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[MrRoboto75]

Guess you cant have your cake and eat it too.

[smjjames]

@ispil: Pfft, the facts of #1 and 2 make it sound like they were actively hunting for someone to hit with a lawsuit. That's without proof that they actually were though.

@MSH: Might be for the better that they dodge the question here due to the barest hint of bad faith (and not of the religious kind).

[Dunamisdeos]

A 7-2 ruling is not narrow. It is in fact the opposite of narrow.
 
Also I agree with SMJ, I'm not pointing fingers but it seems suspect. I also am pleased that they did not take any hard stance, because any such hard stance would have been flimsy as a result.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Ispil was referring to the judicial narrowness of the ruling (applies to this exact situation only, will likely never be cited again), not the margin of the majority and dissent.

[Dunamisdeos]

Ah, so it is narrow in terms of being able to be applied to other similar situations. Got it.

I mean do you guys feel it would have been better to be more decisive?

[smjjames]

More decisive how? You yourself said that if they made any hard stance or decided in favor of the litigants, the precedence would be flimsy due to the circumstances and the exact greviance not being clear apparently.

I suspect that Justice Kennedy and two of the liberal Justices saw the same murkyness of it.

[Dunamisdeos]

Yes, that is my position. I am asking if anyone else has a differing one, or a differing opinion on it. Metal seems to have felt that they were dodging the question, for instance. If they had taken a harder stance, what might have been the positive results?

Just y'kno, engaging in conversation on the subject is all.

~Edited for clarity~

[smjjames]

If who had a harder stance, the two guys?

If the circumstances and background behind this didn't seem suspect in a 'what are you doing?' sort of way , I'd have sided with the two guys.

If you mean whether SCOTUS could have had a harder stance, yeah, they could have on the discrimination part. However, the baker reportedly said that he's fine with selling them a cake already in the shop, so, even there, it gets murky.

[Dunamisdeos]

Yes, the SCOTUS. Isn't that what people were talking about before me? That they dodged the question and didn't take a harder stance on the discriminatory aspect of it? Sorry if I just non sequitur'd that hard.
 
Also, I was unaware of that. Did he explain why he wouldn't sell them a personalized cake? That doesn't even make sense from a "I don't want the gays to marry" religious angle. His tack seems to be that any cake from his store would be support of something against his religious beliefs. What's more, Judge Kennedy seems to have found discriminatory sentiment in the local courts of all things. I wonder if the SCOTUS ruling would have been different if not for that aspect?

Multiple SCOTUS judges seem to have focused on that aspect while also seemingly trying to reassure people that they still stood in favor of LGBT protections.

I got all my readings from [this article].

[Trekkin]

Not to over-simplify the arguments in favor of the baker, but it was felt that, insofar as cake decorating is art and art is speech, mandating that the baker create something implicitly endorsing a cause with which he disagreed was an infringement of his First Amendment rights, as per the baker's original explanation. He was willing to sell them a premade cake(EDIT:according to him later, anyway), just not to make one explicitly for this purpose and so forth.

I happen not to see any merit in that argument, particularly since if he were in fact mandated to do so he couldn't very well claim he was endorsing their views on gay marriage by agreeing to do so, but that was the argument nevertheless. SCOTUS has effectively not set any precedent with this ruling, though, by citing mostly procedural grounds, thus everyone being irked.

[smjjames]

The Vox article goes much further into depth.

Not to over-simplify the arguments in favor of the baker, but it was felt that, insofar as cake decorating is art and art is speech, mandating that the baker create something implicitly endorsing a cause with which he disagreed was an infringement of his First Amendment rights, as per the baker's original explanation. He was willing to sell them a premade cake, just not to make one explicitly for this purpose and so forth.

I happen not to see any merit in that argument, particularly since if he were in fact mandated to do so he couldn't very well claim he was endorsing their views on gay marriage by agreeing to do so, but that was the argument nevertheless. SCOTUS has effectively not set any precedent with this ruling, though, by citing mostly procedural grounds, thus everyone being irked.

Except that they weren't demanding he write "I LOVE GAYS! SIGNED, THE BAKER!" or anything like that (which would clearly have been a provocation). So, I don't see just baking a cake for them and nobody knew who made the cake (has anybody ever asked the bride and groom where they bought the cake? Probably not many) as the baker endorsing gay marriage.

[Dunamisdeos]

Eh, apparantly people do ask that, if it's a very fancy cake. My aunt holds the actual title of Master Baker, which I was previously unaware was a thing outside of medieval fantasy. She got by on that kind of word-of-mouth.

This is a great article on Vox, I'm reading it now. According to this, the baker offered non-wedding goods but not the cake. Ergo, if they wanted, say, 50 eclairs or something for their wedding he would have been fine with that? According to this article he even refused to make or sell them any wedding cake, even of a completely nondescript nature.

I can comprehend the concept of a highly personalized cake being associated with his shop, even if I disagree, but if the cake absolutely cannot be traced back to him then what is his basis for refusing?

[smjjames]

I see a hole in that logic of not wanting his bakery to be representing it, if they did do the hypothetical eclair thing and someone thought they were awesome and asked where they were from, his bakery would still be connected. So, even that line of logic of not wanting to appear to be endorsing makes no sense.

From his description of how he makes custom cakes (which is certainly generally standard for custom cakes since you have to know what the cusomer wants, what they like, etc), it sounds like he just didn't want to get to know them.

[redwallzyl]

https://www.npr.org/2018/06/04/616268027/gun-studies-permit-laws-reduce-murders-red-flag-laws-cut-suicides

Looks like gun control works. Shocking I know.

[WealthyRadish]

I don't know, I always think of all the suicide that could have been prevented if only someone else in the room had a gun. Sarcasm note I guess