Skip to main content

A Cake and A Couple

So, there I was in Sunday School yesterday, minding my own business when suddenly the conversation took a turn for the (worse?) (more interesting?) (controversial?)...

We had been discussing the story in John where the woman who was taken in adultery "taken in the very act..." (incidentally, it has ALWAYS BOTHERED ME A LOT that they didn't drag the man in to be killed, too). (It also bothers me a lot that these creepy dudes were waiting outside for the deed to go down... Yuck). It was a nice discussion about not judging others and their motives...

Then the teacher brought up the item about the Cake and the Couple. Apparently there have been several bakeries around the country who have refused to bake cakes for gay couples, and these cake slinging Christians have been the subject of various lawsuits. It's a thing.

But, should it be?

First off, I think the whole thing is ridiculous. Private companies should have the market-driven opportunity to deny service to anyone. In this regard, I tend to be a little libertarian. Further, if someone in town was denying cake to gay folks, I'd give out FREE CAKE to gay couples. Think of the publicity! Think of the marketing! Think of the business I'd rake in! Because, ultimately, the cake slingers of the world are in business to sell cakes. Full stop. Who cares who buys them and for what ultimate purpose they're used for?!? Just because I make a cake for someone doesn't mean I approve of their lifestyle - just that I want their money for said cake.

Secondly, the gay couples are silly, too. Sure, it's embarrassing to go to buy a cake and be turned away. Sure, the cake dudes are bigoted and evil. So, why would you want to buy cake from a bigoted, evil dude? Surely there are other purveyors of baked goods in town from which you may purchase said cake... GO THERE. Soon, bigoted, evil cake makers of the world will come to their senses as they watch their dough slip away. (Sorry for the awful pun).

Point is, business owners only exist to promote their business and sell their products. By denying service to someone, they may be sticking true to whatever morals they feel they have, but they're also running themselves out of business. And then the God-fearing, good Christian couples who also happen to be heterosexual will be denied your cake. And who would want that?!?

So, when I raised these points in SS yesterday, it unleashed a torrent of comment - that Christianity is UNDER ATTACK, and that SOMETHING MUST BE DONE in order to SAVE CHRISTIANITY from the onslaught. Further, generally people respected the Christian Cake Crusader ("Crusader" used advisedly) for STICKING BY HIS PRINCIPLES.

Sigh.

Cake makers, please make cakes. Sell them to people who can pay for them. And stop making everything some sort of crusade.

Gay folks, please buy cakes from folks who aren't bigots. You'll be happier, and they will too. Soon there won't be any bigoted cake shops left.

The end.

Comments

Bill Cobabe said…
Incidentally, I wonder where the folks who feel that "Christianity is UNDER ATTACK" get that feeling from... Surely not from here in Morgan, Utah. They're getting it from some national news outlet, clearly accepting it as truth (enough that they're shouting it in SS.)

Weird.
May 4, 2015 at 9:59 AM
lillysmum said…
Obviously they are getting it from the media. No doubt you can guess which news outlet.
Back to your post, however, it's the principle of the thing. Sure, it's idiotic on the cake level. But it isn't idiotic when it gets on a more important level. When you are the only "cake baker" in town and you choose to deny cake to the queers, where are they supposed to go? And when a good part of your town agrees with the cake bakers? They won't be going out of business. The queers are just stuck being second class again. I wonder if you'd be so libertarian if it was Jews being denied cake?
May 4, 2015 at 11:39 PM
Bill Cobabe said…
No, I don't think I'd change my opinion. People are idiots and bigoted and evil, but unless their discrimination is causing actual harm or denying essential services to folks, I think that private entities shouldn't be compelled to offer services to others.

I agree that there's a principle here, on both sides. But this isn't a back of the bus thing. This isn't a publicly held company, and it isn't the case that these were the only cake purveyors in town (these folks were in larger cities where there were many choices for cake acquisition). Do I think the cake dudes were wrong? Absolutely. Would I make it a requirement for cakers to sell cakes to people they don't like? No. I may not agree with your point of view, but I would never compel someone to act in a certain way.
May 5, 2015 at 6:55 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2020 - A retrospective

 There will no doubt be many retrospectives written about the year that was 2020. It was a tough year for most, a good year for many, and generally speaking a very interesting year. Which reminds me of the the old curse - may you live in interesting times. Because, you see - interesting does not always mean good. It does not mean better. It does not mean happy. It just means interesting. So to highlight just how interesting things were, I offer the following post about things that went on. Or didn’t went on. It’s not intended to be chronological, necessarily, or even accurate. It’s just some of my observations.... Let’s start with the pandemic. Pandemic is a word that was previously the realm of science fiction and/or horror writers (The Stand comes to mind). Late 2019 a disease was identified in Wuhan, China, which is a place I’d never heard of before. Apparently coming from some kind of exotic meat market, this strain of Coronavirus was something that the world hadn’t seen before. Ma
Post a Comment
Read more

Is this thing still on?

 Does anyone even blog anymore? I remember when it first got started and everyone was having a blog. I like writing, and I do a lot of it in my professional life, but not everything makes it onto this blog, which is where a lot of my personal thoughts come out. I put more into Facebook lately, too, because it's a little easier. But there's something to be said for this long-form writing exercise, and I think I will continue here periodically. You don't mind, do you? Well, in my last post I wrote about how difficult things were for me at the time. That changed in July when I finally got a job working for the State of Utah. I was the program manager for the moderate income housing database program, and that meant I worked from home a lot but also went in to Salt Lake when needed, mostly on the train. It was a good experience, for the most part, and I'm grateful for the things I learned even in the short time I was there.  In October I started working for Weber County in t
1 comment
Read more

The Other Art

I'm not sure we appreciate photography as much as we do other art forms. Part of this comes from the reality that surrounds and permeates a photograph - it's very, very real, and the photographer strives for clarity and crispness in the representations. Perhaps this is why black and white images continue to be relevant - they strip away extraneous information (color) and leave us with something that is at once familiar and also non-existent - for nothing exists in black and white. Nothing. I also think that pictures are becoming too common-place... Everyone has a camera in their pocket, and while that's a very democratic thing (everyone can express themselves in a picture easily and readily, and can find an audience for these images, which are casually taken and casually viewed, and perhaps just as casually forgotten) I think that we embrace that casual attitude, and it spills over to all aspects of the media, making it impotent. So I read this article this morning: h
Post a Comment
Read more