WEDDING CAKE CASE
Supreme Court and Lakwood baker
Re: “Can government be the Cake Boss?” June 27 guest commentary.
James Gottry of the Alliance Defending Freedom bemoans the fact that if the Supreme Court rules against cake maker Jack Phillips — who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple — “his business’ very existence will be in doubt.” As it should be. You discriminate, you threaten the stability of your business. Your choice. I would never purchase a cake from a baker who discriminates against others, even though he may deem my cake worthy because I’m a woman who married a man.
All I have to say to Phillips and Gottry is, let them eat cake!
Monica Toole, Golden
Re: “Supreme Court should rule: Let them have cake,” June 28 editorial.
Your point of view about this long-running legal case insults both Christians and simple logic. Your equating a deeply held Christian religious belief as “harboring … prejudice against same-sex couples” is logically wrong and insulting. Further, your attempt to conflate a smallbusiness owner’s freedom to sell a product, or not, to customers of his choosing with some national threat of opening “an ungodly Pandora’s box of adverse consequences across the the land” is a hypothesis contrary to fact. That is, you do not know that. You do not have some magical crystal ball allowing you to see into the future.
This case will be decided on the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and cake maker Jack Phillips will win. So, get used to the idea that political correctness and identity politics is about to take a big hit. About time!
Stephen B. Pacetti, Lakewood
Would the defenders of Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop call it his First Amendment right if he refused to bake a wedding cake for an interracial couple?
Fifty years ago, until the Supreme Court struck down miscegenation laws in the U.S., the marriages of interracial couples were still illegal in 16 states. People used religious arguments to support their opposition to interracial marriages, just as they do to oppose same-sex marriages today.
Refusing to bake a wedding cake for an interracial couple would have been as acceptable in many places in 1967 as is turning away same-sex couples by some bakers in 2017.
Cheryl Kasson, Denver
Why can’t they both have their cake and eat it too? Why not have the cake shop make the cake in a manner most anyone might order, leaving off any reference to LGBT symbols? Like a cake with purple frosting with a rainbow arch on top. Anybody might order that cake. Leave off the pair of male or female statues, which can be added when the couple takes it home. Everybody wins a little, everybody loses a little!
I do not believe the artist should have to use personal talents in any manner that displeases him or her. Mark Rawlins, Westminster
I empathize with Jack Phillips and I do not think him to be a “bigot” or whatever else others would call him. But I also do not agree with him. I can agree artists put their beliefs and conviction into their work. But goods and services are subject to common law when sold to the public. If he can refuse service for arbitrary reasons (yes, individual beliefs are arbitrary), so, too, can other companies — and that sets a dangerous precedent. Furthermore, the sale of goods and services neither implicitly nor explicitly suggests endorsement — by that argument, the knifesmith is complicit in violence, the gunsmith affirmative in murder. Thus, Phillips creation of a cake doesn’t “endorse” homosexual marriage. His beliefs end where others’ rights begin.
Michael Thanh, Westminster
The case against Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, is heading to the Supreme Court. But who really has the power against bigotry? Regardless of the Supreme Court’s decision, once they hear it later this year, we the people have the power by keeping our wallets closed.
Quite simply, if you do not like a retailer’s policy, do not patronize them. I wouldn’t purchase a wedding cake or anything else from Masterpiece Cakeshop if it was the last bakery in town. Truth is, there are lots of great bakeries in the Denver area, so why would I purchase from Masterpiece, which has decided to inflict its personal beliefs on the public it relies on?
Leslie Levy, Denver