Bakery court ruling is icing on the cake
Half-baked. That’s the mental state of many, on both the left and right, in response to the Supreme Court siding with a Colorado baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple.
Everyone seems to be involved. From Hollywood’s Seth MacFarlane – brilliant in Tinseltown but clueless regarding politics and the law – saying the decision is the same as a restaurant not seating blacks, to the left claiming the ruling will sanction discrimination against gays, to the right championing it as a “religious freedom” victory, they are all wrong.
The icing on the cake is that, because the court wimped out by narrowly ruling on the merits of only this particular case – basically that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission was mean to the baker – the issue will be front-and-center again in the near future.
Let’s get the major point straight: This issue has nothing to do with religion or gays. It has everything to do with freedom and personal choice. Outside of advocacy groups on both sides throwing red meat to their bases, why this is so hard to understand remains a mystery.
A baker’s refusal to bake a cake for a gay couple may stem from his religious beliefs, but his legal protection isn’t a “religious freedom” law. Instead, it is a right guaranteeing Americans – all Americans – the freedom to make their own decisions. And they are decisions – right or wrong, moral or immoral – according to what people, not a paternalistic government, think is best.
When you strip away the inflammatory rhetoric, such individual freedom laws are the opposite of bigotry and have an important place in America. Examples abound:
• If a Ku Klux Klansman walks into a black-owned bakery and orders a cake emblazoned with “KKK,” a burning cross, and a black man hanging from a tree, should the owner be forced to make that cake?
• A Muslim-owned baker is requested to create a cake with offensive depictions of Mohammad and customer-supplied pork rinds as part of the “display.” Must the owner comply?
• Should an American baker incur fines and imprisonment for refusing to bake a cake with “Go ISIS!” and “We love al Qaida!” replete with terrorists slamming into the World Trade Center as a cake-topper?
If America is truly free, the answer to all is a resounding “no.” Period.
Gays claim that they will be the group most adversely affected by the Supreme Court ruling. That may well be true. However, it is important to remember that sexual preference (in other words, how a person engages in sex), unlike race, creed, color and gender, is not a protected class under the federal Civil Rights Act. As much as some in that community believe they are entitled to protected status, current law says differently.
To be clear, just because something may be wrong, doesn’t mean it is, or should be, illegal. We cannot legislate tolerance, nor should we be criminalizing resistance to things some may find offensive. For the most part, Americans have accepted gay marriage on its merits, with the grace and dignity that comes with being some of the most progressive (small “p”) people in history. Tolerance on all sides makes America go ‘round.
If there aren’t enough businesses to cater to those who are excluded, it won’t be long before some spring up, because that’s how the market works. A need becomes a business opportunity, and both sides come out ahead. No harm, no foul.
Let’s be honest. It’s great to have principles, but in reality, most business owners likely will keep them private, leaving politics out of the workplace. They are in business to make money, and controversy is rarely good for the bottom line. So, given that relatively few business owners will turn people away, why is this issue garnering such headlines?
It is important to remember that these points apply only to the private sector. No government, at any level, should be discriminating (or reverse-discriminating) against anyone, for any reason. Government’s purpose is to serve the people in a fair, unbiased way, and not be engaged in politically driven social engineering.
As with all issues, common sense goes a long way. America is big enough, and tolerant enough, to accommodate everyone. So let’s drop the divisive rhetoric, and respect the beliefs of those on both sides. With the world’s most powerful system (the free market) on our side, we can have our cake and eat it, too.