I came across a story about a Christian baker in Iowa who is being boycotted for refusing to work with a gay couple.
I love boycotts with a passion, regardless of which side I’m on. Commerce is meant to be a voluntary association where goods are exchanged. Oftentimes prices, competitors, or quality factor into purchase decisions, but the phrase “value is subjective” is epitomized by a consumer who flexes a moral objection to the producers of a certain product.
I didn’t feel particularly strongly about this article until I got to this line:
The Iowa Civil Rights Act was amended in 2007 to include protections for sexual orientation. The couple told the television station they had not decided whether they would file a Civil Rights complaint against the baker.
A spokesperson for the Iowa Civil Rights Commission declined to confirm or deny whether they’ve launched an investigation.
Once again, the government obscures commerce.
What good is a boycott in a land where commerce can’t be voluntary?
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Comments
I realize that Des Moines is not the size of NYC but I’m sure this is not the only bakery in town.
Call me a homophobe, but I would feel out of place at a gay wedding. I believe the couple has every right to do what they want. If I were a baker, I’d be concerned that because I felt out of place that I’d be nervous and drop the cake. Therefore, I’d decline to bake their cake because I’d be concerned I’d drop the cake and ruin the event.
why have we allowed the government to force us to work for someone when we don’t want to.
why can’t people be allowed to choose?
contractors can refuse to bid on jobs, why can’t everyone be allowed to refuse ?
I would close the business before being forced to work for people I morally detest.
I’m going to be donating blood plasma in Des Moines next week. I think that I may just stop by Victoria’s to buy something.
The show “Archer” covered this with their “jackpot” diversity hire … black AND Jewish I think it was. But I guess the real jackpot hire would be a Hispanic gay female illegal immigrant, with disabilities?
What research concluded diversity was strength? Dealing with diverse adversity may make us stronger, but REQUIRING hiring based on color, race or creed is of course discriminatory.
I’m not a lawyer … but if we are forced to obey contrived laws written by lawyers for devious means and ends; war, revolution or captivity may be next. Or are we already past that “may be” phase, and we are approaching the end game of our free society?
In Iowa, surely a boycott like this would result in a victorious “buycott”.
Do the standards change if say…
it was a Muslim Baker who refuses to sell to a Jewish Straight Couple?
a ‘Christian’ doctor refuses to treat a gay person?
Isn’t the likes of Victoria Childress as bad as when Bureaucrats get to set subjective rules for commerce?
No. The standards would be the same. For example, if I am black gay and my business is selling sex toys for straight asian people and a white gay wants me to provide them with sex toys for white gay people then I can refuse them service if I so choose.
It is bad when Bureaucrats get to set subjective rules for commerce ie enforcing laws requiring me to sell sex toys for gays when my business is selling sex toys for straight people.
And as for the ‘Christian’ doctor refusing to treat a gay person, this is a stupid example since doctors are to not violate the Hippocratic Oath.
Unless of course the black, white, gay, straight, Muslim, Christian, Jewish etc etc etc babies who either are aborted or have survived an abortion only to be stuffed into hospital linen closets denied medical care and forced to die.
I see.
So the Hippocratic Oath (sworn to a pagan diety) can override a ‘Christian’ doctor’s personal religious objection to a commercial exchange of service with gays.
But The Iowa Civil Rights Act 1965 is not good enough for our Jim-Crow ‘Christian’ baker?
No you don’t see, you are blinded by bigoted stupidity.
All you see is religion rather than free-market, private enterprise and rights to private property.
In a reasonable environment, the couple would have movedon.org to another bakery rather than whining to a bunch of Marxist lawyers about some perceived grievance.
When a liberal stands on principle, it’s honorable.
When a non-liberal does the same, it’s bigoted, homophobic, racist, sexist, blah, blah, blah.
The cultural war is a war attacking the judeo-christian ethic in its entirety.
Thank the good Lord for the blogosphere where truth finds a way.
But he’s a heterosexual, and the govt is biased against him 🙂
My boycott on Men’s Warehouse for supporting the occupiers is code for homophobia and racism. Just ask the MSM.
In fact, it might just qualify me to be domestic terrorist. I’ll report back when I make the no-fly list along with my 96 year old grandmother.
Well on a positive note, he’s now able to reduce his advertising budget for the next two years.
She, not he.
1. The government should not meddle with a small business like this bakery. It’s tantamount to meddling with a transaction between two individuals. A large, publicly traded company could be a different story.
That’s just my gut feeling. I leave justification or refutation to better dialecticians than I am.
2. I suspect that the Iowa Civil Rights Commission would love to receive a complaint. During tough times, they need pretexts to justify their budget and phony baloney jobs.
My sentiments exactly. Thank you, gs.
My pleasure.
So, a Christian baker must lose her livelihood because of her religious conscience?
This tells me that “gay marriage” is truly not a “civil rights” issue as they claim, but an issue of “I-will-ram-it-down-your-throat-and-like-it” thuggery and intimidation. And using the government to do the Mafia-like intimidation, to boot.
Did anyone read the link before they went all Jim-Crow here? Victoria Childress is no Christian martyr.
The nosey parker had already consented + prepared the tasting menu when she pried + pursued an inquiry into her customer’s personal affair. That’s when she turned her counter into a pulpit and customers into sinners. She asked first. They answered. Perhaps they should have said, “None of your damn business”.
If she was really a ‘Christian’ and had a ‘conscience’, she would have Mark 2:13-17 memorized.
I think I might differentiate between whether an individual is being asked to perform a personal service that of necessity would further an offensive ideology, or whether it’s a business that is selling an impersonal product or service (e.g. auto mechanic), such that the refusal to do business is just plain old discrimination. Some businesses might be hybrid. Does baking a wedding cake involve getting personally involved to the point in which it is sanctioning the wedding? If she were in the business of renting chairs, should it matter what the event is for which the chairs are being rented. Etc.
I would not want anyone looking at my donuts with lust in their heart.
so are the folks defending the baker’s right to disciminate saying that whites-only restaurant counters are okay again? i prefer the boycott method of protesting, but boycotts and suits are not mutually exclusive. the non-discrimation law is on the books for just this sort of situation.
but the big question for me is why any businessperson would want to limit their customer base this way. gay people don’t eat sweets? jesus will hate them if they sell a cupcake to a gay person? i don’t get their rationale. if they don’t want to sell baked goods to the public, then maybe they are in the wrong business.
There’s a reason why many small businesses place the Christian fish on their ads and signs.
Christians make over 50 percent of the population.
Gays? Pick a number, any number, to represent their percentage. Their actual percent of the population is… 2.
Encouraging boycotts only does one thing: marginalize Christians (the majority of the population) from society. Making them into renegades. Outlaws. Not worthy of belonging in polite society. Lepers. Who wants to buy a cake from a “Christer” nowadays if you can be “trendy”?
But that’s OK. With Obama and his gang about to force Catholic hospitals to pay for employees contraception and forcing them to do abortions, and even taking them from the adoption and foster agencies because of their stand on homosexuality, to teachers being fired from their jobs because of their own Christian stand against it, among other things happening in our current society, pretty soon there will be no Christian with a job worth having in this country. No pharmacists. No teachers. No doctors. No scientists. No…
In short time, Christians will be confined to working in the “waste management” business, just like the Copts in Egypt! Even in spite of that pesky Religious Freedom clause of the First Amendment. Isn’t that great?
they are ok with me.
and so is a blacks only.
and both of those would go out of business soon if they did.
what gives you the right to tell me who I have to work for?
of I choose to not work for someone, its my choice.
What I don’t understand is why this issue came up in the first place. The baker is not required to interact with this couple probably any more than she already had done. Why is she bothered by their gayness? She’s just selling a cake. I did not know the baker was required to deliver the cake and/or attend the reception. Every wedding I know about the bridal couple had to go get the cake. This is self righteousness at its worse. However, I will say there is no such thing as bad publicity. This little known bakery is now pseudo famous.
In the late 1990’s in NYC I would often come across a number of gay and lesbian bars, the gay bars were bothered with straight females coming in and the lesbian bars were bothered with straight males coming in.
Once even two of my friends and I went to lesbian dance club. One of my friends is gay male, my other friend is straight male and I am a straight female.
When we arrived at the door, the door-woman said that my gay male friend could enter, I could enter even though I am not a lesbian BUT my straight male friend COULD NOT ENTER.
Obviously we had a clear case of sexual discrimination perpetuated by a lesbian business however instead of running off to the nearest Marxist Civil Equality Law Center, file a complain to demand the lesbian dance club be shut down for sexual discrimation we instead walked to another dance club.
By the way, I have many gay friends and lost count of the number of gay businesses (mainly night clubs) which denied me (a straight female) entrance into their establishments.
Why all those Gay were so bothered with Straightness, I’ll never know because I don’t care and don’t go to these establishments anymore.
Actually there are no good guys in ths mess. All acted childisly and retalitorily.
You know, sir, I have long advocated to gay men that we should not antagonize heteros who can’t handle us yet; I have always endeavored to do avoid doing so — there are enough gay friendly businesses out there — we have a complete Pink Economy, I assure you. Yes, yet, some liberal gay folks keep this up — for they think this will help us — but it will not; I argue with them on sites you would never know existed. I would rather a “buycott” than a “boycott.” For gay folks, still pilloried regularly, and too few in numbers, simply can’t effect anything by boycotts. But we can show we are consumers with dollars, and perhaps change a mind through cooperation rather than confrontation.
And I point out to my gay friends — Do Not Push This — for we will find that we gay men can’t enjoy our gay bars when scads of screaming heteros come in and demand service – to whom I rightly feel we should be allowed to refuse such service — and frankly, I have chased hetero couples out of gay bars — for it ruins the mood. And if “we” win — then we will lose — for you heteros will come in and destroy our little world — and we don’t have the numbers to stop you — and after we “win,” not even the law. Let me tell you, the look on hetero faces when I tell them “no hetero smooching in gay bars” is priceless.
But please, stop trying to lump all gay men in to one group — that’s liberal group think — and realize many of us are conservatives and capitalists — just as not every hetero is a liberal too, as your fellows Pelosi and Kerry are. Thanks.
And by the way, Professor Jacobson, I have been quiet on many hetero blogs for a few months — not because I have given up on our — yours and mine — principles — (and definitely not because I’m a troll or something worse) — but I thought I could be more effective on gay blogs — where you dare not tread — in bringing gay guys to our side — the liberty side. I only have so much time in a day — I take care of a fading WWII vet, and he requires ever more care.
And I’m not unaware that many heteros such as you are, um, “gay perplexed” and I can live with that; I always have; though it got better — but I’m also aware that many gay guys are simply idiots — and they need my ministrations more than you do. And lo, these many months, there’s been a change — subtle, not complete, but still there — “Oh yah, maybe the Dems are screwing with us” all across the gay-blogs — perhaps I have had more success than you with hetero liberals — for gay men are swayed more by gay issues than they are by economic and legal issues, I assure you.
I need economic sanity more than I need “marriage” by any name — but let me assure you — we are American taxpayers too — and this unholy “get rid of the gays” meme of some Republicans will not stand either. Not while I live and breathe.
But remember this — whenever I hear people like Santorum and Bachmann and others blame us gay men for the unwed mothers and excess babies on the public dime — which they have done — I’m infuriated — for I don’t make no babies. We are not responsible for that problem — blame you heteros. Give us over to autism, and be done with us, and let my people go. Stop trying to blame gay folks. Thanks.