Sweet Cakes by Melissa fined $135,000

[_I have a question]

Oregon’s Bureau of Labor and Industries has ruled that the owners of the ‘Sweet Cakes by Melissa’ bakery must pay $135,000 in damages for refusing to serve a same-sex couple in 2013.

Read more at http://m.snopes.com/2015/07/03/sweet-ca ... cBvo773.99

Under Oregon law, businesses cannot discriminate or refuse service based on sexual orientation, just as they cannot turn customers away because of race, sex, disability, age or religion.

The Oregon Equality Act of 2007 includes an exemption for religious organizations and schools, but does not allow private business owners to deny service and unlawfully discriminate against potential customers.

Law > Religious Freedom

[_Chap]

In the ruling, Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian explicitly stated that Oregon laws prohibit refusal of service to protected classes for discriminatory reasons:

This case is not about a wedding cake or a marriage. It is about a business’s refusal to serve someone because of their sexual orientation. Under Oregon law, that is illegal.

Within Oregon’s public accommodations law is the basic principle of human decency that every person, regardless of their sexual orientation, has the freedom to fully participate in society. The ability to enter public places, to shop, to dine, to move about unfettered by bigotry.

[_EAllusion]

I favor the right of private business owners to refuse service to anyone for whatever reason they want. However, I recognize my view is currently in the minority. I hold people who favor banning businesses from discriminating against blacks, but want to allow discrimination against gays, in low regard.

[_consiglieri]

I thought America was supposed to be about the individual's right to be an asshole.

[_Themis]

I favor the right of private business owners to refuse service to anyone for whatever reason they want. However, I recognize my view is currently in the minority.

Hopefully it will always be in the minority. I can agree that a business should be able to refuse service for a multitude of reasons. Even some that are quite trivial like, I don't feel like it. I disagree that we should be able to for some reasons like race, sex, culture, religion, etc. This is why it was important to write these into law in order to protect the rights of everyone.

[_Enzo the Baker]

I favor the right of private business owners to refuse service to anyone for whatever reason they want. However, I recognize my view is currently in the minority. I hold people who favor banning businesses from discriminating against blacks, but want to allow discrimination against gays, in low regard.

I'm with you, EA. As ugly as bigotry is, I don't believe gov't on any level should have the power to penalize anyone and or business for their thick-headed prejudices. The way to defeat the small-mindedness is by not patronizing the offending establishments. Organized boycotting would either close the business or effect the desired change.

[_Rollo Tomasi]

I thought America was supposed to be about the individual's right to be an asshole.

That right is alive and well in general, but haven't the federal courts carved out an exception for businesses (under the commerce clause or something similar) since the days (50's or 60's) when restaurants/hotels refused to serve African-Americans?

[_Equality]

I favor the right of private business owners to refuse service to anyone for whatever reason they want. However, I recognize my view is currently in the minority.

Hopefully it will always be in the minority. I can agree that a business should be able to refuse service for a multitude of reasons. Even some that are quite trivial like, I don't feel like it. I disagree that we should be able to for some reasons like race, sex, culture, religion, etc. This is why it was important to write these into law in order to protect the rights of everyone.

Hard to believe this is even a debate in 2015.

[_Chap]

I favor the right of private business owners to refuse service to anyone for whatever reason they want. However, I recognize my view is currently in the minority. I hold people who favor banning businesses from discriminating against blacks, but want to allow discrimination against gays, in low regard.

I'm with you, EA. As ugly as bigotry is, I don't believe gov't on any level should have the power to penalize anyone and or business for their thick-headed prejudices. The way to defeat the small-mindedness is by not patronizing the offending establishments. Organized boycotting would either close the business or effect the desired change.

Organised boycotting can only work when there is a substantial slice of people affected by the discrimination in the locality.

Suppose I am a black woman and her black kids in a car. I arrive late at night in a small town trying to find a meal and a motel. It's fifty more miles to the next town.
No-one will give me a room. No-one will serve me a meal. There are no black people for miles and miles, so who cares? That's their right. And they have no downside to worry about.

You're happy with a fellow-citizen and her kids being in that situation?

[_hobo1512]

I favor the right of private business owners to refuse service to anyone for whatever reason they want. However, I recognize my view is currently in the minority. I hold people who favor banning businesses from discriminating against blacks, but want to allow discrimination against gays, in low regard.

It is a very slippery slope when you start to allow one type of discrimination over another. Where do you draw the line?

Color of skin? sexuality? political party? part your hair on the left? wearing socks with sandals?

If we sanction any type of discrimination at all, it opens the door to all discrimination.

Now, with that said, I/we personally would never want to "force" anyone into serving us. IF they don't want to serve us, that's fine, we would simply take our money elsewhere.

Of coursse, that also means bad reviews on yelp, and any other place I could. Word of mouth is a very powerful thing.