The Gay Wedding Cake, Background Checks and The Social Contract in USA; Religion and Equal Protection Before The Law

Human beings have a calling to care for one another irrespective of position and station in life without discrimination. This is a core teaching of Jesus the Nazarene e.g., Luke 10:25-37 and almost all his parables allude to this interest of interests. Law would therefore ensure that it protects all. Otherwise, a cardiac surgeon would not operate on a man or woman who is said to be a “reckless smoker!” Jack Phillips in denying the gay couple the one message of love discriminated against them and rendered their day to day citizenship unenjoyable. It was wrong and discriminatory of him not to bake that cake. This is why:

The interdependence of businesses

The interdependence of businesses is a generative force that business people benefit from without bias. In a world where means of production are so interdependent and specialized, aspects that has improved quality, this means there are structures enabling all producers without discrimination to be who they are not because of individual effort but also because it takes collective input to make them what they become. The producers satisfy a demand generated by the clientele who in this case can also be known generically as consumers. It is a world where producers and consumers live in symbiotic relations. What would Jack Phillips do if he knew the vendors supplying sugar and glittery were gay? Would he switch to non-gay vendors?

Business Social Contract

A producer remains in business and in touch with the consumer because businesses are predictable and consumers continue demanding the goods from the producer. They are bound in a service social contract. This social contract blinds both the producer and consumer to gender, race, religion, ethnicity or origins of each other. What matters is the money that flows in from the consumer to the producer as a way of paying for services. The producer, in this case, Phillips is bound to provide a good or service. It is a predictable social contract that makes the business enjoyable. This predictability improves the quality of the business. 

Business Stability Depends on Clientele

This business social contract in turn drives the prospect that a business will remain running and solvent. The producers are able to make business improvements, establish goodwill in the service industry and make quality products knowing that there is a guarantee they will be demanded or payments will be made in time. There is no fear of business boycotts or strikes. The business is solid and books of accounts are solvent. It is what makes a business meet city, county or state regulations. This leaves one to pursue other aspects of life happily. It is this context that makes many confident in what they do. It is what allowed Phillips, in this case, to decide which customer’s needs to address or not. It made him live by his religious convictions.

Business Principles And Not Religious Beliefs

When Jack Phillips claims he is guided by religious convictions when doing business it is as if he is saying businesses do not have the right and necessary principles and therefore have to borrow from religion. Jack Phillips has the right to do as he pleases, it is what makes him innovative and skilled. But, he comes by these skills due to day to day existence of the business and not religion.

Scrutiny is Invasive

When the veil was opened, the baker is described as an expert at baking and a devout christian. This case of the baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple is invasive of their private life and is tied into political, cultural, social and economical power in USA. It  has shown religious neutrality makes it possible to touch and remove the veil of social contract. The ruling writing for the majority, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy said the CCRC showed “hostility” to Phillips’ religious beliefs in ordering him to undergo anti-discrimination training. “The laws and the constitution can, and in some instances must, protect gay persons and gay couples in the exercise of their civil rights,” Kennedy wrote, “but religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage are protected views and in some instances protected forms of expression.” Now, it is possible to put a magnifying glass and scrutinize a client’s ethnicity, religion, orientation, gender, race, affiliation and origin in order to make a purchase or sell.

Equal Protection Before Law Supersedes Religion

It should be remembered that humans are self-interested, self-preserving and self-determining. It has been the norm that governments, courts, and social tolerance mechanisms enable those with political and economic power to tamper their desires, cravings, dreams, needs and wants not to always take precedence over those with lesser powers. This norm however, has been demystified by the case – Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission – in which the high court was asked to balance the religious rights of the baker against the couple’s right to equal treatment under the law. 

Recall Jack Phillips, is the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colorado. He declined to make a cake for the wedding of two gay men in 2012. It is said that Phillips told the couple that he would make a birthday cake but could not make a cake that would promote same-sex marriage due to his religious beliefs. Phillips is renowned cake maker who has no qualms making a birthday cake for anyone. A veil of social contact was opened when the consumers, couple David Mullins and Charlie Craig, made it clear that the cake was for their wedding celebration. This has opened up other ramification in the town where Jack Phillips resides. There are those who side with him and unfortunately, there are those who are using this opportunity to traumatize him.

A dispute that ended with the court siding with the baker 6 years later was sparked off. The couple represented by the ACLU of Colorado made a complaint in 2012 against Phillips. Phillips is represented by Kristen Waggoner, an attorney with the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative nonprofit legal organization. The case was either for or against straight religious beliefs or gay indignities.  In December 2013, Judge Robert Spencer of the Colorado Office of Administrative Courts citing the Colorado Civil Rights Division (CCRD) ruled that the bakeshop had violated a Colorado law which prohibits businesses from refusing service due to a person’s sexual orientation. Subsequently, Masterpiece Cakeshop appealed the decision. In May 2014, the Colorado Civil Rights Commission decided at a public hearing that Masterpiece had violated Colorado's Anti-Discrimination Act, or CADA. The court ruled in June 2018 siding with Jack Phillips.

Conclusion

This case has opened another opportunity to scrutinize what it means to demand and provide services to consumers. It is now going to be an opportunity to scrutinize the web of doing business. Gay vendors, gay consumers be ware. Guidance on where gay rights end and religious freedom begins is needed and before this is provided by the courts or religious bodies it is going to be made at neighborhood, city, county levels. This will mean as many interpretations as the people who make them are bound to be witnessed. A carpenter will refuse to make a nuptial bed, a cobbler will refuse to provide shoes, a realtor will refuse to provide a house to be made home if it be known one is gay and they need to use the shoes to walk up the aisle, or the bed to lie in and consummate a love, or the house to be made into a home.

References

Adam Edelman. 2018. Baker who refused to make cake for gay wedding: 'I don't discriminate.’ https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/baker-who-refused-make-cake-gay-wedding-i-don-t-n880061

David Smith and Lucia Grave. 2018. Supreme court sides with baker who refused to make gay wedding cake. https://www.theguardian.com/law/2018/jun/04/gay-cake-ruling-supreme-court-same-sex-wedding-colorado-baker-decision-latest

Jennifer Rubin. 2018. In ruling on baker's gay wedding cake case, neither side has much reason to rejoice. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-gay-wedding-cake-ruling-rubin-20180604-story.html.

Richard Wolf. 2018. Supreme Court rules on narrow grounds for baker who refused to create same-sex couple's wedding cake. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/06/04/supreme-court-rules-against-gay-wedding-exemptions/1052989001/

Kaitlyn Schallhorn. 2017. Colorado baker: Death threats and hate for refusing to make gay wedding cake. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/06/29/colorado-baker-describes-harassment-after-refused-to-bake-cake-for-gay-wedding.html 

Kaitlyn Schallhorn. 2018. Supreme Court decides Colorado gay wedding cake case: A timeline of events. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/06/04/supreme-court-decides-colorado-gay-wedding-cake-case-timeline-events.html

The Economist. The Supreme Court’s artful dodge over gay wedding cakes. https://www.economist.com/united-states/2018/06/05/the-supreme-courts-artful-dodge-over-gay-wedding-cakes?cid1=cust/ddnew/email/n/n/2018065n/owned/n/n/ddnew/n/n/n/nna/Daily_Dispatchemail&etear=dailydispatch&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily_Dispatch&utm_term=2018065

Notations From the Grid: @Facebook Cashes in on Conflict | The Daily Show

Our team has a Facebook presence and we are grateful to all who follow us as we release our Views of the Week and periodic analysis on it for the Facebook Community.  The most recent Facebook fiasco was discussed by Trevor Noah and his "Bar Scene" was hilarious--but emblematic of the challenge Facebook faces as it made almost 40 Billion Dollars monetizing all the data: 

Notations On Our World (Special Mid-Week Edition): On #Primary2018

California and seven other States held primaries last night.  Our home state of California had its' open primary and the Democrats based on our assessment are in an interesting position going into the general elections.

Our Editor was on the road in our Orange County Community and produced this Visual Essay which we are pleased to feature: 

The Team at the Daily 202 provided a snapshot of the primaries which we just received at our Virtual Newsroom:

The Democratic establishment strikes back in California,  New Jersey and other primaries

Gavin Newsom advances in race for California governor   BY JAMES HOHMANN with Breanne Deppisch and Joanie Greve THE BIG IDEA: On the biggest primary day of the year, with voters going to the polls in eight states on Tuesday, the national Democratic establishment got the last laugh. -- It cost millions of bucks, but Democrats appear to have avoided their nightmare of getting locked out of competitive House races in California. The state’s quirky jungle primary system means the top two finishers face each other in November, and the national party apparatus mobilized to make sure a Democrat finished in the top two. California is notoriously slow at counting ballots, so several races have not been called yet and it may take days to know the final results, but with nearly every precinct counted in Orange County, Democrats are confident this morning they’ll have a nominee in all the winnable races in SoCal. “In California’s 39th, 48th and 49th congressional districts, Democrats at least ended the night in second place,” Dave Weigel reports. “In the 39th, lottery winner and Navy veteran Gil Cisneros led a Republican candidate in the battle for the No. 2 spot by more than 3,000 votes. In Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher’s 48th, two Democrats — Hans Keirstead and Harley Rouda — were battling for second place, both were roughly 1,000 votes ahead of Republican Scott Baugh. And in the 49th, Democrats Mike Levin, Sara Jacobs and Doug Applegate were more than 3,000 votes ahead of the nearest Republican.” Cisneros, who was backed by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, benefited from an 11th-hour truce with another wealthy candidate. The DCCC-backed Rouda ran fourth in early votes but trailed only Rohrabacher in votes cast closer to Election Day — a period when the DCCC had been on the airwaves, trumpeting its endorsement. Democratic strategists are most worried this morning about a lockout in the Central Valley’s 10th Congressional District, where investor Josh Harder was clinging to second place by less than 1,000 votes: “That race had combined all of the DCCC’s danger signs — a second credible Democrat (Michael Eggman, who had run and lost the district twice), two female candidates, and a Republican who entered the race late and attracted some voters unhappy with Republican Rep. Jeff Denham over his support for immigration reform,” Weigel notes. Former diplomat wins Democratic nomination in battleground N.J. district -- Democrats increased their odds of picking up three House seats in New Jersey, as candidates favored by the DCCC beat back more liberal alternatives. Former assistant secretary of state Tom Malinowski won a three-way primary to take on Rep. Leonard Lance (R). Navy veteran Mikie Sherrill won in the seat opening with GOP Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen’s retirement after 24 years. And in the open seat of retiring GOP congressman Frank LoBiondo, Democratic voters nominated conservative state legislator Jeff Van Drew, who has been recruited for years. Republicans picked an unknown local politician with basically no money in his coffers. -- Democrats need to flip 23 seats to win the House in November, and California and New Jersey alone could theoretically get them about a third of the way there. Democrats are credibly targeting a half dozen of the 14 Republican-held House seats in the Golden State.  Feinstein thanks supporters after primary win -- Back in California, despite all the hullabaloo on the left, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) crushed her primary challenger. There was so much buzz among Indivisible-type activists and the MoveOn crowd when California state Senate leader Kevin De León announced his campaign against the veteran senator, who has often shown an independent streak. Feinstein has used her perch as the top Democrat on the powerful Judiciary Committee to block or slow President Trump’s agenda, but the netroots was outraged when she expressed a willingness during a forum in San Francisco to work with Trump on areas of common ground. With 92 percent of precincts reporting, though, De León garnered just 11 percent. Because of the jungle primary, the two may face off again in November. Three Republican candidates are in the mid-to-high single digits. If it winds up a head-to-head match-up, because he’s running at her from the left, many Republicans will vote for Feinstein. Gavin Newsom pays tribute to Bobby Kennedy during speech -- Get ready for Gavin Newsom to be a figure on the national stage again. The California lieutenant governor will face Republican John Cox because former Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D) finished a distant third in the race for governor. Facing Cox instead of another Democrat means that Newsom is more likely to prevail in November. The Democrat, who got 15 minutes of fame by legalizing gay marriage as mayor of San Francisco, offered a new slogan during his victory speech: “Resistance with results.” Watch for him to seek a much higher D.C. profile than outgoing Gov. Jerry Brown (D) and to maybe even try fanning the flames of 2020 presidential talk. Not that it will happen, but he is likely to be the chief executive of the nation’s most populous state.  Cox hones in on Newsom after winning GOP nomination in California governor's race -- On the other side, unblinking support for Trump really has become the ultimate litmus test in Republican primaries. In Alabama, Rep. Martha Roby (R) was forced into a runoff because she could not get more than 50 percent in her primary in her quest for a fifth term. The only reason why is that she withdrew her support for Trump and called on him to drop out after the “Access Hollywood” tape came out in October 2016. In the Montgomery-area district, former congressman Bobby Bright – who Roby defeated in 2010 – ran ads that accused her of turning “her back on President Trump when he needed her the most.” Politics makes for strange bedfellows. Roby’s rebuke of the president nearly two years ago now – for, let’s not forget, saying he can get away with groping women because he’s a celebrity and boasting about making passes at a married woman (while he himself was married to Melania) – drove Trump loyalists into the arms of a longtime Democrat who voted to make Nancy Pelosi the speaker of the House and only recently became a Republican. Roby has been a reliable conservative vote, and she’s bent over backwards to emphasize her fealty to Trump’s agenda, specifically on tax cuts and the border wall. In California, Cox was able to get the second spot because Trump came out strongly and repeatedly for him on Twitter. This is toxic in a general election out West, but it helped gin up GOP turnout. Cox, an accountant, previously lost three elections in Illinois and a random presidential bid. Ironically, Cox didn’t support Trump either in 2016. But now he’s an outspoken booster. “It wasn’t Donald Trump who made California the highest tax state in the country,” he said last night. -- Speaking of taxes, a Democratic state senator in Orange County got recalled over his vote for a new gas tax. Freshman Josh Newman went down because he supported a 12-cent-per-gallon tax. The race wasn’t even close. The recall passed by 20 points. This means that Democrats have lost their supermajority in the state legislature, at least until the end of the year. That’s not a huge deal because there’s not really much else on the agenda. But it’s a reminder that taxes can be a super potent issue. Republican strategists still hope to use the national tax bill passed in December as a winning issue in the midterms, warning that people’s taxes could go up if Democrats win the House. Judge Aaron Persky poses for a photo with a lawn sign opposing his recall in Los Altos Hills, Calif. (Jeff Chiu/AP) -- For the first time in 87 years, a California judge was recalledfrom the bench thanks to the #MeToo movement. Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky sentenced Stanford swimmer Brock Turner to just six months in jail after his conviction for sexually assaulting an unconscious student. The case became a cause celebre for sexual assault survivors. Persky, 56, had served on the court since 2003. He argued that it would set a bad precedent to remove a judge from office over a decision that was lawful. His supporters warned that ousting Persky would prompt judges elsewhere to impose lengthier sentences for sex crimes so they can keep their seats. For victims and their advocates, that sounds just fine. The recall campaign was chaired by Stanford Law Professor Michele Dauber, and many students at Stanford – where the assault took place – got engaged in local politics for the first time. Native American woman wins Democratic nod in New Mexico -- It was another night of firsts: The New Mexico governor’s race will put two members of Congress against one another. Democratic Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham will face Republican Rep. Stevan Pearce. But women won the nominations for both parties in both open House primaries. Debra Haaland, who won the Democratic primary for Lujan Grisham’s seat, may become the first Native American woman to ever serve in Congress. If Lujan Grisham wins, and she is the front-runner despite a few damaging stories in the past few days, it would be the first time in U.S. history that a woman has succeeded another woman as governor. South Dakota Rep. Kristi Noem won the GOP primary for governor, putting her on a glide path to becoming her state’s first female governor. And a 28-year-old state legislator in Iowa, Abby Finkenauer, won the Democratic nomination to take on vulnerable GOP Rep. Rod Blum in a battleground district. She would be the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. Lujan Grisham wins Democratic nod for governor of New Mexico -- How the returns are playing locally: The Missoulian: “Matt Rosendale wins GOP Senate primary, will face Jon Tester in general election.” Des Moines Register: “Fred Hubbell wins Democratic nomination to run against Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds.” San Jose Mercury News: “Feinstein headed for November runoff, but against who?” LA Times: “California primary results portend a general election with national themes.” Sacramento Bee: “Come campaign in California, Donald Trump, Democratic leader says.” Argus Leader: “How Noem galloped to victory in the final two weeks.” Birmingham News: “Victorious Gov. Kay Ivey says state on 'right track.’” Albuquerque Journal: “Torres Small, Herrell to face off for congressional seat in GOP stronghold.” Jackson Clarion-Ledger: “Baria-Sherman runoff to determine Wicker's opponent in Mississippi Senate race.” NJ Advance Media: Bob “Menendez hit with protest vote from some Democrats as he and Hugin win Senate primaries.” -- More evidence that the environment is bad for the GOP: In Missouri, Democrats flipped a GOP-held state Senate seat in a special election. Perhaps because of voter disgust with Trump or Eric Greitens, the Republican governor who recently resigned in disgrace, Democrat Lauren Arthur walloped a Republican state representative in the Kansas City suburbs by 19 points. Trump won the district by four points two years ago. That’s a 23-point swing.