Balance of Interests

I keep reading about the Masterpiece Cakes and “the need to balance rights.”

I don’t think this balancing is possible.

Somebody is going to have to be unhappy.

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The scotus opinion still kinda confuses me…I dont see how the state can go back and apply the law equally while not infringing on their rights…

Unless it really is this " he has to sell cakes but he doesnt have to write things that offend him…"

Which eh…kinda lame

You have touched on the root of the problem with public accommodation laws.

Someone being unhappy doesn’t mean the rights aren’t balanced.

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I don’t think it’s possible either. But there’s no need to make everyone happy. The CRA and ADA are pretty much unconstitutional but they are also right in my opinion. I’m not yet concerned with a slippery slope regarding public accommodation.

You’re not? It already happened.

So how does it get decided who is going to be happy? Who has to give?

As long as humans administer justice, and not machines, that question doesn’t have to satisfactorily be answered. Some people with power decide like always. Elections are a check on their tyranny.

Obscenity laws are a type of unconstitutional public accommodation where individual artists are forced to bend to the will of the collective regarding their free-speech or free exercise of their business as well. It can’t be helped. The individual does have to give in sometimes.

I think the exact opposite is true.

Where is the “justice” in forcing someone to violate their religion?

If the individual has to give in some times, when is the other guy’s turn besides the property owner?

Because anyone can make up their own religion and use it to justify things society as a whole deems not appropriate.

It can be there if it protects the rights of others. It’s up for debate if others have a right to a discrimination-free service environment and it’s always going to be up for debate because the circumstances that bring these new rights about are usually very ugly.

This is just Christians and cakes so it’s a relatively vanilla case. Faith and religion have a lot of leeway to do as they please but there are limits to what is permissible within them.

That’s possible.

Having said that, where is the harm that requires an over-rides the 1st Amendment and property rights?

Protects the rights of others? What right was violated?

Do you think society as a whole deems forcing a man to violate his religious beliefs is appropriate?

It depends on what the belief is and how it effects the rests of society.

It’s usually the other guy’s turn. Kids get thrown out of malls just for being kids in a group. That’s pretty discriminatory but it’s permitted. Property owners aren’t completely under seige yet, they still have a lot of leeway to discriminate in certain ways.

Who decides?

How does him refusing to bake them a cake affect the rest of society at all?

None in the case we’re talking about, but if the baker had refused to serve them just because they were gay then it would be a civil right that was violated.

That’s not true at all.