PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An appellate court Thursday upheld a penalty against Oregon bakery owners who refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding almost five years ago.
The owners of the since-closed Gresham bakery — Aaron and Melissa Klein — argued that state Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian violated state and federal laws by forcing them to pay emotional-distress damages of $135,000 to the lesbian couple.
Good.
And before people start bemoaning this as a slap on their religious freedom...
The state fined the bakers after determining they violated a 2007 Oregon law that protects the rights of gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people in employment, housing and public accommodations. The law provides an exemption for religious organizations but does not allow private businesses to discriminate based on sexual orientation.
Quite right.
“When we are confronted with evidence that challenges our deeply held beliefs we are more likely to reframe the evidence than we are to alter our beliefs. We simply invent new reasons, new justifications, new explanations. Sometimes we ignore the evidence altogether.” (Mathew Syed 'Black Box Thinking')
Occasionally Oregon gets it right. The law is well written and it works.
"Jesus gave us the gospel, but Satan invented church. It takes serious evil to formalize faith into something tedious and then pile guilt on anyone who doesn’t participate enthusiastically." - Robert Kirby
Beer makes you feel the way you ought to feel without beer. -- Henry Lawson
The official banquet and opening ceremonies were scheduled for two, and still I hadn't changed into my evening pajamas, so I rushed up to my room, dressed and took an elevator down to the Purple Hall on the 46th. In the foyer two stunning girls in topless togas, their bosoms tattooed with forget-me-nots and snowflakes, came over and handed me a glossy folder. Without looking at it I entered the hall, which was still empty, and gasped at the sight of the tables—not because the spread was so extremely lavish, but the trays of hors d'oeuvres, the mounds of páté, the molds, even the salad bowls, everything was arranged in the unmistakable shape of genitalia. For a moment I thought it might be my imagination, but a loudspeaker somewhere was playing a song, popular in certain circles, which began with the words: "Now to make it in the arts, publicize your private parts! Critics say you can't offend 'em with your phallus or pudendum!"
The first banqueters ambled in, gentlemen with thick beards and bushy whiskers, though they were really rather young, some in pajamas and some in nothing at all. When six waiters brought in the cake and I got a glimpse of that most indecent of desserts, there was no longer any doubt: I had accidentally strayed into the wrong hall and was sitting at the banquet for Liberated Literature. On the pretext that I couldn't find my secretary I beat a hasty retreat and took the elevator down a floor to the Purple Hall (I'd been in the Lavender), which by now was packed.
from the same work - to avoid the spitting against indecency - the novel mainly describes a certain future :
A confuter, for instance, is not a confounding machine—that's a confutator—but a computer that quotes Confucius.
and i am a quobot - a quoting robot
Choyo Chagas is Chairman of the Big Four, the ruler of the planet from "The Bull's Hour" ( Russian: Час Быка), a social science fiction novel written by Soviet author and paleontologist Ivan Yefremov in 1968. Six months after its publication Soviet authorities banned the book and attempted to remove it from libraries and bookshops.
I’ve been reporting derails which don’t get removed, but this thread gets moved?
It’s directly relevant to Mormonisms stance on same sex marriage, but it gets moved.
Unbelievable.
“When we are confronted with evidence that challenges our deeply held beliefs we are more likely to reframe the evidence than we are to alter our beliefs. We simply invent new reasons, new justifications, new explanations. Sometimes we ignore the evidence altogether.” (Mathew Syed 'Black Box Thinking')
I keep having mixed feelings on this stuff. I don't like government involved in it if possible. Some of it approaches thoughtcrime.
I just think, if you have strong feelings about who you'll accept as customers, post that upfront on your establishment and on all of your advertising and then let the consequences follow. Customers shouldn't be blindsided by the vendor's weird conditions. Buyer beware and all that. Of course, if you post "X Only" signs, expect to get some First Amendment expressions from the rest of the alphabet.
An absurd decision by an absurd State. People who think this is a "good" thing are nothing more than intolerant fascists.
Seek freedom and become captive of your desires...seek discipline and find your liberty I can tell if a person is judgmental just by looking at them what is chaos to the fly is normal to the spider - morticia addams If you're not upsetting idiots, you might be an idiot. - Ted Nugent
Planning bosses acted against Beverley Akciecek, 49, after being told her next-door neighbour's Muslim friends had felt 'physically sick' due to the 'foul odour'.
Councillors at Stockport Council in Greater Manchester say the smell from the fan is 'unacceptable on the grounds of residential amenity'.
Choyo Chagas is Chairman of the Big Four, the ruler of the planet from "The Bull's Hour" ( Russian: Час Быка), a social science fiction novel written by Soviet author and paleontologist Ivan Yefremov in 1968. Six months after its publication Soviet authorities banned the book and attempted to remove it from libraries and bookshops.
subgenius wrote:An absurd decision by an absurd State. People who think this is a "good" thing are nothing more than intolerant fascists.
Feel free not to visit.
"Jesus gave us the gospel, but Satan invented church. It takes serious evil to formalize faith into something tedious and then pile guilt on anyone who doesn’t participate enthusiastically." - Robert Kirby
Beer makes you feel the way you ought to feel without beer. -- Henry Lawson
I know some Orthodox Jews that grew up kosher who are nauseated by the smell of bacon, although for a lot of Jews I know bacon is the forbidden apple in the garden of kosher foods.
Everyone who loves bacon loves the smell of bacon. They sell bacon air fresheners for cars, for goodness sake.
I guess what I'm saying is that hating the smell of bacon is most likely the result of conditioning.
Oliver Wendell Holmes' said your freedom to swing your arm walking down the street ends where the other man's nose begins. Here we have a person's nose assaulted by a smell. Some people don't eat shellfish and find the smell disgusting. Many vegetarians find the smell of any meat disgusting. While I think you could have a case if someone opens a tannery in your neighborhood you probably have a case, but bacon? It's a fine line.
"The great problem of any civilization is how to rejuvenate itself without rebarbarization." - Will Durant "We've kept more promises than we've even made" - Donald Trump "Of what meaning is the world without mind? The question cannot exist." - Edwin Land
One of the questions we ask in our interview process for new hires revolves around talking about a regret a person had and how they have changed since. A candidate who interviewed who was Muslim answered that his biggest regret was that he once accidentally ate a chicken sandwich with bacon on it. He didn't know it was bacon until it was explained to him, and now he lives cursed with the knowledge that bacon is really tasty. Hands down one of the funniest answers I've seen in an interview.
Back to the topic at hand, unless you reject decades of jurisprudence on public accommodations laws and think they all should be done away with, then I don't see how this ruling doesn't look rightly decided.
