divide the nation.
This is surprising to me, considering the vote tally for and against Obama, and for and against his various opponents.
I suspect that your reasons is ‘when my leader wins, it’s not divisive nor are their policies and actions, but when your leader wins its incredibly divisive’.
I also think Tyler’s post is an observation of this same blindness. Why, precisely, can I force a human to perform a skill or trade when they don’t want to in some circumstances, but not others? Yes we have identified some circumstances (protected classes) that have successfully made the argument that their circumstances are specially bad… But the core logic is the same: we agree with you, so if people don’t act for you it’s bad. We don’t agree with you, so it is good for people not to act on your behalf.
With a pinpoint focus on legislation, executive orders and things actually done by the president (i.e., completely ignoring the fact that he is black), is there a single thing that Obama did that can reasonably be construed as “dividing the nation”?
I ask, because, as I’m sure you’re aware, quite a lot of people get stuck at “maybe Obamacare wasn’t that great of an idea, although it’d be good for everyone to have coverage” and then wonder if this “divided nation” narrative mostly comes from people who would never recognize the legitimacy of a black man in the White House except as a strictly procedural legitimacy of the electoral process.
What did Obama do that was divisive?
I’m a uniter. I unite people like me. Because people like me are not like them. Dividing people is uniting people.
He’s a divider. He tries to divide me from people like me and join us all together. He divides us by joining us.
Principals over principles.
When my guy does it, it’s ok.
Both sides do this, let’s be clear.
Personally I do not object to a business owner refusing to serve a wedding ceremony, if they do not refuse to serve people just because they are gay (like the example Slocum posted above). But it’s a very tricky area to parse. How many people do refuse service to anyone gay? Do posters here think that’s ok? How about refusing to serve black people? Does that civil right issue violate freedom of association? I know Rand Paul has opined that indeed he’s ok with any business refusing service to anyone for any reason. I’m not ok with that. That’s part of being a moderate and a pragmatist, just because one can make a principled argument for something doesn’t mean it’s just or correct (as the other side can make a similar principled argument and now two principles are in conflict).
If they refuse wedding ceremonies, then they should refuse all wedding ceremonies.
No Obama did not divide the nation either against McCain or Romney.
Of course elections by definition mean someone will win and someone else(s) will lose. Divisive, then, must mean something a bit more than some portion of the population wanted the election to go the other way. Now we can build an objective definition of this or we can use a subjective definition (i.e. did the winner lose the popular vote?, were districts close or strongly one side of the other, do polls show the public generally happy with the results or disgusted vs do I feel things are more divided now than in previous elections). No honest person could say by whatever definition one wants to use this election was not more divisive than previous ones in recent memory, including Bush’s first election.
What happened to “I won – elections have consequences”?
Indeed, there will be a lot of bad consequences for all of us.
We don’t know if Melania knew or cared about the fashions of Sophie. The madame is a member of perhaps the most ridiculous occupational group on the planet and her denial of service to anyone is a pathetic attempt at obtaining free publicity, which the ever-less-relevant and similarly pathetic media is happy to provide. I’m ashamed to be thinking about this meaningless crap.
The best response Melania can offer is ‘Who is that’? Like 99.9% of the world. Why would Melania want to end up looking like Michelle Obama? Bizarre.
Perfection is timeless, whether it’s Socrates or Givenchy. I’ve worn the same style clothing since the early 1960s, often referred to as the Brooks Brothers style (though not necessarily from Brooks Brothers). My nephew makes fun of me because I tuck in my shirt (which, of course, has a button down collar). I think he looks ridiculous in a suit designed for Pee-Wee Herman. If women and men want to know what to wear, watch Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Perfection is timeless.
“I think he looks ridiculous in a suit designed for Pee-Wee Herman.”
First the cubs win the world series, then Trump wins the presidency, and now i find myself in agreement with rayward??? This is truly the end times. For your enjoyment:
http://www.bondsuits.com/
According to the logic of the article, gays WOULD deserve the civil rights protections if and when they become unpopular again and face widespread discrimination… right? But when they’re unpopular again, they won’t be able to muster any leverage to get the civil rights bills passed. It’s basically a libertarian catch 22 for gays.
Also, I don’t seem to remember anyone explaining how the Trumps were subject to a long and deadly history of prejudice and discrimination. That would seem to be task number 1 is trying to make any sort of argument that we’re dealing with equivalent cases here, but the author doesn’t bother because it would be absurd.
The logic here is quite simple really, if cake makers can be forced to support something they disagree with politically, then dress designers should be forced to support someone they disagree with politically.
Its not that gays are being refused service, its that they cant insist that someone give them any product they demand.
Well, here’s what the article says: “While I agree with Johnson that there is a role for government to address a widespread refusal of service for things that are central to human flourishing — such as a business refusing to provide everyday food, medical services, or housing to a person due to race, religion, sexual orientation, or political views — it is my impression, however, that in spite of what some are claiming, there is no such widespread discrimination against gay marriages that justifies the government’s intervention.”
Regarding this point in the article… There once was such widespread discrimination, and there may very well be again such widespread discrimination. Maybe now is the time to get a law in place that would serve as a brake for times when discrimination gets worse and as an accelerator in times when discrimination gets better, much like (for example) the Reconstruction amendments and civil rights statutes acted?
And just to make sure we’re really addressing the central issue here, I’ll just stipulate for the sake of argument that this hypothetical statute would NOT apply to wedding cakes or fancy dresses, but rather to what the author calls stuff that is “central to human flourishing.” Is there really still a problem with the statute?
Sure, ok. Civil rights = things that are central to human flourishing. Not civil rights = forcing someone else to do business with you in a way that you would prefer but they do not.
Cake makers should be no more be forced to make a gay wedding cake then they should be forced to make a cake that says “this cake cake maker uses feces as ingredients”
This isnt about gayness, its about forcing someone to do something they dont want to score political points. Gays dont have some special right that allows them to force others to produce a product they dont want to produce, any more than trump can force some dress maker to make a dress.
MOFO is right but I suspect some here think it goes further, i.e. freedom of association means you can refuse to serve anyone for any reason.
“freedom of association means you can refuse to serve anyone for any reason.”
That’s a pretty important principle for libertarians. See here:
http://www.dehnbase.org/lpus/library/platform/foaagd.html
@LA: yes I know, and it conflicts with a pretty important principle of civil rights for far more people. As I said above, sometimes you have to be a pragmatist when 2 principles conflict.
Maybe, I don’t know. It’s not something I spend a lot of time thinking about. It’s a core principle for a small, but influential group of people. People who are typically pretty pro-gay, so it’s hard to chalk up their disagreement to the usual claims of racism, sexism, and homophobia.
But also for normal people, I suspect you’re stretching the definition of civil rights beyond where most people would go.
Was the point that or was it merely the self-hypocrisy of some rather self-righteous people — who may well also be using the “moral high ground” they want to claim as a simple cheap marketing tool as someone pointed out.
It’s not being “forced to support”, it’s being required to provide the an identical commercial service to one person if you also provide it to another person.
Regardless of the logic, the law can hardly be more clear. It’s not about “who you disagree with” it’s about not discriminating against people on the basis of things they have no control over, like their skin colour, sexual orientation and gender.
If you want to live around people like yourself or avoid providing service to people that you don’t care for, you have to be much more subtle about it.
If you’re not having trouble paying your bills, it’s relatively easy. Just use zoning regulations and urban growth boundaries to jack up the price of housing. (Because of the environment, your concerns for traffic congestion, overcrowding of schools, rainwater, and to preserve the historical significance and character of the community, of course.) That will let you run off the riff-raff without looking like a bigot.
To cover your tracks you can scream about religious nuts who don’t want to bake gay wedding cakes.
I don’t see a distinction between wedding cakes, floral arrangements and designer clothes when it comes to marking the line between commerce and artistic expression. But as long as the designer isn’t refusing to sell to Melania on the basis of her race, religion or sexual preference, this is an apples to oranges comparison.
I guess you didn’t read the other comments
“on the basis of her race, religion or sexual preference”
That’s just begging the question.
Legal discrimination in the US is: “The act of denying rights, benefits, justice, equitable treatment, or access to facilities available to all others, to an individual or group of people because of their race, age, gender, handicap or other defining characteristic.”
Obviously political party is a defining characteristic.
Political views != political party
I don’t think that’s right
Strictly speaking it’s not, because it’s far too broad. But the Left is pushing for a broad definition.
They can either take the consequences of a broad definition or they can retreat back to the classic Federal definition of protected classes which does not include gender. Trying to say gender discrimination should not be allowed but political discrimination is fine, is never going to be acceptable to the majority of Americans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_discrimination_law_in_the_United_States
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/05/05/why-a-trump-backing-tow-truck-driver-says-he-refused-service-to-a-sanders-supporter/
Let’s see if you’re okay with this.
I bet suddenly you’ll find a penumbra.
The distinction of law here is the person being discriminated against, not the product being offered (also the second may be more relevant in other cases, for example a baker who bakes nude gay cakes for no one, but provides some standard cakes for any wedding).
I honestly don’t understand what bringing in the idea of “protected class” does for anyone’s argument. Let’s say that the wealth, income, and education gaps between races vanished all of a sudden. Now that minorities are equal with whites, the pols in DC say, “Hey. It doesn’t look like there is any reason to keep race as a protected class.” And so, they amend the various laws they need to and remove race as a protected class. A week later, we hear reports of one single shop in Podunk, Alabama, refusing to sell widgets to African Americans. Then Tyler puts the story up on MR saying that this is disturbing. Do we then see Bill make asinine comments about how this is not disturbing because race is no longer a protected class?
JFA, I didn’t say race was no longer a protected class. Do you understand what protected class means?
Do you understand what a hypothetical is?
You’re point was that there was a false equivalency between the Melania Trump and other types of discrimination because whatever the reasons for discriminating against Mrs. Trump, it wasn’t driven by discrimination against any protected class (as politics or being the wife of a buffoon is not a protected class).
My example is a hypothetical. Imagine, one day, race is no longer one a protected category, and then a shop owner says, “I’m not going to serve African Americans.” My guess is that you won’t say, “Oh, this is no big deal because discrimination based on race is no longer illegal.” If you want to bite the bullet and say this is how you would respond, then fine. The whole point of Tyler’s post is that the demarcation of when discrimination is okay and when it isn’t okay is arbitrary (and mostly based on mood affiliation). Bringing up the idea of protected class does nothing for the argument because, again, the decision about which categories to give protection is arbitrary.
What’s the problem? Can’t Steve Bannon get his fashion designer to help her out?
Or Lady Gaga? https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/nintchdbpict000280794981.jpg?w=960&strip=all
There is the fake news problem, and then the silly news problem.
This is silly news, and no one should be excited, nor let it shape their political worldview. To do so would be to show a lack of discernment.
For the record, the “gay wedding cake” thing that everyone talks about above was “silly news” as well. Far too many people got excited about it, on the right and the left.
But if I eat “gay cakes”, won’t I become gay, too? I don’t want it. Shouldn’t there be labels to warn cake-eaters?
As there are no gay people in Brazil (as reported by you), you are probably immune to gay cakes.
I said there are few gays in Brazil. I think there are fewer gays in Brazil than in the Republican representation at Congress.
I don’t know if gay food can’t induce gayness. We don’t have gay cakes in Brazil (I don’t even understand how cakes can be soooo gay).
Perhaps we can just settle on it’s a “news production problem” and suggest maybe these professionals might consider rising above the standard of social networking chafe.
Well, a bit less silly to the people whose lives were destroyed, probably
Compare shopping elsewhere to dying in Aleppo and maybe that will give you some perspective.
What’s Aleppo?
Probably meant the people who lost their shop, anon.
Oh, I guess I heard about that. Yes, that was an extreme and unfortunate reaction.
First it isn’t about ‘protected classes’ but categories. You can’t open a store and refuse to sell to white people, even though white people are not a ‘protected class’. Such a store would run afoul of discrimination laws that prohibit discrimination based on race.
Second, discrimination laws apply to businesses that are ‘public accommodations’, ones that hold themselves out to be open to the ‘general public’ such as by having a storefront. An elite designer who only takes customers on a private basis would generally be exempt. The same would probably apply to a wedding performer. For example, if you wanted Beyoncé to sing at your affair, she may or may not take your gig but she’s under no obligation to abide by discrimination laws if she turns you down. “Wedding DJ’s on Demand Inc.”, though, would probably be a public accommodation and couldn’t discriminate.
Discrimination laws usually do, though, allow a store owner to refuse service to any particular customer without having to justify him or herself. If a bar owner told President Obama he hates him and won’t serve him, that’s pretty much well within the law unless you can show he has a blanket policy against black customers of all stripes.
The analogy here with hypothetical cake bakeries and pizza places is tortured.
No it isnt. No one is saying that gays cant go to a cake maker of their choice, No one is saying that gays cant get a wedding cake. What they are saying is that you cant force someone to make a cake that they dont want to make any more than you can force Beyoncé to sing where she doesnt want to sing, or force a clothing maker to make clothes they dont want to make, or force a car manufacturer to make a car they dont want to make. Being gay doesnt give you any special rights in this regard.
What if all the local bakers in Podunk, Alabama won’t make your gay wedding cake?
This is where pragmatism comes into play. If a gay person can’t get reasonable service from ANY bakers (not just one), that’s a problem. Melania will have a couple publicity hungry designers refuse her but will have hundreds of other options. That’s not a problem.
“What if all the local bakers in Podunk, Alabama won’t make your gay wedding cake?”
You order one off of Amazon.
If that’s a thing you can do, then to me problem solved. That’s pragmatic and fine with me. Not sure how something so delicate and edible can be delivered by mail though.
Or dont get a cake that is specifically gay. Or decorate it yourself.
This is hardly the problem of our time.
It was never really about the cake. The gays that sued had other local cake shops they could utilize. This was about a political agenda.
@MOFO: they aren’t getting ‘gay’ cakes with 2 entwined penises (at least I think they aren’t), they are simply being refused service because the baker doesn’t think gay people should be allowed to marry at all.
But I agree it’s not a big problem, similar to the transgender bathroom ‘problem’. It’s a tiny number of people who have figured out how to get by without difficulty until the principle debates got fired up.
As I said, I’m ok with gay people having to check with a couple of bakers to find one that will serve their wedding. I’m not ok if they can’t find one reasonably close and reasonably priced.
@JWatts: as a pragmatic moderate if what you are saying is true I would oppose their suit. But can you at least acknowledge that in some cases gay people are unduly harmed by bigotry if no one local will serve them? If that never happens then they should shut up about it.
“But can you at least acknowledge that in some cases gay people are unduly harmed by bigotry if no one local will serve them?”
Sure, but that’s not what happened.
“If that never happens then they should shut up about it.”
If you actually say something like that then you are going to be branded a homophobe. I fully supported the administration cracking down on the Kentucky clerk refusing to grant marriage licenses. That was clear, governmental discrimination. The Gay cake issue is just a political weapon used against opponents.
Do you think a black baker should be forced to bake a cake for a KKK rally?
@JWatts: if that black baker was the only one in town, maybe. He could do a lot of spitting (and worse!) in the cake if he wanted to.
Look, my point is that we are spending a lot of pixels arguing mostly hypothetical principles here. The KKK isn’t going to ask a black baker to bake a cake for them. Very few gay people are going to ask bakers who oppose gay marriage to bake for them, and the ones that do should just find another baker. If they can’t, then they have a tort otherwise they should shut up about it.
Yes there are some hysterical people who will brand my pragmatic take as homophobia, but I ignore them (don’t actually know anyone like that) just as I ignore other hysterical people who brand my pragmatic take on religion as anti-Christian or anti-Muslim. I ignore them too.
“It was never really about the cake. The gays that sued had other local cake shops they could utilize. This was about a political agenda.”
Those black guys in the 50’s and 60’s had plenty of other lunch counters they could have ordered food at. It was all about a political agenda.
If Beyonce opened up a storefront where the general public could walk in and pay $100 to hear her personally sing a song for 5 minutes then she could not discrimination based on race, religion, orientation, gender etc. Ditto for your cake bakers.
Now there is no requirement to sell the stuff a customer wants to buy. If a baker doesn’t want to make a groom-groom or bride-bride cake he is perfectly free to say he doesn’t stock or make those cakes and a gay couple who wants a cake would have to settle for a blank one or a bride-groom one.
“Being gay doesnt give you any special rights in this regard.”
And you don’t get any special rights. A gay baker who decided he was going to refuse to provide any cakes to Roman Catholic couples because he hates that the Church refuses to recognize SSM would be in the same bind. Or for that matter if the baker tried to refuse to provide cakes to straight couples.
This is a place where marginal thinking fails us. There are unreasonable outcomes on both sides: the only thing worse than an authoritarian government is mob rule. This is not a monotonic function, and there will be some sense of contradiction at all points in this space. So, to discuss this rationally, you need to try to find the global optimum, not just point out a conflict at the extremes.
Freedom of contract and association is the global optimum.
But then I can’t use the state to force people to accept me!
That doesn’t sound very fun.
I agree! Putting guns in others faces is the spice of life!
Art apparently is with Rand Paul on this one even though he’s no fan of libertarians. Art apparently is ok with refusing service for any reason, including race, because freedom of association. KevinH made a good point, this is an area where 2 very strong principles conflict, but only in very rare instances. Both principles should be respected, and in the very rare conflicts a workaround is needed that may not be perfectly ‘principled’
Things are best when any person can turn me away for any reason, and I have to spend all my hours or the day just to find a place to sell me a crust of bread.
Very optimal.
There no “everyone’s happy” solution.
Some people believe their right to discriminate trumps the right to not experience discrimination. Others believe that the right to live free of discriminate is more important than the right to discriminate.
Regardless of where the line is drawn, there are still going to be people on both sides of that line. At which point, the ones whose right to discriminate is curtailed can be offered the solace that they will also have the right to be served by people they want nothing to do with.
In terms of the hysteria from the religious corners, however, let’s at least not lie to ourselves about whether Jesus would have baked the cake. As their supposed Lord and Saviour, you’d think such reasoning might hold some sway.
I know that linking to an article does not mean Tyler endorses it. But reading between the lines of this post’s title can we at least say he is trying to raise the status of “Freedom of Association”?
Maybe he thinks it is funny, and arguments about it funnier. Or maybe that is just me.
Someone I have never heard of refuses to dress a Trump .. of course they do. That there are people who think this is an important political statement is completely unsurprising.
The chance of Melania being without clothes is low, but as we have seen, she doesn’t really need them.
It might depend a bit on whether the reaction is calls of hypocrisy or support for the right to do so.
It seems like most people are stuck on gay cakes and the inability to discern between rights attributed to individuals as a function of their being an individual, and rights attributed to individuals as a function of their belonging to a group or having attributes which they themselves cannot choose.
Imagine if people could be barred service on the basis of their eye colour. Just not cool. Get over your prejudices. If you have specific beef with a specific person, no law can force you to hang out and be friends.
There cannot be a free market if numerous individuals/groups face additional barriers as both consumers and producers due to things like having different skin pigment or “where they like to put it”.
+1
I think we should wait until the Bureau of Open Letters publishes its analysis of this letter. I’m still not sure if this letter is open or closed. Let’s reserve judgement about this letter until all the facts are in.
When did First Clothes Horse become a thing?
In 2008?
I don’t recall Barbara, Hillary or Laura playing the CHOTUS role.
Back when Howard Dean seemed credible (pre-scream), Ms Dean was treated roughly by some members of the press because her hair and clothes were those of a working doctor, rather than a made-over celebrity. They were especially snippy about her not seeming to care.
good idea, i like them,
Things are best when any person can turn me away for any reason, and I have to spend all my hours or the day just to find a place to sell me a crust of bread.
Yes, that is exactly the problem Melania has here, isn’t it?
Wow, there are more comments here than on any other post today. What a huge important issue this is. No wonder we have elected a clown as president, if this is what is the most important and concerning issue to people.
I bet your blog has way more serious stuff with tons of comments.
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