The Butcher, The Baker
And The Candlestick Maker
In New Mexico there’s a case of a wedding photographer by the name of Elaine Huguenin who has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a ruling by New Mexico’s
highest court that she was required by the state public accommodations law to take pictures of a female couple’s committed ceremony.
Three weeks ago a judge here in Colorado ruled against a baker who refused to supply a gay couple with a cake for their wedding reception. Religious thought is the issue in both cases. As is free speech. This is important.
The first amendment protects not only the right to express one’s own views but also the right not to be compelled to convey someone else’s. In the New Mexico case the photographer warns that the decision against her would threaten other artists and “expressive professions,” including marketers, advertisers, publicists and website designers.
In as much as I support and have verbally fought for same sex marriage and very much oppose discrimination, there is a distinction between businesses that provide the same products or services to all comers and those that collaborate in a personalized message.
In July 2012, Dave Mullins and his husband Charlie Craig walked into the Masterpiece Cakeshop. They were there for about 50 seconds when Jack Phillips told them he would not make the top of a gay wedding cake. At that point Mullins and Craig stood up and said “f-you and your homophobic cake shop,” and gave him the finger as they walked out the door. How nice.
What we now know is a month before that, a lesbian couple went into the bake shop and were told by one of the employees that they would not make the wedding cake for the women. True to form, Phillips also will not make Halloween cakes with werewolves, demons or satanic decorations. This also offends Phillips’ religious beliefs. And he has made that clear on numbers of occasions. Now one of his critics has said he was willing to make a wedding cake of two dogs. My response to that is, dude, that’s make believe.
There’s no consenting adult involved in dog weddings. How far the progressives will go to stretch a point.
I’ve been to Masterpiece Cakeshop. It’s very out of the way in the back of a shopping center off of South Wadsworth. Mullins and Craig were shopping there to cause Phillips a problem. They had the ACLU in their back pocket as well as the Colorado Civil Rights Commission and, frightening enough, I believe Colorado Attorney General John Suthers is in on this, too.
So when it comes down, the Administrative Law Judge Robert N. Spencer ruled that Masterpiece Cakeshop discriminated against the couple “because of their sexual
orientation by refusing to sell them a wedding cake for their same sex marriage.” Spencer also said Phillips must “cease and desist” discriminating against gay couples. Although his Honor didn’t have the stones to impose a fine, therefore kicking the can down the street for some other black robed fascist who will fine Phillips if he continues to turn away gay couples that want to buy cakes.
Here’s the kicker. Phillips says you can buy anything else, all your pies and muffins and cookies and cakes are yours. He won’t, as an artist, make the top of a gay cake. He told me the other day on 710 KNUS he can’t back down. He won’t make the cake. So now the ACLU, the state of Colorado and the cake police are going to put this man out of business. He’s been there for over 20 years. He truly is an artist and I believe that his career is coming to an end.
What is it about the left that’s screams tolerance? That would put this humble guy and his employees out of business, hurting everyone who sells him supplies, who he pays rent to.
For the store will close. Because an appointed judge is telling this man what he must believe. How soon after gay marriage (which I openly support as well as gay adoption) before someone walks into the Catholic cathedral, conservative Jewish temple and evangelical Protestant church and tells them that they’re either hate speakers for saying a marriage is between a man and a woman and telling they must cease or be fined. Or better yet, when the hate police walk in and say it’s hate speech for you preaching that marriage is between a man and a woman and you must serve everyone’s interest and marry two men and two women on demand or be fined and put out of business. If we had enough space in this paper I could list historically nations that have pulled that stunt in one form or another. All of them are now in the dustbin of history. So I leave you with the words of the original motion picture, “Watch the Skies” — This stuff is scary!
Happy New Year!
Peter