Recently, I read this article written for the web blog Oppiosing Views, which prides itself on presenting both sides of the issue. The article that caught my eye was entitled "Sorry, Bakery Doesn't Have to Make Pro-Gay Cupcakes" by a group called the Illinois Family Institute. It was a blatant attack (at least in my eyes) towards the LGBT community. The story was about Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis students who wished to purchase rainbow decorated cupcakes for National Coming Out Day. The opinion piece began with "Perhaps you've already heard about the most recent assult on citizens' freedom of conscience..." and goes on to say that "National Coming Out Day" is a 'shameful' celebration. The piece gets more bizzare by stating that "They want to render it illegal for people to act upon moral convictions regarding what constitutes a moral act."
But my absolute favorite part was when the writes claimed that not serving these students was not discrimination against sexual orientation because "the Stocktons did not refuse to serve the IUPUI students. They refused to use their time, skills, and resources--all of which are gifts from a holy God--to create and sell a product that symbolizes and promotes ideas that they believe are immoral and destructive." I simply do not understand how cake decorating skills would be considered a gift from god if they take time, patience, and practice to make fully effective.
In conclusion to this rant, I found this entire article to be both ludicrous and laughable.
I agree that if someone doesn't want to do an order for an LGBT client they have every right to do that if they have the right to refuse service to any client.
ReplyDeleteHowever, one of the points of the 1964 Civil Rights Act is that public accomodations, i.e. areas which are open to the public, must be accessible equally based on race, color, national origin and sex. This means that you can NOT refuse to serve people food based on their race, color, sex or national origin if you are a private business and are open to the public.
Some localities include sexual orientation and gender identity in public accomodations non-discrimination ordinances; if so, then this bakery could be sued.
There has always been a grey area in which a private business determines who to serve based on the customer's race, color, sex as well as biased opinion of the consumer. According to Professor Buckmire, the civil rights act mentioned in his comment does not protect the sexual orientation of the costumer, thus technically the baker holds the right to not serve the student.
ReplyDeleteBut many issues, not just related to LGBTQ, always come back to one question: is it the right thing to do?
Even though the baker is not violating any discriminating ordinances, is discriminating the student's support for the LGBTQ community the right thing to do? I hope the student could seek some of those yummy looking cupcakes from another bakery, and possibly shared them among other supporters or members of the LGBTQ community on Coming Out Day.