If, as LGBT activists believe, bakers and caterers (and photographers and wedding planners) must take all assignments, even those they find morally disagreeable, is the same true of printers?
As the Cato Institute’s Ilya Shapiro writes on the Cato at Liberty blog:
Hands On Originals, a t-shirt printing company in Kentucky, refused to print t-shirts promoting a gay-pride event, the Lexington Pride Festival. Its owners weren’t objecting to any customers’ sexual orientation; instead, they objected only to the ideological message conveyed by the shirts.
The Gay and Lesbian Services Organization nevertheless filed a complaint with the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Human Rights Commission under an antidiscrimination ordinance that bans public accommodations from discriminating against individuals based on sexual orientation.
While the Commission ruled against the printers, the state district court reversed on free speech and free exercise grounds. The case is now before the Kentucky Court of Appeals, where Cato filed an amicus brief.
The case raises a number of interesting parallels: should a gay printer be forced to print anti-gay Christian Reconstructionist literature? Should a Jewish printer be forced to publish anti-Semitic tracts?
While some LGBT advocates of the “they will now do our bidding” school would probably argue No (see, completely different, no comparison whatsoever), others who are more honest might say Yes, since business providers have no right to accept or reject any job they are offered. As Cato’s Walter Olson noted, “Many advocates of the anti-discrimination principle appear to believe that it trumps virtually any other liberty or value.”
More. The Washington Examiner reports this week, citing research by the Barna Group:
…the percentage of all millennials who are “very concerned” about additional restrictions on religious freedoms in the next five years has increased 10 percentage points since 2012, to 25 percent.
In August, the Examiner cited research by Caddell Associates, which found that:
Americans reacting to the Supreme Court’s approval of same sex marriage desire a truce between religious freedom and gay rights, but if pushed, overwhelmingly side with protecting the liberty of their faith by a margin of 4 to 1, according to a new national survey.
The degree of their fierce support for religious freedom and liberty jumps when given this choice: “Suppose a Christian wedding photographer has deeply held religious beliefs opposing same sex marriage. If a same sex couple wanted to hire the photographer for their wedding, should the photographer have the right to say no?”
A huge 82 percent said yes.
Given the backlash against high-handed political correctness that’s gaining steam, these findings should be a warning to the “they will now do our bidding” school of activism.
23 Comments for “Bakers, Caterers…and Printers”
posted by Houndentenor on
The only difference between a wedding cake for a gay couple vs a straight one is the little figurines on top (if people even still do anything that kitschy in 2015). Otherwise it’s the same cake chosen from a menu. So yes, discriminating against gay couples in such circumstances would violate the law anywhere such things are even against the law.
Words are another matter. Businesses have the right to set their own standards for what words and images they will and will not print. This is pretty simple which is why it’s so offensive that religious right groups thought that asking a company to make a cake with an anti-gay message was the same thing as asking a baker to make a cake with one of their standard designs for a gay couple. Anyone who can’t see the difference simply doesn’t want to.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Several thoughts:
(1) The questions presented by this case:
(a) whether a business owner’s refusal to provide a specific service to a protected class, in contrast to all service to the protected class, is sufficient to constitute discrimination against the protected class under applicable non-discrimination laws;
(b) whether printing something someone else wrote, in contrast to writing something, is protected by First Amendment free speech guarantees; and
(c) whether printing a t-shirt constitutes sufficient enough burden upon a person’s religious practice to trigger First Amendment free exercise guarantees);
strike me as exactly the kinds of questions of law and fact that are best settled by the courts and poor candidates for legislative solution.
(2) I have to laugh (a rueful laugh, true, but still laugh) at the breathless but contrived analogies conservatives consistently trot out (a black required to print a KKK t-shirt, a Jew required to print an anti-semitic t-shirt, a gay required to print a “God Hates Fags” t-shirt, an so on) in support of their argument. Oddly, we never hear about the plight of a racist required to print a “Black Lives Matter” t-shirt, and so on. I wonder why?
(3) I don’t laugh, however, at the proposed solution — so-called “religious freedom” legislation — proposed by conservatives. Looking at the analogies mentioned above, a “religious freedom” law might (but probably wouldn’t, depending on the message and context) protect a Jew from being required to print an anti-semitic t-shirt, but would not protect a black who refused to print a KKK t-shirt or a gay who refused to print a “God Hates Fags” t-shirt. Narrow, targeted laws like the proposed “religious freedom” laws flat out flunk the “equal means equal” test for exemptions to non-discrimination laws — religion-neutral, issue-neutral, class-neutral.
(3) A “threshold” exemption for small businesses (as exists in the Civil Rights Act of 1964) would resolve the issue in a sensisble and even-handed manner, meeting the “equal means equal” test, but conservatives have no interest, in would seem, in exploring this path. This suggests to me that conservatives are more interested in scoring political points with anti-gay Christians than in solving the problem.
(4) The Equality Act of 2015, which would add sexual orientation to the classes protected by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, is another sensible solution. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is time-tested, has thresholds to protect small businesses, and (because the courts have already explored the parameters of the law) would not give rise to a spate of new litigation. The Equality Act of 1965 meets the “equal means equal” test. Adding sexual orientation to the classes protected by the law is a trivial matter, in terms of writing legislation, and much less onerous than the legislative task of writing layer upon layer of laws specific to gays and lesbians. And yet, it is an anathema to conservatives. Again, I wonder whether conservatives are more interested in scoring political points with anti-gay Christians than in solving the problem.
(5) The rhetoric deployed by conservatives is striking. Gays and lesbians gays are portrayed as jack booted thugs, akin to the Hilter and Robspierre, determined to crush Christianity and force “people of faith” into economic slavery by requiring them to “do our bidding” or have no livelihood. None of this rhetoric is applied to other protected groups. When other protected classes use the laws to end/limit discrimination against themselves, they are not subject to criticism. When gays and lesbians do so, or propose to do so, the criticism is scathing. Why? To my mind, that is a clear “tell” about the willingness of conservatives to set gays and lesbians aside for special, negative, treatment. How does that promote “equal means equal”?
To my rather cynical mind, all if this, taken together, is evidence that conservatives are not serious about broad-scale discussion of the role of non-discrimination laws and exemptions to those laws, but more interested in using gays and lesbians as political cannon fodder, yet again, to ensure a strong conservative Christian turnout in the 2016 elections.
posted by Houndentenor on
The entitlement of the GOP base trumps all other rights. It’s at the core of their entire platform.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
The entitlement of the GOP base trumps all other rights. It’s at the core of their entire platform.
Witness Paul Singer’s endorsement of Marco Rubio yesterday. Singer a high-powered marriage equality advocate on the right, the driving force behind the American Unity Fund? Rubio a staunch opponent of marriage equality and LGBT rights in general? No matter. What counts is tax reductions for the wealthy.
posted by Mike in Houston on
You know, I’m really tired of honocon quislings like Stephen continually dragging out this tripe – but not doing a thing to counter KKK-affiliate Tony “Duggar” Perkins or any of the other host of anti-LGBT spox with their continued demonization & outright lies about public accommodation laws.
Houston is now down to the wire… but to Stephen, equating trangenders with pedophiles is, well, expected -IOKIYAR. No real harm as long as an isolated baker gets to discriminate against LGBT folk.
It’s disgusting and unconscionable.
posted by Jorge on
Houston is now down to the wire… but to Stephen, equating trangenders with pedophiles is, well, expected -IOKIYAR. No real harm as long as an isolated baker gets to discriminate against LGBT folk.
Mike in Houston, I have no problems supporting the HERO, but if it falls I will not mourn its demise, either, and for the reason I just mentioned in this topic. The two sides are battling it out over a hypothetical situation that, in spite of some opinion pieces I’ve seen, is not explicitly spelled out in the city’s laws.
I have long held the opinion that this is one of the problems of pro-transgender legislation: it doesn’t shoot straight enough. A decade after I first heard “gender identity and expression” being defined by an LGBT activist in a way that could not possibly describe the transgender experience, and then being shocked later to learn that’s what it was code for, I think more people understand what the subject is now. I do not believe it’s irrational for people to be concerned about a bait-and-switch. It really does happen, and more often than not in civil rights legislation it’s unintentional.
The cost of putting those fears to rest is high, and I am concerned about the effects of persuading someone who is currently an activist for the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance of willingly acting to mitigate people’s fears about the shortcomings of that law, even if my odds of doing so are nearly impossible. However, once you are in a position where your back is no longer to the wall, once your task is done, I think then you should.
posted by Jorge on
(Graah! I meant to put this at the bottom. I do not mean to overtake Tom’s most worthy response.)
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I see that Governor Abbott has joined the Republican “No men in women’s bathrooms!” chorus. Not a surprise.
Mike in Houston, I have no idea how this will turn out tomorrow, but if any LGBT person in Texas ever votes for a Republican again, that will surprise me.
posted by Houndentenor on
Greg Abbott…because Rick Perry wasn’t bad enough.
Seriously looking for a job in just about any other state.
In the meantime, looking for a college teaching job in Texas is now easier because the new open carry law for state universities is scaring off applicants.
posted by Jorge on
*Facepalm.*
Gay Republic–uhhhh, I mean “Giant Rat: These creatures just seem to multiply in the dungeon.” I begin to understand why!
posted by Kosh III on
Looking for work? Nashville is booming.
Of course our corpocrat governor and teafascist legislature has been waging a war against teachers…..
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Looking beyond Houston, where the Republicans are more or less unanimous about “No men in women’s bathrooms!”, Republicans in Kentucky are shamelessly using Saint Kim Davis, Christian Martyr, to bring out the conservative Christian vote tomorrow. What a party!
posted by JohnInCA on
“Its owners weren’t objecting to any customers’ sexual orientation; instead, they objected only to the ideological message conveyed by the shirts.”
Hrm… in other words “We’re not objecting to you *being* gay, we’re objecting to you *admitting it publicly* and *not being ashamed*”
Just who gets persuaded by this kind of sophistry? You can argue about the validity of non-discrimination laws and whether they should apply to a t-shirt printer, but that argument is about on par with “love the sinner, hate the sin” which is equally sophistic and only persuades people that hate the sinner but wants to pretend to be nicer then that.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Hrm… in other words “We’re not objecting to you ‘being’ gay, we’re objecting to you ‘admitting it publicly’ and ‘not being ashamed’”
As Wisconsin’s grande dame of the conservative Christians put it in her October 5, 2015, weekly 5-minute Christian radio commentary titled “Baldwin & Pocan are Offending Me”: “Neither of these elected officials is a quiet homosexual. Both have been and continue to be thoroughly devoted to using their political positions to aggressively advance the homosexual agenda.”
Everything would be just fine if we went back into the closet, invisible to all but a few homosexual friends, rocking no boats and showing “respect” for the views of conservative Christians.
Like the homocons who were thrilled because the Log Cabin Republicans were invited to speak at the 2012 Republican Platform Committee hearings, so thrilled in fact at the party’s nod toward “inclusion” that they went on to endorse anti-equality Republicans who ran on that platform, the strongest and most explicit anti-gay platform in the party’s history.
Julaine once opined that “I think we have been extremely tolerant to let them live wherever they choose.”
That should be enough for anyone, huh?
Gag.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I hope the vote goes well. Conservative Christians will turn out in force (and from early voting patterns, already have been), and the outcome will depend on whether or not rational voters will be motivated enough to turn out in significant numbers.
The Houston ordinance fight is a harbinger of what we can expect going forward, I suspect. Rational voters and business interests will align on our side. Conservative Christians and their Republican allies (e.g. Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick) will pull out all the anti-gay stops, fear-mongering, depicting LGBT’s as child molesters, pedophiles and thugs determined to destroy America as we know it. I wish it weren’t so, but that’s what I think.
We all owe you and others like you a debt of gratitude for fighting as hard and as smart as you have done, whatever the outcome on Tuesday.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
This should have posted as a response to Mike in Houston.
posted by Jorge on
Stephen: While the Commission ruled against the printers, the state district court reversed on free speech and free exercise grounds.
Tom: (1) The questions presented by this case. . . . strike me as exactly the kinds of questions of law and fact that are best settled by the courts and poor candidates for legislative solution.
My reaction to this blog post is that if a county-appointed civil rights commission can get such an obvious case like this wrong, I don’t think there’s much hope for the current political regime.
(Too sweeping? Have any of the local commissioners in the baker and photographer cases reached the correct decision?)
For what began as an abuse by a creature created by a legislature, there should be a correction by the legislature.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
My reaction to this blog post is that if a county-appointed civil rights commission can get such an obvious case like this wrong, I don’t think there’s much hope for the current political regime.
(Too sweeping? Have any of the local commissioners in the baker and photographer cases reached the correct decision?)
The several court cases that have been heard to date have ruled against the conservative Christians who refused service, and the Supreme Court turned down an appeal on Elaine’s Photography, if I recall right. We’ll see how this case turns out, and however the decision comes down in the end, it will help to add to the body of decisions from which boundaries and parameters can be drawn.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
The Washington Examiner reports this week, citing research by the Barna Group …
I don’t know why you referenced an article titled “GOP builds Christian voter army”, but the article lends credence to what anyone following the Republican “religious freedom” push already knows — the push has a lot less to do with religious freedom than with turning out the conservative Christian vote in 2016.
In August, the Examiner cited research by Caddell Associates …
The other article you cite also supports, at least indirectly, the conclusion that Republicans are singling out gays and lesbians as electoral cannon fodder:
If that is the case, then, presumably, those polled would support denial of services on the basis of religious beliefs concerning race, gender and so on. So why is same-sex marriage the only issue raised by Republicans?
posted by tom jefferson 3rd on
and what grand idea has the Cato Institution got up its sleeve?
posted by Jorge on
http://www.gilmermirror.com/view/full_story/26941021/article-Houston-HERO-Ordinance-Trounced-in-Early-Vote
“With 95 percent of votes counted, 61 percent of voters opposed the measure.”
Wow.
I wonder if the Republican party is going to try to claim credit or credibility for the national election?
“Ahead of Tuesday’s vote, Republican state leaders, including Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, cited the bathroom arguments in lending their political muscle to the campaign opposing the ordinance. On Tuesday, Patrick attributed the defeat of the “misguided” ordinance to voters standing up to “pandering to political correctness.””
Wow. Okay, that was a stupid question.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
If the civil rights bill was defeated, that is indeed disappointing. Sadly, a fair number of folks who worship the Cult of Ayn Rand or go crazy for all things Cato, will celebrate this as a victory for “freedom”.
posted by Kosh III on
It’s instructive to learn unsurprisingly, that Texans are either too lazy to learn the facts about the vote, or too stupid to understand it or are just plain hateful bigots.
Or all of the above.