"trader_4" wrote in message
...
On Saturday, July 11, 2015 at 6:01:43 PM UTC-4, Robert Green wrote:
"trader_4" wrote in message news:388319c7-

stuff snipped

No one is saying religious freedom trumps the law.

That's precisely what the religious exceptionists ARE preaching. In
Oregon,
which had anti-gay discrimination laws in place, the bakers explicitly
claimed their religion gave them the right to refuse service. The court
and
authorities decided otherwise.

They aren't saying religious freedom "trumps" the law at all.
They are saying religious freedom is incorporated into the law,
ie the constitution. The SC in their recent gay marriage law
decision, in Hobby Lobby, etc has affirmed that. The only question
now is to clarify it based on specific cases.

This isn't an abstract, untested case we're talking about. The law in
Oregon is clear, and they violated it. They derided the gay couple who
asked to be served, according to Oregon law, on social media. They
continued to say they would defy the law and refuse to serve gays. It's all
he

http://www.oregon.gov/boli/SiteAsset...Cakes%20FO.pdf

It's like that grazing fees case. When you get to the details, the cause
seems somehow less just than first presented. If you don't like equal
access laws, move to a state where there aren't any. I moved out of DC
because I couldn't legally own a gun. I didn't recommend that people break
the law in protest, as the bakers did.

I'm against anyone being forced to bake a cake period.
Sounds like Stalin, Kim Jung Un or Hitler to me.

You make it sound like these folks didn't sell cakes for a living and
these
gay demons broke into a hair salon and demanded they bake a cake for
them.

Never said or implied any such thing. Stick to the facts.

Do the same. Did they *ever* actually bake a cake for these people? No.
So no one was ever forced to bake a cake. You can't be forced to bake a
cake that never was. So where are you getting your forced cake baking
comment from? See, that knife cuts both ways, but I cut deeper. (-:

The court found that they disobeyed the law in their state, and admitted
they would do it again, they advised others to break the law and they
damaged the gay couple's reputation through their derisive writings on
Facebook and other places. Then, miraculously, after collecting nearly
enough donations to cover the fines they incurred, they went private.

That's the choice they should have made knowing they were religious hard
liners who somehow thinking bake a cake for gay person is going to damn them
to hell. Does the Bible have gay baking rules?

If you go private, discriminate your "Christian" heart out. But when you
open your business to the public, you agree to abide by the law, plain and
simple. Don't like the law? Go private or work to get it changed. Break it
before it's changed and pay the fines. Problem solved. But apparently you
want to have your cake and to be able to eat it, too.

Sorry. This is a simple "do the crime, do the time" case despite what
people are trying to twist it into. Most of that financial penalty was
increased by the bakers' willful disregard of court orders. How is this not
simply using the cloak of religion to justify bigotry? How is this not
grandstanding in the fine old tradition of Al Sharpton?

Considering how Roberts had voted in the past, I don't see the SC mustering
the votes to allow shop and innkeepers to refuse service on the basis of
their religious beliefs when the choice those merchants who feel the need to
discriminate have is to go private?

These bakers made bad business decisions - and then they made even worse
ones.

--
Bobby G.