Do you think you should have the right to decline business on Personal or Religious grounds?

by PokerPlayerPhil 16 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • PokerPlayerPhil
    PokerPlayerPhil

    Should individual businesses have the right to pick and chose who they serve? If a Muslim decides he won't bake the cake of a radical Zionist that says "Reclaim the Temple in Jerusalem" should the Government be allowed to punish the Muslim Baker? Maybe you can help me understand the issues more clearly because were becoming hyper-sensitive and soon your going to need a handbook what's the proper thing to say.

    I heard the argument of some KKK member going to a bakery run by a Black man, the Black is shocked once he hear's the Klan member want's him to write some evil celebration phrase and declines serving this Klan member. The Klan sues the baker and gets $150k in damages, would you back the Court up on that decisions? Daily we are bombarded with news with a sole purpose, to incite us to turn against ourselves and be very divisive! I feel the Media and those who control it want us to destroy ourselves while the true agendas their pushing will be our downfall! There's some Agenda out there, not a conspiracy buff, yet it's obvious something or someone is trying to get us to the point of self-destruction.

    Any ideas how to respond when these arguments appear because I really am confused trying to understand all the hate being spread. I don't think the bakery in Oregon should have been sued for $150k blowing them up because they could not keep their mouths shut and should have baked the cake, it's not the Baker's business and nobody would have thought the Baker was homosexual or leaning to the Left's side. In another State I heard another lawsuit is going on suing another Baker because they would not attend the wedding and set up the cake with all that wedding fancy stuff the rich do

    Should the Baker be sued if they offered to make the cake but refused to take the cake to the wedding because they felt it would give off a wrong impression? Things are crazy, in just a few seconds I heard Mr. Ditto head talking about all the freedoms being lost out of fear we might offend a group people perceive is not getting treated well. He mentioned the baker of Islamic background that refused to make cakes for homosexuals under cover, what do you think?

    I am not a Rush or Ditto head, Rush's head is so far buried inside the Koch brother's butt, they burp Oxycontin! No fan of Rush here, what's your advice?

    http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2015/04/03/where_s_the_outrage_muslim_bakeries_in_michigan_refuse_to_bake_cakes_for_gay_weddings

  • truthseeker100
    truthseeker100
    Do I have the right to refuse business on personal or religious reasons? HMMMM I think so! As you go broke because you don't have enough customers don't come looking to tax payers for assistance.
  • Village Idiot
    Village Idiot
    PokerPlayerPhil, your url is probably breaking the page on your post and cutting off the last few words of each line (On IE). You may want to link it to your main text.
  • truthseeker100
    truthseeker100
    Poker player phil. If you forced me to bake a cake for you, would you eat it?
  • Oubliette
  • Billy the Ex-Bethelite
    Billy the Ex-Bethelite

    I heard the argument of some KKK member going to a bakery run by a Black man, the Black is shocked once he hear's the Klan member want's him to write some evil celebration phrase and declines serving this Klan member.

    There are laws against hate speech. This example is bad since a business would never be "required" to do something illegal.

    Personally, I had a business and made it a practice to make everyone feel equally welcome... EXCEPT on a singular rare occasion when a jerk of a customer was behaving inappropriately toward my female customers. Otherwise, my customers included clergymen, people of all religions, policemen, people with criminal records and restraining orders against them, and politicians. It was because of a situation where I provided service to a person of one of those categories that I was removed as an elder. So as far as I'm concerned, I found it liberating to serve anyone and everyone who walked through the door. It peeled away much of the prejudice that WT had tried to indoctrinate.

    Oh, and I had customers who happened to be gay. I wasn't catering weddings or anything like that. And it's not like I made it a point to ever ask or even be curious. Usually I figured it out when they said they didn't feel welcome over at my competitors.

    Personally, I couldn't imagine running my business in such a way that I would turn someone away, even when I was a JW. After all, how would I feel if suddenly I was refused service somewhere because I was a JW. As far as a scriptural example, god makes it rain on everyone, righteous and unrighteous.

  • PokerPlayerPhil
    PokerPlayerPhil

    That was weird how my page got distorted,I did not clip and paste but wrote it out here, not even Word. I need to redo it, sorry! The confusing thing is trying to understand why people need to draw attention to themselves like the baker in Oregon and Washington instead of baking the cake and shutting their mouth. There's a young man who called in to Lars Talk Radio and Lar's ask's him "Are you African American (he could tell by his voice)" the man said "Yes, I am, why?" and Lars did the KKK analogy but this guy said "I would take their money and charge extra!" he continued with "I fought in the Gulf War 2 for everyone's freedom, doing business with the Klan won't hurt my pride".

    Personally the Klan could take their cake and stick it up their keister, I don't see how baking a cake for gay couples is similar to baking cakes for hate groups. Issues are clouding up, were the homosexual couples asking the Christian bakers to write "Jesus is Gay!", no, they wanted a cake from a bakery they enjoyed and now the stupid baker is broke. In Roman times the Christians would not have declined service to homosexuals, the Christian teaching of love are clouded out by a pseudo righteousness akin to the Pharisees, not the Christian teachings..

    The Pizza place in Indiana has raised almost $1,000,000 depending on which new-sources your using, being loud and vocally bias does pay to the tune of $1,000,000!

  • DJS
    DJS

    Phil,

    We've addressed this numerous times before, typically on the OPs regarding X-tians not wanting to bake cakes, take pictures, etc. for gays. It doesn't matter what we think; we live in a constitutional democracy predicated on the US Constitution, which does both. It protects individual rights while upholding utilitarian concepts (for the common good). For decades the SCOTUS and other courts have ruled that private for profit businesses do not have a right to discriminate.

    Those who think they do are unaware of the Constitution or the courts' rulings, or they think their religious or political beliefs trump both. They do not. Just this week an Oregon bakery was fined several hundred thousand dollars for refusing to bake a cake for a lesbian couple.

    The gay marriage issue is before SCOTUS right now, and it may clear up a lot of this. At worst (for the LGBT community) their ruling will allow states to determine. If so, 38 have already determined and it is unlikely they will reverse these laws. Pending states may or may not, depending on how many feel the negative publicity felt by the Indiana governor and legislature, which quickly modified their hate filled law designed for one reason - to make it legal to discriminate against the LGBT community - so that it now specifically forbids such.

    We will almost certainly see a replay of these actions if SCOTUS defends states' rights. It is very simple. Egocentric, selfish, hateful people would like to be able to, but thankfully so far their hate is being mitigated.

  • DJS
    DJS

    Phil and the rest of you,

    Billy has answered you just as a lot of us have very effectively in all of these other OPs. I don't mean to be mean, but either you can't read, you won't read or you can't process data. Every for-profit business has a legal, protected, right to determine that hate speech or other services that would be deemed objectionable, illegal, seditious, obscene, etc. by reasonable people or the law are services they won't provide.

    The NBA, FIFA, NFL, Duck Dynasty Producers and Network, etc. have a legal, protected right to establish policies that prohibit hate speech and actions by their employees and those doing business with them. So does the corner bakery operated by X-tian fundies.

    It is simple. Refusing to sell a cake to the KKK or the Black Panthers, as long as they are operating legally, is illegal, Refusing to make a cake with a hangman's noose on a tree, etc. is protected. Refusing to bake a cake with plastic figurines of the same sex on the top is illegal; refusing to bake the same cake with the same sex figurines performing a sex act is legal.

    It isn't that complicated. It only seems complicated to those whose views are colored by their personal religious and/or political beliefs.

  • Onager
    Onager

    "Refusing to bake a cake with plastic figurines of the same sex on the top is illegal; refusing to bake the same cake with the same sex figurines performing a sex act is legal."

    Shouldn't that be the other way around?

    Ohhh Myyyy! :)

Share this

Google+
Pinterest
Reddit